All the Dirty Parts by Daniel Handler

All the Dirty Parts

by Daniel Handler

Cole is a boy in high school. He runs cross country, he sketches, he jokes around with friends. But none of this quite matters next to the allure of sex. "Let me put it this way," he says. "Draw a number line, with zero is you never think about sex and ten is, it's all you think about, and while you are drawing the line, I am thinking about sex." Cole fantasizes about whomever he's looking at. He consumes and shares pornography. And he sleeps with a lot of girls, which is beginning to earn him a not-quite-savory reputation around school. This leaves him adrift with only his best friend for company, and then something startling starts to happen between them that might be what he's been after all this time-and then he meets Grisaille.

Reviewed by Leah on

2 of 5 stars

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I'm not really sure what to say about All The Dirty Parts. Yes, it was brutally honest about what a boy goes through when it comes to sex, etc, but it just seemed like one long ramble of consciousness where I didn't understand where one story started and another ended.

Can we also talk about the fact that none of the speech quoted in the novel had quote marks which is just incredibly annoying. Instead each line of speech had a hyphen.

I don't know what this wanted to be. It was a quick read, sure, but I didn't really enjoy it. I kinda just kept going to see where it ended.

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 30 August, 2017: Finished reading
  • 30 August, 2017: Reviewed