Rating: 
Summary: The Stoner's Bible
Review: The fact that Hunter S. Thompson can write at all, not to mention so well, is a miracle all by itself. From everything I've seen of the man, he's about 10% there, 90% wandering. That's not an insult; it seems that Thompson writes better as a total scatterbrain.
Fear and Loathing is a must read for any stoner, or anyone wanting to get inside the mind of a stoner. Thompson's vivid descriptions of terror and hallucination are fascinating, and despite some cluttered storytelling at times, the general plot holds up; that is, that Gonzo journalist Raoul Duke, along with his ill-tempered attourney Dr. Gonzo, have made way to Las Vegas in search of the American Dream.
Thompson's wonderful language usage and brilliant descriptives rank him among the best writers of this or any time, and Fear and Loathing is among his finest works.
If you're too much of a stoner to sit down and read the book, Terry Gilliam's film adaptation is a searing cult classic, fueled by Johnny Depp's sensational performance as the great Gonzo journalist himself.
Rating: 
Summary: Hilarious
Review: I finished reading this book this morning and should probably wait a few weeks to let it all sink in before penning my review, but I worry that if I wait my mind will be as addled as Thompson's must have been after replacing his blood completely with alcohol and drugs during his infamous road trip to Vegas in 1971, and I'll forget to write it.This book has some of the funniest passages I've ever read in a book. Thompson's depictions of the world seen through an ether cloth are absurd, sometimes frightening. I'm still thinking about his hallucination of his dead grandmother crawling up his leg with a knife between her teeth. Also of negotiating a deal to buy an ape from its handler at a casino, and of a terrifying polar bear exchange high above Circus Circus. Whoa. I don't know enough about this book (I was in diapers when it first came out) and will now read more about Thompson and the school of Gonzo journalism. I wonder about the accuracy of Thompson's power of recollection. How could he possibly remember and render his hallucinations so clearly? Surely, he must have taken some license. Otherwise his ramblings would not seem so coherent, so reflective, so funny. I would have given this book five stars, but it started to fall apart somewhere in the middle, probably about where the second of the original Rolling Stone articles begins. In the second half Thompson leaves out much of the action and gives us a combination of highlights and longer essays and transcriptions. Each piece probably worked completely as a magazine article, but as a book, not quite. Still, this is probably the funniest book I've ever read. I'm just not sure what it all means, or what I'm supposed to take away from it. Maybe I'll find out the next time I'm looking down the neck of a 40 of tequila.
Rating:
Summary: This is a CRAZY BOOK!!
Review: I loved this book! It was hilarious. I was laughing so hard at one point that I thought I was going to split in two. This is a wild psychedelic adventure of a journalist and his attorney and their trip to Las Vegas to cover a race. Drugs, tripped out high, crazy times. If you have any capacity for imagination, the book is about 10,000 times better than the movie.
Rating: 
Summary: Let me forget about today untill tomorrow!
Review: It's a good book yes, you get alot more out of it if you have some prior experiance with the various narcotics they take throughout i would think. I don't only weed but that helps you, say, 'get it' alot more. Don't read it, get the movie instead, it was a marvelous adaption and all almost the entire narration is taken from the book. Im not totally certain if this author is still completely sane, i saw him on conan o'brian and he seemed somewhat reminiscient of the current ozzy osbourn
Rating:
Summary: "Best book of the dope decade"
Review: Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas resembles a Hollywood thriller; with its twists and turns, ups and downs, and gripping storyline.
For instance, the story begins with Raoul Duke, the alias of Thompson, and his attorney cruising into Las Vegas with a trunk filled with ""two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half-full of cocaine and a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers.... and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case
of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls"(4). These drugs 'aid' the two men in their quest in Las Vegas.
Once in Las Vegas, Duke, on a magazine assignment, attempts to cover the Mint 400, which is a motorcycle race through the desert. Instead, the two men consume most of their drugs and do very little reporting. It becomes clear that Duke and his attorney simply desire to find the American Dream in Las Vegas, which has apparently been warped by the drug-centered culture of the 1970s.
The dream used to consist of leading a successful life and living comfortably with an early retirement. But with the twisted mindsets of many people, the American Dream had become a simple 'get-rich-quick' plan that engulfed the city of Las Vegas. In addition to Thompson's underlying message, he keeps the audience captivated with the array of interesting situations that Duke and his attorney get themselves into. The combination of these two elements caused Tom Wolfe to pronounce this story as "A scorching epochal sensation!"
Personally, I believe that Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is an enthralling tale filled with excitement from cover-to-cover. The plot keeps you fascinated while you are still able to understand the deeper message that Hunter S. Thompson was trying to get across. It was very interesting to get inside the mind of a 1970s druggie and see what was going on back then.
Much like a summer blockbuster, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas captivates and touches a variety of people.
Rating:
Summary: Trippy, Funny, and Crazy
Review: Filled with paranoia, hysteria, and drugs... wait I mean wholesome material for the family. But really, this book is great especially if you are a former flower child.The created persona is essentially defined by the title phrase, "fear and loathing," for it embodies both teh paranoia with which the persona perceives the ominous forces pervading actuality, and the aggression with which heseeks to sruvie it. This latter trait is particularly crucial, for despite the comic buffoonery and paranoia delusions, Thompson's persona is hardly a passive anti-hero. A descendent of teh trickster character of folklore, the Vice of medieval drama, the picaro of early prose narratives, he is a self-portrait of the journalist as rogue. Like his literary ancestors, he is a shape-shifter who uses cunning and agility to surivive the dangers of his environment. As he says in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, "We are all wired into a survival trip now." But as a journalist and a human being attempting to report contemporary events, the dangers he meets are psychological and spiritual. Defining himself through opposition, he counters them with violence and laughter.
Rating:
Summary: Bad Craziness
Review: "We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold." Hunter S. Thompson made a wise decision whenever he chose that statement to open Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Whenever someone picks up this book and reads that first sentence they should have a very good idea of whether or not they will enjoy reading Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. However, if reading isn't your thing, the movie is available on DVD and video, personally I think that the book is the better of the two.
Hunter S. Thompson made a name for himself in gonzo journalism and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is his tale about an incredible business trip he took with his attorney Oscar Acasta. Thompson, under the alias Raoul Duke, is sent to Las Vegas to cover one of the biggest motorcycle races in history, the Mint 400. Armed with a red convertible, a pistol, a tape recorder and a briefcase stuffed full of extremely dangerous drugs, the two men set forth on the must unforgettable "trip" of their life. They began their stay at the Mint Hotel, where they ran a room service bill of [dollar amount]an hour, for forty-eight consecutive hours. After fleeing this hotel, they wind up in the Flamingo at a convention for narcotic officers. More trouble arises after Dr. Gonzo (the alias of Acasta) finds a girl named Lucy and feeds her blotter acid. Now the only thing on their minds is to get as far away from Las Vegas as they can.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is definitely one of the best books that I have ever read. I am not a big reader and when I do read a book it takes me a good while to finish. However, I finished Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas in less than a day. I had seen the movie many times before, but the book managed to reach out, grab onto me, and not let go until I had finished reading it. Reading this book would be a wise decision for anyone interested in the dope decade. Many people maintain the idea that Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is fiction, a tale created in the mind of Hunter S. Thompson. However, I believe that it is a true story of two men who took a savage journey into the heart of the American dream.
Rating:
Summary: Psychedelic Words From Psychedelic Book
Review: I would recommend this book to any psychedelic enthusiasts who are interested in expanding their mind. This masterpiece we like to call literature is extremely influential to any person looking for something out of the norm. This book is about 2 guys, 1 is a journalist and the other is an attorney, who was sent to Las Vegas on a assignment of journalism. They brought with them a trunk full of psychedelic enhancers.
The assertion this book makes on the psychedelic culture of America in the 1970's is extremely powerful and well thought.
Rating:
Summary: "As good as The Great Gatsby..."
Review: As Hunter Thompson said himself about "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas": "It's as good as The Great Gatsby and better than The Sun Also Rises". This statement is not hyperbole or shameless self-promotion, although it would be prudent to expect both from this author. Thompson created a masterpiece of American Literature when he wrote this book, one that deserves to be read (and studied) side by side with Fitzgerald and Hemingway. ("Vegas", of course, has the added benefit of being side-splittingly funny.) There's more good writing on one page of this book than in a stack of contemporary best sellers. If you have never read this book, do yourself a favor and buy it now. If you haven't read it in more than 10 years, you need to re-read it.
Rating:
Summary: If you loathe this book, don't speak to me..... ever.
Review: Two men driving a red convertible with a trunk full of extremely dangerous drugs speed down the highway towards Las Vegas in search of the American Dream. It sounds much like the beginning of a joke, and here's the punchline: this is a true story. It is the plot of 1971's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas written by journalist/author Hunter S. Thompson. Thompson is of course the narrator, giving himself the alias Raoul Duke as he leads the reader through this twisted and utterly derange journey, and the things he does will disgust and amaze you.
The general premise of the book is cloudy, it seems as substantial as a teen road trip movie in the beginning, and it is possible that that is really all there is to see here. However, it is absolutely fascinating. It is a wild and disturbing story, and thus it is completely captivating. It is nearly impossible to tear oneself away from the downward spiral and maniac actions of two drug fried minds. We learn that the narrator is a sports journalist given $300, a hotel reservation, and a rental car to cover the Mint 400 biker race in Las Vegas. He takes off with his Samoan attorney counterpart (Dr. Gonzo) and spends the cash immediately on a veritable cornucopia of illegal substances, from acid to cocaine to mescaline. From that point on there is barely a moment in which neither of the two is under the influence of one or more of the drugs. They spin into out of control paranoia and constant anger & confusion. Always afraid of going to prison, always afraid of being killed, always assuming they are being watched. In this drug soaked state they manage to get into some graphically disturbing, disgusting, and occasionally humorous scenarios. For instance, they are kicked out of a Debbie Reynolds concert for getting high, they con a cleaning woman at their hotel into believing they are undercover cops, pretending to be cops at a cop convention where they are learning how to catch druggies, vomiting all over their room, and 'Dr. Gonzo's' request for Duke to electrocute him in the bathtub at the rising point in "White Rabbit". Twisted and vulgar, Fear & Loathing claims to be a 'savage journey to the heart of the American Dream'. Indeed, there is some of that here, mostly reserved for the last twenty pages of the book in what could be an attempt to keep it relevant. Basically, any hint of that dream takes a back seat; the driver here is the reckless attitudes of two guys, with drugs and alcohol riding shotgun. One thing is for certain, Thompson's Fear & Loathing is a book to be read only by those relatively adapted to the strange, and not easily offended or disgusted. Yet, in a sentence, it is nothing more then a fantastic book (and experience) which will be remembered as a classic.
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