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R. L. Stine – I Am Your Evil Twin | Review

Title: I Am Your Evil Twin

Author: R. L. Stine

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 124

Rating: 7/10

R. L. Stine – I Am Your Evil Twin

This is another one of R. L. Stine’s Goosebumps books – you may have noticed lately that I’ve been reviewing quite a few of them, because I have a whole bunch of them on my TBR pile after my ex-housemate left a bunch of books behind when they moved out.

I actually think I might have read this one before. It was a pretty good story about a kid who finds out that he has an evil twin, and there’s a big twist at the end too. It’s not exactly the best book ever, but good enough for Goosebumps.

R. L. Stine

Click here to buy I Am Your Evil Twin.

Irvine Welsh – Ecstasy | Review

Title: Ecstasy

Author: Irvine Welsh

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 290

Rating: 8/10

Irvine Welsh – Ecstasy

What we have here is a collection of three novella-length stories by Irvine Welsh, the master of drug-induced debauchery and the Scottish icon who wrote Trainspotting, amongst other things. I’m actually a huge fan of Welsh’s, and this is the eighth Irvine Welsh book that I’ve finished, with two more on my ‘to be read‘ pile, and I can safely say that this is Welsh at his best.

The three stories, dubbed “tales of chemical romance”, are classified further as Lorraine Goes to Livingston (A Rave and Regency Romance), Fortune’s Always Hiding (A Corporate Drug Romance) and The Undefeated (An Acid House Romance), and boy are they crackers.

The Undefeated is featured on the book’s blurb, a story about a man and a woman who fall in love in the backstreets of Edinburgh, but I thought it was the weakest of the three. Lorraine Goes to Livingston includes a writer who has a stroke, her perverted partner, an erotic novel and a man who has sex with corpses.

Irvine Welsh

Fortune’s Always Hiding, which was my favourite of the three, followed the exploits of a young man who falls in love with a woman who has no arms, a victim of the drug ‘Tenazedrine‘, which is based upon the real-life drug Thalidomide. I won’t reveal the ending, because it was epic – suffice to say you need to read it.

That is, you need to read it if you like to read about the darker sides of human existence – if you’re used to romance novels, it might be best to steer clear. It’s all about MDMA and anal sex, not rainbows and unicorns – it’s Irvine Welsh.