Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Hunter S. Thompson 4/5	First Sentence "We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold."
Publisher's Description: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is the best chronicle of drug-soaked, addle-brained, rollicking good times ever committed to the printed page.  It is also the tale of a long weekend road trip that has gone down in the annals of American pop culture as one of the strangest journeys ever undertaken.
Dear Reader, I almost didn't want to admit I had just read this book - partly because it's taken me so long to get around to it, but more because I don't even know how to write a review of this book!  It's so very difficult.  But...I'll give it a go: I really enjoyed the book.  Almost couldn't put it down, and I did fly through it.  The reading of this story went much more easily than I thought it would.  The movie was a very, very close depiction, if that helps at all.  There are actually quotes in the book that I remembered from the movie, even having seen it so long ago!  "Duke" and "Dr. Gonzo" tripped their way from adventure to adventure, going nuts on mescaline and handles of rum and all sorts of other lethal-sounding drug combinations.  The action was pretty much non-stop, and Thompson's characters really jumped right off the page, they were so vivid. His caricatures of everyone from hotel staff to policemen to the odd stranger here and there really did a great job of showing off America in the early 1970s. Ralph Steadman's illustrations of the craziness of the story were spot-on appropriate, and really brought things to life as you read.  (My boyfriend thinks more books should be illustrated.) I'm not sure I agree that Duke truly did find the American Dream, or if it was more that he found that there isn't really one...or, that it actually is just being out of your mind on drugs for days on end, and getting away with pretty much anything and everything.  Is that what America was, or is?  Very interesting thought.... Well, that's all I can get out for now.  I feel like right now I should either go get really trashed, or move into a convent and live a life away from the insanity that is Thompson's depicted drug culture.  Those two extremes felt like the only real options after finishing such a nutty ride  of a book. Yours, Arianna