Review: Money

Author: Martin Amis

Title: Money

Source: It's on the EW list of most influential books.

Description: Ad exec John Self has landed a huge movie deal, making a huge movie with some odd people from the movie industry. Meanwhile, his love life is floundering, as he can’t quite give his girlfriend what she needs from him. He’s also nearly always drunk.

Plot: I pretty much described the plot above; Self is trying to get this movie made and keep his personal life together.

Characters: Well, the author himself is a key character here (known in the book as “Martin Amis”). No one in this book seems human to me, but I’m not sure if that is because the author and I run in different circles or because he did this on purpose to suggest something about money.

Writing style: Amis uses odd names, jumps in continuity, and a sort of air of remove. The effect is (or at least to me) complete indifference to anything in the book.

Audience: ? you tell me

Wrap-up: I pretty much hated this book; I kept reading because Amis could do some pretty impressive tricks with his language and every once in a while he’d blow me away, especially when he started riffing on money, the real subject of the book (yeah, I know, the title sort of gives it away). 1/5*