The first book I ever read that I actually enjoyed was Stephen Chbosky's Perks of Being a Wallflower. The problem with this book however was that it basically became the ONLY book i enjoyed reading. It wasn't until my freshmen year in college when I started to sincerely start reading, I worked at a really shitty store in the mall that was across the hall from the borders books. Being an employee almost as shitty as the store I worked at, I started locking up the store for 10 minutes to walk across the hall and purchase books to keep me entertained.
My friend Shrop was constantly mentioning this book in casual conversation about a year previous. I picked up Klosterman's 3rd novel Killing Yourself to Live and absolutely loved it. I eventually ordered a copy of Sex Drugs & Cocoa Puffs. About a week later while at work my cell phone rang informing me my book had arrived. I immediately closed up shop and walked across the hall to pick it up.
Now for those of you who don't know; Chuck Klosterman is a pop culture essayist who has written 3 books of pop culture essays (SD&CP, Chuck Klosterman IV and Eating the Dinosaur), 2 semi-autobiographic books about a specify focus of Pop Culture (Fargo Rock City about Metal; Killing Yourself to Live about how death affects celebrity) and a Novel (Downtown Owl). Sex Drugs & Cocoa Puffs is probably his most well loved and well known book. I agree with this opinion.
While I sat at this shitty job reading (we made on average; 10-15 sales a day... if we were lucky; so I had plenty of time to read), it only took page 2 to decide that this may be the best book i ever purchased. Little did I know that it would join the ranks of Bret Easton Ellis' Rules of Attraction and Nick Hornby's High Fidelty as a book I've reread more than 5 times.
What's Klosterman's best skill is that he is able to write his opinions in a way that even if you 100% disagree with his assessment (for me it's chapter 12: Sulking with Lisa Loeb on Planet Hoth where he trashes the Star Wars trilogy), you basically find yourself agreeing with points that being said by any other person you'd be infuriated and screaming.
It's difficult to review a book like this because I don't want to spoil anything. So I'll just say this: If you are interested in knowing why Coldplay and John Cusack ruined love, why Billy Joel is cool because he's completely uncool (but not like Elvis Costello), or how the Dixie Chicks are the new Van Halen, then check out Chuck Klosterman's Sex Drugs & Cocoa Puffs (and then get everything else the man has ever written).
