13 Comments
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ARX-Han's avatar

Nice review - I was wondering what happened to this novel after all the marketing that surrounded it. I heard he got a movie deal so I suppose it worked out for him.

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Kevin M. Kearney's avatar

Thanks! Yeah, if your aim is to get a movie deal then getting a movie deal is definitely a win

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Ben Mercer's avatar

I got sent this book and was intrigued by the premise but had a lot going on and didn't get too far. how you describe it reminds me of Spring Breakers! have you seen that?

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Kevin M. Kearney's avatar

I haven’t seen Spring Breakers since it came out, but Kazemi definitely loves Korine

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Ben Mercer's avatar

fascinating he does - SB always stuck with me as something where being deliberately bad doesn't make it worth watching

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Cluis's avatar

I thought this was going to be a breakdown Phil Collins epic song, alas not to be.

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Kevin M. Kearney's avatar

Hmm, maybe for the next one…

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Brendan Dentino's avatar

Review more books pls

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Bucky Sinister's avatar

Tangent question to this post: would you recommend Tao Lin's Taipei, which you mentioned with Ellis? I loved Less Than Zero. Are they related artistically?

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Kevin M. Kearney's avatar

They’re pretty different books but Taipei is definitely a worthwhile read. (Even though I like Trip more.)

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Red Barchetta's avatar

The dialogue excerpts read like an under-baked 90s sitcom script.

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Chris Jesu Lee's avatar

When this novel was first published a couple of years that, I read some stories about how it was originally supposed to come out like a decade before but Kazemi just never finished it in time. Is this an instance where this book would've been a lot better had it come out earlier?

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Kevin M. Kearney's avatar

Yeah, it was originally picked up by MTV Books (remember them?) in the mid-2010s after an excerpt went viral on Tumblr. No idea why it took so long or why it ended up on Permuted--if I recall correctly, Kazemi said he was doing extensive research for all the pop culture references and that the book went through lots of revisions. I guess that took a decade.

As for your question, do you mean would the book have been more relevant 10 years ago? I don't think so. If anything, the purported themes have become more relevant.

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