Customer Reviews

A Constant Suicide

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

A Constant Suicide should be required reading for incoming college freshmen. Brian Kran's debut novel is brutally honest about the struggle for identity and the tragic consequences sometimes associated with it. I'd recommend this book to those college-bound and to those who'd like to reminisce about a period of life full of endless possibility.

I did not know what to expect when I began this novel. However, Brian Krans' first novel, A Constant Suicide, is well written and developed. It sucked me in right away. The story jumps around from present to past to excerpts from a journal entry and back to the present. The characters were easy to identify with. We all can look back to college years and remember the pressures and stigmas and cliches. Everyone will get something different out of this book. Sometimes the people you are closest to are the farthest away.

How on earth can you condemn this novel? I love it. It is a really great work and I very much love the word usage and imagery throughout. I found the looking hindsight style of the novel to be very interesting and engaging. I was always wondering what really happened. The novel reads like a memoir and do not doubt that the author's own personal experiences helped to shape this work.

Brian Krans has a gift for painting vivid memories of a college freshman looking to shed his geeky high school self. Chris, the first reference of the book, knows college is his chance to start over ... to do everything that he didn't accomplish in high school. He has a chance to be someone.

Flipping between past, present, and journal entries, Krans hooks readers with a mystery ... why Chris' best friend and roommate killed himself. Then Krans leads readers on an adventure on how Chris and Ethan met and what kind of trouble they seemed to run into.

Krans' strength is painting the vivid and all-too-real college experience ... from meeting a cute girl to his first college party to his first sexual experience to hanging out with Ethan and the First Prentiss guys. Not only do readers get a glimpse of college life from a guy's point of view, but can believe the tales. I found myself laughing out loud several times at Chris' dialogue ("Chris will puke.")

The one weakness I had was the journal entries were a little long, mundane, and a little abstract. OK, I have another weakness ... the shortness of the book. I would have loved to read more characters and tales from college.

Overall, the book was a good read, where I needed to know why Ethan killed himself. Krans tells a good story with humour, insightfulness, and truth. I look forward to his second novel.

I really enjoyed this book. I read it in two sittings and could not stop reading. The characters are like real people I have met and the story definitely helped me cope with the realities of death. WORTH THE BUY!

Brian Kran's debut novel, "A Constant Suicide", is to be commended for the accuracy of its title. Indeed, reading this novel is akin to repeatedly slashing your wrists or ramming into a bridge abutment at 100 mph. It makes a compelling case for the sweet release of suicide, if only to save oneself the psychological damage of having to read a second offering from the same novelist.