Name: The Basic Eight
Rating: 3.7 (683 reviews)
Author: Daniel Handler
ISBN: 9780060733865

[PDF] Download Û The Basic Eight : by Daniel Handler

Jan 23, 2021 - 02:07 AM By Daniel Handler

Flannery Culp wants you to know the whole story of her spectacularly awful senior year Tyrants, perverts, tragic crushes, gossip, cruel jokes, and the hallucinatory effects of absinthe Flannery and the seven other friends in the Basic Eight have suffered through it all But now, on tabloid television, they re calling Flannery a murderer, which is a total lie It s trueFlannery Culp wants you to know the whole story of her spectacularly awful senior year Tyrants, perverts, tragic crushes, gossip, cruel jokes, and the hallucinatory effects of absinthe Flannery and the seven other friends in the Basic Eight have suffered through it all But now, on tabloid television, they re calling Flannery a murderer, which is a total lie It s true that high school can be so stressful sometimes And it s true that sometimes a girl just has to kill someone But Flannery wants you to know that she s not a murderer at all she s a murderess.

Title: The Basic Eight
Author: Daniel Handler
ISBN: 9780060733865
Page: 151
Format: Paperback

Comments

mark monday Jan 23, 2021 - 02:07 AM

The Basic Eight are a group of teenage friends Flannery Culp is our neurotic narrator The novel is about love and murder and friendship in high school This review of THE BASIC EIGHT features my very own Basic Eight minus two or three from Los Alamitos, Orange County Photos circa 1988Y WORDS REALISTIC PRIVILEGE SARCASM SAN FRANCISCOUNREALISTIC PRETENSION FRIENDSHIP GREG Jeff On a technical level the novel is somewhat impressive, given that it is a first novel from a novice author I enjoyed the da [...]

Click to Replay

Greg Jan 23, 2021 - 02:07 AM

Karen may disagree with this theory, but I came up with it while reading The Basic Eight and I ll expound on it here I was going write a second part to this review, but it was going to be chock full of spoilers, and I kind of hate spoilers And some book reports This book is part of the Secret History tradition of contemporary literature But, as the cover of this book would seem to allude to for anyone who grew up in the late eighties, it also points towards the movie Heathers This book, Donna Ta [...]

Click to Replay

Clare Jan 23, 2021 - 02:07 AM

How do I love The Basic Eight Let me count the ways I love the delicious untrustworthiness of the narrator I love the cheerfully horrifying violence I love the snarky questions for the reader at the end of each chapter, textbook style, that don t just remake the points but cleverly further the plot I love the dizzying revelations at the end and I love the physical descriptions of the clothes, the disastrous party, the drunkenness I think I ll go read it again right now.

Click to Replay

Erin Jan 23, 2021 - 02:07 AM

Well, damn, this book is smart I m not talking about the ending I don t actually think all the mechanics work out perfectly so much as Flannery herself, in all her glorious unreliable narrator ness The book is her diary, which she s editing for publication from prison the treatment of time is beautifully messy and fun You ve got 1 traditional diary style storytelling, 2 annotations at the original time of writing i.e Flannery giving her friend her journal instead of telling her a story and then [...]

Click to Replay

Xueting Jan 23, 2021 - 02:07 AM

OH MY GODSo many people have compared this to Donna Tartt s THE SECRET HISTORY, and definitely there are lots of similarities In THE BASIC EIGHT, an exclusive group of friends who are super rich and pretty pretentiously into high culture enter their senior year of high school There are crushes, drinking, drugs and teachers involved, and yes finally a murder not a spoiler I love the whole unreliable narrator editing her own diary after the crime format and mode It s been done a lot, but not in th [...]

Click to Replay

Teresa Jan 23, 2021 - 02:07 AM

Before I read this, I thought it might be like the movie Heathers not that I ve seen it But because I enjoy Handler s and Lemony Snicket s humor and morbidness and wit and his narrators being pedantic language snobs, I read it It s his first novel for adults and despite this being about high school kids, it s definitely for adults and maybe the oldest of teens.I like the not subtle at all skewering of pop TV psychologists, and the narrator s merging of the past of her journal entries with the pr [...]

Click to Replay

Rebecca McNutt Jan 23, 2021 - 02:07 AM

This book had me thinking back to the film Heathers 1988 Comedic, darkly surreal and utterly unforgettable, The Basic Eight is as lovable as it is morbid.

Click to Replay

Laura Jan 23, 2021 - 02:07 AM

seriously what the actual fuck

Click to Replay

Lucía Jan 23, 2021 - 02:07 AM

Poorly written, thinly veiled satire of my high school A friend claimed that this was brilliant, so I slogged through it.

Click to Replay

Heather *Awkward Queen and Unicorn Twin* Jan 23, 2021 - 02:07 AM

A friend recommended this book to me, and while I usually trust and agree with her literary opinions, I hated this book so much It was so pretentious the narrator constantly corrected her sentences ending in a preposition for example Just write it the right correct way in the first place I think it tried to be funny, but it was hard to tell, and it wasn t funny anyway There were digs at the reader s intelligence and ejaculations of Dear reader that only works in like, classic novels The Satanic [...]

Click to Replay

Callie Jan 23, 2021 - 02:07 AM

So if I had read this in high school I can guarantee you it would have been my favorite book at the time It is an incredibly mean spirited high school drama with a sick twist, revolving around a clique of outcast precocious uppity self involved intellectuals, much like myself or the self I thought of myself as in high school I can see myself at 15, reading The Basic Eight outside a coffee shop, listening to the dead milkmen on my walk man and smoking clove cigarettes oh so very cool It s definit [...]

Click to Replay

Kat Jan 23, 2021 - 02:07 AM

SHIT

Click to Replay

Randee Jan 23, 2021 - 02:07 AM

This book, I see, is being compared to The Secret History by Donna Tartt and Special Topics in Calamity Physics I disagree strongly Both Ms Tartt, especially Ms Tartt, and Marisha Pessl are not only better writers, but they both are far superior in execution of a story.Not that The Basic Eight lacks merit I found it to be an interesting read My complaints are two fold I thought the execution was rather clumsy I think if this had been a bit streamlined, it would improve and elevate the story My [...]

Click to Replay

Anna Jan 23, 2021 - 02:07 AM

This book was a thoroughly enjoyable 4 star read to begin with Fun characters, dark humor, deliciously written sentences This kind of thing Natasha arrived, bearing cleavage and brie, and immediately fell into a squabble with Gabriel over how to bake it properly Kate and I sat basking in the pretentiousness of it all It s so self aware it s ALMOST annoying, except that it rings so completely true Apparently the author drew quite a bit from his own San Francisco high school experience, which make [...]

Click to Replay

Dennis Jan 23, 2021 - 02:07 AM

It s obvious that this is a first novel If you ve read any of the Lemony Snicket books, you ll see where they came from Despite its gimmicky plot, horribly precocious teenagers, and its overall grimness, I found myself entranced and enchanted about this book The Basic Eight are who I wished I was in high school hell, I wish I were like any of them now , and they re painted with an alternatingly endearing and maddening world weary hopelessness but with just enough innocence to be likable.

Click to Replay

Megan Jan 23, 2021 - 02:07 AM

It took me a little bit to get into this book, and after I got about half way I couldn t put it down It was intense, interesting, and dark This book will blow your mind While reading it, I couldn t figure out just how it was going to end, and then when the ending came I realized that I knew the ending all along Landta This book is doing things to my brain I can t think properly I think I shouldn t have read I am the Cheese right before this one.Rated PG 18, this book has it all Sex, drugs, murde [...]

Click to Replay

Savanah Jan 23, 2021 - 02:07 AM

when the unreliableness of the narrator is so blatantly clear but like it s still so twisty loved the characters loved the style love love lvoe it was a delicious meal of a book.

Click to Replay

David Jan 23, 2021 - 02:07 AM

This was fun to read, but not quite the most wonderful book you will read in your life, contrary to what many of the reviews on would like you to believe If itisthe most wonderful book you ve ever read, might I suggest broadening your horizons On the plus side The voice of the first person narrator and murderess , Flannery Culp, is irresistible smart, irreverent, quirky OK, maybe a little insane as well , and highly entertaining Handler is a good writer, and knows how to structure the story to k [...]

Click to Replay

Faye Jan 23, 2021 - 02:07 AM

I couldn t put this book down It s similar to The Secret History high school clique, someone they murdered, you read to find out how on earth and why it happened I ve been reading mystery cozy after cozy and never care who did it or why, but this story intrigued me And when Handler gets to that, he doesn t disappoint I enjoyed the format of Flan s diary, and I actually feel like I spent the weekend back in high school except I didn t murder anyone in high school Comments to skip if you haven t r [...]

Click to Replay

Lara Jan 23, 2021 - 02:07 AM

3.5I wanted to give this 4 stars, but I couldn t Don t get me wrong, I loved many many parts of it, Flannery s unreliable POV is one of the most hilarious I ve read and the pretentiousness of the gang was amazing to me, and most importantly I thought the whole style conceit of the book was incredibly engaging and creative But when it was winding down to the end, Handler lost me during the pages and pages of describing the garden party 99% of which was way too absurd for me to accept even after b [...]

Click to Replay

Kelly (and the Book Boar) Jan 23, 2021 - 02:07 AM

Welcome to Flannery Culp s lovely, black, leather bound journal On these pages she will capture all the memories of her senior year with her best friends The Basic Eight She ll share all the good, bad and ugly details including a little tale of murder Absolutely DELICIOUS I don t even know how this book made it to my to read list I m so thankful is here to help prod my senile mind along I was completely thrown into the way back machine with this one it was reminiscent of Heathers including a cro [...]

Click to Replay

Michellette Jan 23, 2021 - 02:07 AM

Reads like a witty Christopher Pike novel high schooly, murdery , but with Handler s beloved self conscious presence in the narrative and with generous helpings of black humour The story is related in a way that anyone who has woken up the morning after drinking far beyond their limit and begins frantically scanning their brain for possible horrors of the previous evening, which return to them in disconnected pictures, often with conversation or context erased can disturbingly relate to Really d [...]

Click to Replay

Sian Jan 23, 2021 - 02:07 AM

May we generally be happy, generally be witty, generally be honest, but above all always be interesting I ve seen The Basic Eight described as Heathers meets The Secret History which fits this novel perfectly it s messy, daring, genius The main character was terrible and that s part of why I loved it so much I had a few small issues with the narration sometimes, and I might lower my rating just, but overall this was so good trigger warnings for view spoiler sexual assault, body image, graphic de [...]

Click to Replay

Shannon Jan 23, 2021 - 02:07 AM

As soon as I finished this book I turned back to the beginning and read it again I loved it It has all the silliness of A Series of Unfortunate Events, but reworked for an older crowd Yeah, I knew what the twist was going to be long before it was revealed, but the reveal was still great.

Click to Replay

Brianna Jan 23, 2021 - 02:07 AM

I finished this book last night and I loved it The amazingness and whack of the whole book blew my mind and I don t know who s side I m on and the ending was SO SURPRISING I neverrrrrr saw that coming I encourage you to read it to find out what I m talking about

Click to Replay

Mariah Jan 23, 2021 - 02:07 AM

But for Flan, her strife has only just begun She kills the boy October thirty one.Ohoho, this was delicious y all A little bit Heathers, a little bit Secret History, a little bit Fight Club, but all Daniel Handler wit charm I officially think this particular subgenre of school slice of life murder an unreliable narrator is my favorite genre in all of contemporary literature and this particular reiteration checks aaaalllll the boxes It s devourable and instantly leaves you wanting to read again j [...]

Click to Replay

Blair Jan 23, 2021 - 02:07 AM

Yet another book I was drawn to because of comparisons with The Secret History, though in fact, it has a lot in common with Special Topics in Calamity Physics not least the fact that it has a somewhat annoying protagonist with a stupid name Flannery Culp is our narrator, and at the beginning we learn that a she s in prison and b her high school friendship group, the Basic Eight, has become notorious True to the usual form of this type of book, the story then flips back to the beginning and we f [...]

Click to Replay

Summer Jan 23, 2021 - 02:07 AM

In retrospect, I probably shouldn t have read this so soon after reading The Secret History After expressing my disappointment with it, I was told that The Basic Eight was similar but better Unfortunately, I simply could not force myself to like this I did not care for the proclaimed cleverness of the novel on the contrary, I thought it was anything but It wasn t funny and this is coming from someone who lives for sarcasm and dry humor and although the whole unreliable narrator bit did have prom [...]

Click to Replay

Jack Burnett Jan 23, 2021 - 02:07 AM

I really dug this book, late as I was getting to read it It s not The Secret History, don t listen to anybody who says it is I loved The Secret History, but that was denser, baroque and creepier than The Basic Eight Plus, I read Secret History when I was younger as did you, probably and impressionable If The Secret History is the Dead Poets Society of high school murder novels, all elevating, meaningful, emotional and shit, The Basic Eight is, I don t know, Brick, with energy and less noir.Th [...]

Click to Replay

Anna Jan 23, 2021 - 02:07 AM

I m glad there are a lot of people who can see similarities in this book with the 1989 movie Heathers, whether it would be the use of croquet in both mediums, the rich self titled cliques that are Heathers and the Basic Eight, the narrator that shares Veronica Sawyer s subtle wit, sharp observance, and intelligence, or the murders that take the lives of people of the high school I always thought I made outlandish comparisons, just so that when I talk about the book, I have some sort of ground th [...]

Click to Replay

The Basic Eight By Daniel Handler Flannery Culp wants you to know the whole story of her spectacularly awful senior year Tyrants, perverts, tragic crushes, gossip, cruel jokes, and the hallucinatory effects of absinthe Flannery and the seven other friends in the Basic Eight have suffered through it all But now, on tabloid television, they re calling Flannery a murderer, which is a total lie It s trueFlannery Culp wants you to know the whole story of her spectacularly awful senior year Tyrants, perverts, tragic crushes, gossip, cruel jokes, and the hallucinatory effects of absinthe Flannery and the seven other friends in the Basic Eight have suffered through it all But now, on tabloid television, they re calling Flannery a murderer, which is a total lie It s true that high school can be so stressful sometimes And it s true that sometimes a girl just has to kill someone But Flannery wants you to know that she s not a murderer at all she s a murderess.

Share this article...

[PDF] Download Û The Basic Eight : by Daniel Handler

Daniel Handler 151 Daniel Handler

Comments

Leave a Comment

Share this article...

New Post

Latest tweets