Less Than Zero

"Teenage angst has paid off well, now I'm bored and old..."

Lucky book #13 was Bret Easton Ellis' Less Than Zero, a Holden Caulfield-inspired coming of age tale set in the drug-infested 80's L.A. scene.

The book was pretty good though I'd recommend reading Hubert Selby's Requiem For A Dream or Jim Carroll's Basketball Diaries first. Both are similar in theme but slightly stronger in execution. What I'll remember most about Less Than Zero though is not the actual book, but rather my experience reading it on my way back from Vegas.

Picture sitting in a plane on the tarmac at Vegas' McCarran International. The stewardesses have just sat down in preparation for take off when the seemingly normal guy quietly reading next to you suddenly gets a massive nose bleed. Yeah, that bloody nose guy would be me. I have no idea how it happened. I don't think I've had a nose bleed since I was like 5, but for some reason my stupid nose decided that leaking like a sieve might be fun. Anyways, the lady next to me starts freaking out, everyone turns around to stare, the stewardess rush over with piles of small ineffective napkins and meanwhile I'm just wishing I could disappear into my seat. Good times. Thanks a lot nose, I owe you one.

While I'm tempted to blame the whole Vegas Nose Bleed Catastrophe on the dry Nevada air (hey I'm from Seattle where we practically breath H20), part of me wonders if it was some kind of subconcious sympathy nose bleed caused by reading all of the cocaine sniffing scenes in the book. Even sitting here writing this now the thought of sniffing anything is making my nose kinda itchy.

So net, net it sounds like my advice here is avoid this book, it'll give you nose bleeds and that ain't cool. If you choose not to heed my advice Wikipedia has a little more about the book here. Proceed at your own risk.