Friday, March 16, 2012

LEAVING LAS VEGAS by John O'Brien

Finished Th 3/15/12

I spent a couple of weeks on this novel in between reading the two books for my book clubs, THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO and THE PARIS WIFE. Had I devoted my full attention to LEAVING LAS VEGAS, I could have finished in a couple of evenings.

My comments to Good Reads:

LEAVING LAS VEGAS is really an examination of two desperately lonely people who just happen to be an addict and a hooker. I thought that the character of Sera, the prostitute, was one of the fully most realized presentations of a call girl that I have ever read. You really get a sense of what it means to be 'in the life'. Ben's character was harder to understand because I can't remember reading a book about a person who drank quite this much. Yet, he was completely believable even though his addiction goes way beyond nihilism. The book was enthralling from start to finish, and of course, you can't help but mention the Oscar nominated film starring Nicolas Cage and Elizabeth Shue which was a wonderful adaptation of O'Brien's novel.

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