Review: Candy

Candy by Luke Davies

About: Candy depicts heroin addicts set in Australia. "Candy" is the slang name of the unnamed narrator's two great loves: his girlfriend and heroin. He introduces her to the drug, and they descend from being high on life, love, and drugs, to being shamed through prostitution, crime, addiction, and recovery. With no character background, the book reads as a string of scams to score money and heroin: some hilarious, some desperate, and some both at once. One scam starts when they answer a ringing public phone that the caller mistakenly believes is a suicide prevention line. Candy and the narrator are ruthless but human; their likableness and the immediacy of their dramas make them sympathetic even when pathetic. The writing is lean and strong but offers no resolution. Although that reflects junkies' reality, sometimes the pacing is jarring as the characters take action long after the audience is ready. Still, the good writing, realistic portrayal, and affable characters plunge readers into the junkies' world, safely returning them with veins intact.

Review: When a book starts out like this..."Everything's fucking beautiful!", you know it's got to be good. Candy is a book about a nameless author who takes us on his journey of meeting Candy, whom he's in love with, and heroine, who he's even more in love with. The book is actually fun, not the heroine part, but the way him and Candy are in love, go on adventures and basically just lay around all the time, waiting for their next hit. Davies is an amazing writer. From start to finish I was so involved in the story and the characters. Even the one's that quickly come in and out of their life from using, random connections, or friends. Davies does an amazing job really letting you understand the main character without even giving any descriptions of him, or even naming him in the book. It's interesting the way the book is laid out, he meets Candy, they go through their lives together, trying to get clean, going back on smack, the repetitiveness of their stupidity, yet you feel so much for these characters. The last chapter ends with Candy's first hit. It's breath painstakingly beautiful, every word Davies writes. Please read this one, it's absolutely phenomenal.