Rating: 
Summary: compelling
Review: Candy is an excellent and compelling story well told. The honesty is brutal and beautiful. Being a heroin user, I found it interesting to hear another's story. Although my story is very different, it was very clear to me that the author knew what he was talking about. One of the books assets is it's tragi-comic nature, something I've found very true in junkie life, and rarely mentioned when discussing heroin. I suppose my only concern is a personal one, in that my father read the book and presumed my life was the same, which it is not. (I've been a relatively good middle class junkie, no crime etc.) The book has been well edited. It is tight and lean. There is not a wasted word, which makes for good reading. Clearly Luke Davies walks it like he talks it. A brave book.
Rating: 
Summary: Candy Loving an Addiction
Review: Candy, by Luke Davies, is a novel that deals with realistic struggles many people in our society deal with every day. Candy is an excellent book that would convert your ways of thinking how all junkies lived their lives. Luke Davies gave plenty of realistic examples and descriptions to define how the characters lived their wild way of lifestyle.
Candy was the prettiest girl in all of Sydney,Australia and had the bluest eyes ever. Her presence was a sculpture that was made appealing to men, girls and money. These were the narrator's two most loved things in life, Candy and "smack." With them both of them he was completed, but if something went wrong with either, life seemed problematically.
As the narrator and his young, now, strung out, girlfriend live their life, it becomes an emotional odyssey for the both of them.
In the beginning of their relationship, everything was beautiful. He had introduced Candy to "smack," or heroin, and made a tremendous change in her life. "Smack" was there most-wanted, fulfilled, habit, and without it they were sick. When the weaknesses for heroin grew stronger, it became a tug-of-war, with Candy (being the tug to things)- him (being the creator of the problem)- and the drug (being the war to fight against).
Luke Davis, does a great job revealing realistic points to he's reader of how individuals thoughts, ideas and actions can turn out to be either a success or a complete failure. He shows that life is not to be tantalized or played with. What you make out of life, life will make out of you. He shows that we all have a purpose, more than what we see in front of us or think is good, to be something and to make something out of life.
I would recommend this book to all young and old, because it wasn't just a book about love and addiction but our life long choices, we make, and how they play important roles in our lives.
Candy was a book that kept me reading for more and more exciting information. It is an example of people's reality vs. the truth.
Rating:
Summary: entertaining tale of heroin addiction in australia
Review: don't see how i can make it through this review without saying Candy is 'harrowing'... god it's hard to avoid cliche. if you liked trainspotting you will like this. maybe that comparison is gratuitous but come on, they're both hip portrayals of young un's shooting up and hallucinating and having freaky sex and gradually descending into the Harrowing Depths of Addiction. unlike trainspotting, the english is very straightforward. no scottish tongue twisters to contend with here. a fast and entertaining read... the plot in a nutshell: narrator & his beautiful girlfriend (candy) fall madly in love, start out having a blast, shooting up all the time, gradually lose all their friends & money as she becomes an prostitute & he runs scams. tragic love story innit. Candy says essentially the same thing that all books about heroin addiction say: you can have wild excellent times and it's better than sex but it becomes your wife your life and eventually you have to quit or die trying. bonus points to davies for teaching us about the intricacies of freebasing & concocting.
Rating: 
Summary: Not worth the paper it's printed on.
Review: Ever since Trainspotting appeared on the big screen, the heroin subculture has put down roots in both literature and film. Luke Davies concentrates as much on preferred syringes as on the adventure of getting heroin. The Candy of the title is both the woman that the narrator falls in love with and the stuff that he takes. Starting out in Sydney, the couple moves to Melbourne to go straight but of course they relapse. They engage in a tedious round of finding money and smack, in which all other attachments become pointless. Quite honestly, I thought it was a pretty awful book. I just couldn't get around all the poor language.
Rating:
Summary: Maybe The Best Of This Genre
Review: Here's a another novel in the recent popular sub-genre of heroin addiction, which includes The Baskeball Diaries, Smack, Trainspotting. What makes this book stand out is the evocative use of language. This is a very beautifully written novel about a love affair: both with heroin and BETWEEN heroin junkies -- the two loves are blended in a sort of dreamy, romantic way. And the drug-life gives it all a desperate, doomed edge: two romantics on the edge of the world. The reality would be a whole lot more squalid and depressing, I'm sure, but this is art, which calls on fantasy and a suspension of disbelief: art is a dream of life, not life. The lyrical prose makes it all bearable -- and somehow beautiful. Despite the subject matter of addiction, which is getting a bit cliche in recent years, I really recommend this novel -- I find it unique. Read this book -- and while you're at it, check out SMACK by Burgess (a little more "young adult" [not quite as well-written]) and my favorite recent Amazon purchase --> THE LOSERS' CLUB by Richard Perez.
Rating:
Summary: An Education
Review: I am a narcotics prosecutor in the US who deals with this problem on a daily basis. I have friends who have ruined their lives and others who seem to funtion to a point. This book is the real deal and should be read by anyone concerned with or just wants to educate themselves. If someone you care about has this problem, the book will not help you help them. It will give you an idea of what you are up against. There is always hope and education is a powerful tool. I purchased copies of this book and distributed it to my entire narcotics unit with the hope that compassion will coincide with enforcement.
Rating:
Summary: Best fiction book on drugs I have read
Review: I couldn't put this book down. I have never read a book on heroin that was so realistic. It was like you were there with them living their lives. He wrote it like a piece of art. This book deserves no less than 5 stars; Luke Davies inspires one to write.
Rating:
Summary: ABSOLUTELY AMAZING
Review: I got this book because i liked the feel of the cover (very smooth). It is very facinating in the way he tells it. I really don't know much about heroin except from what I have seen in movies and on tv so this book let me into the world a bit without being dangerous. He explained things that non-users might not know about so you don't get confused. He talks about his girlfriend becoming addicted (he starts off as such), and it goes through all the hard times they have because of it. I found it very compelling and I just wanted to see what happend next, although it does have some more descriptive scences then I would have liked (I hate needles).
Rating:
Summary: Who Am I? I Am Nothing But Need...
Review: I picked up this book to read before going to sleep one night, and wound up not stopping until I finished at 3AM. Luke Davies has written a completely absorbing tale of a spiraling journey into the night of addiction.
I am a horror aficionado, enjoyer of the ripening decay of flesh, bone, and blood; but in Candy there is a different Monster, a stealthy beast formed from powdery particles that feeds upon the very soul of man, tearing apart mind and spirit long before its teeth sink into the flesh.
So poignantly told in first person perspective, I was so deeply moved by this sad, bittersweet tale of innocent love that I was desperate to see the sun come up in the morning, though for a moment I doubted it would.
Rarely am I as deeply moved by a story as I was by Candy, and rarer still is an author who can breathe such animated life into his character. How can I possibly care about this guy, a junkie who steals and scams allows his wife to work as a prostitute while he nods in front of the TV all night? How can I care about Candy, who goes from aspiring actress to thousand dollar a day escort to street-hooking in the projects?
But I wound out caring a LOT, staying by them just as they stayed by each other, through all the highs and the bitter lows. Their love for each other is immense, innocent, and touching; making you believe just as they did that love can conquer all.
The book follows approximately ten years of their lives, from high-end apartments, to projects, to a run down farm in the country; through crimes and arrests and prostitution; through love and marriage and the loss of a baby; through the languid highs and the horrors of trying to kick the habit; Davies makes you actually feel their love, and their pain. I am not a crier, but I almost did after Candy, the ache I felt inside was so huge and hopeless that it left me weak with sadness.
With all the emotion spilling out from the pages, remember to prepare yourself for some rough scenes; like graphic descriptions of vein hunting and needle usage, along with a disgusting crab lice incident that almost made me hurl.
Plain and simple, this is a `Wow' book; an all-nighter so well written you will feel that you just stayed up with your old friend, listening to him pour out his heart to you. Very highly recommended.
Enjoy!!
Rating:
Summary: Bittersweet Candy
Review: I would like to start off this providing a warning to any drug addicts, especially heroin addicts, who are trying to stay clean: this book is a serious possible trigger. I speak from experience. HOWEVER, that being said, Candy is such a great book that I just kept reading it, even after I realized what I difficult thing it would be for me to read. It is a touching love story really, a tangle between three entities: the main character, his girlfriend (Candy), and heroin (probably the REAL main character). The story is painfully realistic, following the co-dependent, totally strung out, couple through boughts of excrutiating dope sickness, running endless scams to obtain money, several sad attempts at getting clean, and Candy's unwanted career as a prostitute. And through Davies' skilled writing, your bones will ache with every leg cramp the sick pair gets, your body shake with their waves of nausea; and you will feel their relief when they eventually inject the necessary cure into their tired veins, heroin. And in the end, you will find yourself wishing that their relationship will somehow mend itself, even in the face of so much evidence that their lives depend on being apart. Then, if you are like me, you will pray for a sequel--and count your blessings.
|
