The "Basic Eight" are a group of teenage friends. Flannery Culp is our neurotic narrator. The novel is about love and murder and friendship in high school. This review of THE BASIC EIGHT features my very own Basic Eight (minus two or three) from Los Alamitos, Orange County. Photos circa 1988.KEY WORDS:REALISTIC ☻ PRIVILEGE ☻ SARCASM ☻ SAN FRANCISCOUNREALISTIC ☻ PRETENSION ☻ FRIENDSHIP ☻ GREG☻Jeff: On a technical level the novel is somewhat impressive, given that it is a first novel from a novice author. I enjoyed the dark, intelligent humor because I gravitate towards darkness and intelligence when it comes to my entertainment. I particularly enjoyed the character of Natasha. She’s the sort of chick I also gravitate towards. Overall the novel felt somewhat realistic to me because I engaged in many ‘Basic Eight’ activities during high school such as talks about The Arts while listening to classical music over a sophisticated dinner. Unfortunately, I was a +1 to that group of adjunct friends; my own Basic Eight mainly indulged in binge drinking on our parents’ various boats. Sigh.I grew up to be a Website Developer. I make more money than you can even imagine.☻Kathy: OH MY GOD THIS BOOK MADE ME LAUGH!!! SO FUNNY! IT WAS FUNNY BUT WITH A SAD AND SORTA DESPERATE CORE TO IT, JUST LIKE ME! HAHAHAHAHA! I’M NOT SURE I UNDERSTOOD EVERYTHING BUT I LIKED WHAT I UNDERSTOOD! HA! OK I’M JUST KIDDING, I UNDERSTOOD EVERYTHING BUT SOMETIMES I PRETEND NOT TO UNDERSTAND THINGS BECAUSE, WELL, I DON’T KNOW WHY! JUST BECAUSE! ANYWAY, GOOD BOOK!I GREW UP TO BE A SCHOOLTEACHER! AND A MOTHER! TO A WHOLE LOTTA RUGRATS! PLUS I FELL OFF OF A WATERFALL AND SURVIVED!☻Mike: Wow, reading this book was like reading my life story, well, not my whole life story and not the whole book either. Just the part about the gay kid, that really spoke to me, I understood where he was coming from and I admired his courage in coming to terms with it so young. But honestly, a lot of the book annoyed me, it wasn’t “laugh-out loud” funny, it was more of the sarcastic sort of humor that Marcy & Mark like so much and I think that kind of humor gets boring after a while, just the same sarcastic tone of voice over and over again, constant sarcasm which is really just being mean disguised as being funny. So I loved the gay character and I loved some of the girls, they were fierce... but I can’t say I loved the book too much.So after graduating I went on various Christian missions around the world until I came to terms with being gay. Getting it on with another closeted Christian missionary can be an eye-opening experience. Now I’m married, to a man. Life is good!☻Kelly: I have to admit that I didn’t understand many of the references in this book. Also the author mixed up Oprah and Dr. Phil and that didn't make sense. And one other thing really confused and bothered me: this is set in San Francisco? And a schoolteacher – in San Francisco – had his house burned down because he was gay? Okaaaaay. Well that would never happen. I love fantasy but I don’t love things that are set in the actual real world that don’t bother to get their facts straight. Facts are important.I grew up to be a Senior Accountant for Pacific Gas & Electric.☻Craig: The girls in this book sucked! So neurotic. Why complicate your life with so much bullshit? Sometimes I just wanted to slap them all, they were so fucking pretentious. FUCK THAT ATTITUDE. Why couldn’t they just get drunk and relax, have a regular high school experience, why be such snobs, what’s the fun in that? BORING. A boring book about boring, angsty teenagers who don’t realize that they live lives of complete privilege. And goddamnit, they should be enjoying that privilege! Kids like that should be having a good time and getting drunk on boats, not hosting boring dinner parties and whining to each other all the time about their boring lives. STUPID. Only a liberal with too much time on their hands would write something like this.I grew up to be a high school Vice Principal. ☻Marcy: I agree with Craig: these were some whiny, pretentious types who loved talking about themselves. Real twits - the sort of people that Jeff & Bill & Mark snuck off to hang out with because I guess they were just too cool for getting drunk on boats with the rest of us every weekend. What kind of teenager wants to talk about classical music, what kind of teenager prefers theatre to sports? The lame kind. But I will give it this: it has the sarcastic, nihilistic humor down pat. I loved that. I also enjoyed how it took sexual harassment seriously and I really, really enjoyed the comeuppance that one teacher experienced. I hope that scumbag stays in a coma for the rest of his life. I also didn’t mind that Adam State was beaten to death with a crochet mallet. Some guys deserve that. He was one of them.I moved to Alaska and became an Assistant District Attorney. Later, I had a change of heart and became an Assistant Public Advocate. From one side of the courtroom to the other. Funny how life turns out.☻Bill: Eh. The book was self-indulgent. It was entertaining, but by the end all of the characters annoyed me. Although I did laugh a lot. It didn’t make me think, but it did make me laugh. And laughing is good. Right? I dunno. Whatever.I grew up to be a Physical Therapist. And a Jazz Musician. ☻Mark: I quite liked this one. It was a breeze to read and I liked the mind games it played on the reader – although the tricks it played were predictable, they were amusing tricks all the same. The author perfectly conveys a certain kind of voice – sarcastic, highly intelligent, mordantly funny, angsty, insecure. Flannery Culp is a striking and surprisingly loveable creation. The book started off fun and the fun only increased as the narrative darkened. Overall: smart, lightweight entertainment. One caveat: absinthe = acid? Really? No. I've tried both many times when much younger. Very different effects. Come on, Handler.Anyway, I grew up to be a Goodreads Troll.I’m pretty annoyed with a lot of the Goodreads reviews of this book. Some people need to understand that KIDS LIKE THIS DO EXIST. For real, people, they truly do. Just because their lives are foreign to your own personal experience, it does not mean that those lives aren’t possible. Your teenage years are not everyone’s teenage years. I mean really, duh, get your heads out of your asses. My friend Greg’s review was particularly condescending in how it posited that Daniel Handler was probably an outcast in high school – and so the kids in this book live lives that the author wished he had been able to live. It is all basically Handler's fantasy of an enjoyable high school experience, one where the outsider has a clique of intellectual friends and is finally able to get back at those who supposedly spurned them... when in reality he was probably just a lonely, friendless little loser. UGH, GREG, UGH! I think that since Greg was apparently a jock in high school, it is hard for him to imagine that people who weren’t like him and his friends could ever have Basic Eight-type times in high school. That they could have even enjoyed high school at all – people who weren’t like him and his friends must have been completely miserable, right? Unfortunately that is a common jocko misperception – I remember coming across that attitude in high school. I sneered at the arrogant cluelessness of that attitude while drinking on boats with my own Basic Eight. I also sneeringly recounted the cluelessness of such attitudes over many a sophisticated dinner, in between discussing the theatre and other arts, while listening to classical music, all with my Adjunct Eight, where I was a +1. ☻Look at us all together: my Basic Eight, my Adjunct Eight, plus some models and some jocks and a duck. But no cheerleaders! Not allowed.
i think to say the story of the basic eight is the bling ring meets the beat generation (more specifically the murder of david kammerer) is as accurate a comparison i can give. i picked this book up solely because it was written by daniel handler, and i had no idea at all what it was about. reading the back of the book, it seemed more like a meg-cabot-teenage-high-school-experience than i would prefer, but i was also consciously aware it was daniel handler so i didn't expect to be disappointed...much.and i wasn't! well, not really. i slugged through the first half of the book painfully, and things only started to get interesting and i could decipher where the direction the story was heading for during the second half of the book. i don't understand, however, flannery's relationships with her friends and especially adam, especially since her narration in her diary is so unreliable (sometimes she's flirty with adam? sometimes adam wants to hit her?) but what do i know about american high school teenage relationships. the foreshadowing, though. oh my god. it kept me going on and on for more despite the morbidity - and in the form of tv liveshow psychoanalyses at that. i have to admit, though, that the ending was a bit disappointing. the [spoiler] part about natasha [/spoiler] caught me COMPLETELY BUT SURPRISE I DIDNT SEE IT COMING AT ALL BUT IT ALL MAKES SENSE (however there were some parts when i read back where natasha conversed with other members of the basic eight but then again flannery's narration is known to be super unreliable) BUT the entire ordeal about [spoiler] (is it really a spoiler though? ok kinda is) flannery killing adam [/spoiler] was not addressed enough (if at all) like what actually happened? was the night at the party when flannery's narration was completely turned upside down by absinthe to be taken seriously at all? in that case, did adam really do what he did? did he really say what he said? was he even there????? like i feel the entire party night was just flannery tripping around by herself and no one actually did or said the things she wrote in her diary. so then why did she kill adam? why is it one moment adam is fingering flannery and then the next he wants to hit her (again god the men in this book are pathetic)? what??? is going on???now i'm going to scout backwards for mentions of natasha.
What do You think about The Basic Eight (2006)?
Wow. What can I even say? This book what an absolute wild ride from start to finish. First of all, I was surprised by how funny it it. But I guess I should have expected such incredible writing from the man behind Lemony Snicket and the Series of Unfortunate Events. I was also pretty impressed that Handler was able to create such a convincing female protagonist. I was completely fascinated by Flannery as an unreliable narrator and I'm pretty proud of myself for guessing the twist ending. Handler's writing had so much detail and depth that I was completely swept away by this story and the characters. By the end of the book, I felt like I too was a member of the Basic Eight, caught up in the mysterious as much as any of the characters. This book had just the right amount suspense and drama, as it had typical YA romance and humor. I also loved the stylized version of a journal Handler uses to convey the story. The discussion questions for each chapter had me actually laughing out loud. Overall, I really enjoyed The Basic Eight and will definitely be reading more of the YA works of Daniel Handler.
—Jackie Mancini
OH MY GODSo many people have compared this to Donna Tartt's THE SECRET HISTORY, and definitely there are lots of similarities. In THE BASIC EIGHT, an exclusive group of friends who are super rich and pretty pretentiously into high culture enter their senior year of high school. There are crushes, drinking, drugs and teachers involved, and yes finally a murder (not a spoiler). I love the whole unreliable-narrator-editing-her-own-diary-after-the-crime format and mode. It's been done a lot, but not in this fresh and funny way, which probably can only be done by a teenager. What I love about this more than THE SECRET HISTORY is that the characters in THE BASIC EIGHT feel so real, like they're really speaking from the pages to me. When I wasn't reading I was thinking about them like they were in this world, what they could be doing now and all that. I don't know people like them personally and sometimes they talk and behave in ways quite dramatic I can't really see people talking and behaving, but their personalities were so much more fleshed out than those students huddling over their Greek books in THE SECRET HISTORY. Handler's dialogue is not only so witty and funny, but so sharply real. At so many points in the story I truly felt like I was reading a girl's story, not written by a man. This is crazy strange to me because I love the author's A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS books, and his writing here is SO wickedly different! I mean, there are clear traces of his style and plotting ideas that go into ASOUE too, but gosh the voices are very different, kudos to Daniel Handler, that's some great talent!Anyway, the characters feel real to me mostly because they're the true kind of pretentious in the way that they're aware of their acts and mock themselves. They love how the high culture life of opera, classical music, lawn furniture and wearing suits to school looks, and they want it. While some of them have some of it, they know they're not perfectly prim people and don't try to be - they still listen to annoying indie-pop bands, they're not really that smart with Flan failing so many classes, even admitting she doesn't know every American poet and willing to learn. While THE SECRET HISTORY gang feel like the cold perfectly white marble Greek statues the book's cover reminds me of, THE BASIC EIGHT gang are colourful messed-up teenagers.Some things I didn't like so much were the blurry understanding of some characters like V___, JRM and Lily - they're pretty vague to me, like they could do anything anytime. And the drama leading up to the climax was a little far-fetched and confusing. But I guess that all makes the first-person diary POV genuine. I'm lucky that I didn't guess the big twist until, like, one page before the revelation. Lots of people did not enjoy it because they knew it early, but Flan did drop quite a few clues when I think about it, so maybe she didn't mind people guessing it way beforehand. Anyway I still didn't find it OMG-shocking, the ending was pretty abrupt. I closed the book with a sense of awe and loved it not really because of the twist, but because of how everything tied in together - the writing, style, characters, plot - in a really complete kind of way that shows the author's efforts and mastery.
—Xueting
This was fun to read, but not quite the most wonderful book you will read in your life, contrary to what many of the reviews on Amazon.com would like you to believe. If it is the most wonderful book you've ever read, might I suggest broadening your horizons?On the plus side:•tThe voice of the first-person narrator (and murderess), Flannery Culp, is irresistible - smart, irreverent, quirky (OK, maybe a little insane as well), and highly entertaining.•tHandler is a good writer, and knows how to structure the story to keep your interest - you definitely want to keep reading to see how things turn out. His account of the horrific, climactic final party was hilariously brilliant.•tThis book establishes Handler’s ability to write outside his “Lemony Snicket” persona. Here he ventures into the "Secret History"/"Calamity Physics" milieu, and generally acquits himself fairly well. (something I wouldn’t say about his later book “Adverbs”)On the negative side:•tHis satirization of popular culture is heavy-handed at times, or too self-consciously clever. References to “The Winnie Moprah" show, or to "Benjamin Granaugh's new movie, Henry IV" are just kind of silly.•tSome reviews have criticized the book on the grounds that its final plot twist isn’t quite coherent, and introduces certain inconsistencies which are never satisfactorily explained. I think this is a valid criticism, but it didn’t bother me near as much as some other difficulties with the plotWARNING: SPOILER POTENTIALMy real difficulty with the book is that the entire story is completely implausible at the most fundamental level. Specifically:Where were Flannery’s parents? Their daughter is sliding into total meltdown over a six-week period, and they don’t even make so much as an appearance. Now, theoretically, one can postulate parents so distant, so uninvolved in their daughter’s life, as to be completely unaware of her slide into homicidal madness. But I’m not buying it. Because – here’s the thing – all this is alleged to be happening during September and October of her high school senior year. All that any of these kids would be focusing on during this time would be their college applications. And, given the upper middle class San Francisco milieu, there is no way that their parents would not also be focusing obsessively on the same issue. So that, when Flannery fails her calculus test in early September, it’s just not credible that matters continue to degenerate without some parental intervention. But Handler never mentions the parents, not even to explain their continued absence.So, in the end, it’s a nice little fantasy story. But one which bears no relationship whatsoever to the real world. A fun read, but one which I will have forgotten in a month.
—David
