Genre/s:	Fiction/Psychological
Worthwhile?	Myeh
Overall Rating:	5/10
Borrowed, probably wouldn't buy
Goodreads

i think that the more online you are, the less this book is going to mean anything to you. i had a similar problem with the 1993 movie Naked (dir Mike Leigh); the driving force behind the narrative being a le epic redditor (or 4chan user, in Amygdalatropolis case) scumbag who thinks they are above everyone else but its actually a facade to cover how depressed they are is um..... well i dont like it LOL. i personally have zero sympathy for characters who abuse others because they themselves are suffering mentally. take those feelings out on just yourself, leave other ppl out of it (i am only being half serious). maybe part of the reason why i dont like it either is because when my mental health was at its worst, i did only take it out on myself, and for me the idea of pulling other people into that is like....... why would i do that? but that is just how my brain works

Amygdalatropolis also, imo, loses itself in the last 3rd. it becomes a mess of delusion and weirdly formatted text. honestly it loses any form it had to begin with, which i guess could be a reflection of the narrators mental state, but considering i didnt care really what was going on with him anyways, it just meant i checked out even further for the ending.

there is probably something that could be said though about internet communities that foster groups who only want to hurt others, and how they prey on people who already have some sort of mental problem, desire to fit in, etc. i do think it is an interesting topic, and one that should be discussed more outside of the internet, but the exicution of it in this book just..... i didnt care

honestly, tldr: it never made me care. presenting a character who only does shitty things, and then halfway through the book being like, 'oh but theyre going thru it, feel bad for them' does not magically make me sympathetic. is it an interesting character study? yeah sure, but at the same time it is not a new concpet or topic to me, so it doesnt unlock any further thought for me personally

(read july 2023, posted oct 2023)

Genre/s:	dennis cooper...
Worthwhile?	YMMV
Overall Rating:	6 or 6.5
Bought used
Goodreads

i really do not intend to read all parts of a series if one of their installments is present on the list, but i decided to in this case mostly out of a curiosity for Dennis Cooper's work. his books are anti-porn, is the point i have come to so far. The Sluts was a study in mob mentality and obsession turned depraved, Closer was..... harder to parse out.

i will fully admit that i feel like i did not get a complete understanding/experience out of this book. i actually started reading it in mid august, and only finished it late october. the large gap in time between starting and finishing the book did not pair well with how unexplained a lot of it is. i might revisit it at a later date, but heres what i got out of it for now:

Closer is about fantasies. its also about taking what you can get (in a not good way). homophobia does not exist in Closer, but fleeting obsessions based around sex and usefulness for the time being is rampant. everyone wants to fuck george, but no one really cares. some say they love him, but its just a projection of some sort of internal conflict. Closer is also about desires, something that goes hand in hand with fantasy but walks a thin line. george himself is listless, described as 'like a corpse' on multipule occations, kept interested by drugs and not much else. i truly wish i had a firmer grasp on this book. i am captured by Cooper's presentations of depression and depravity and horror, and i can feel its presence in Closer but cant find it properly.

im going to read Frisk next, hopefully it will not have nearly as much scat (lol)

(posted nov 5, 2023)