Review from a Transgressive Fiction Fan
I loved this soooo much more than I expected to! It was great to see the old boys again, and the new characters were just as entertaining. The voices were sharp and moved in and out of each other very well – I remember finding the differentiation difficult to see in Trainspotting but here it was good. Everything about this just seemed exciting and fresh, especially the writing.
Kind of wish there was more of Renton, because for me this was very much Sick Boys story. Yet then again, this wasn’t Trainspotting, and it wasn’t trying to be Trainspotting, and I appreciate that this novel had to take a new direction, and I really bloody loved this book anyway.
“Insightful” Review from a Mainstream Reader
You have to wonder why Welsh decided to:
1. Write a book revolving around a set of characters who, with a couple of exceptions, are wholly unsympathetic to the point of caricature.
2. Make Nikki the most important character with the possible exception of Sick Boy, when we all know he can’t write women.