Speed

Shiver me timbers!I got the shudders after reading this book! Before picking this novel up I was mildly familiar with William S. Burroughs, Jr. but I really only wanted to read it because it was on Buzzfeed's 20 Junkiest Books about Drugs list. And boy oh boy was it junky!

Obviously this book is not for the faint of heart. It is nothing but drugs, drugs, drugs. It is told in the stream of consciousness style that beatnik authors and poets were so fond of and explores a summer spent in New York, bumming around and shooting up whatever could be found cheap. Nothing really matters, not friends, family, food, living quarters, just the drugs. That's what's needed to keep going for days at a time with no sleep or real thoughts. I've read other books on drug use, but this one in particular made me want to take a shower and steer as far away from drugs as humanly possible (not that I ever have any urge to do them, but this is a real reminder and ridiculous badness of them).

For fans of beatnik writing or drug memoirs.