Troll

by Dave Fitzgerald

Here you are, shopping for books online because honestly, who has the energy to go out anymore? There are so many people out there, all buying the same Oprah-stickered crap to take to the coffee shop and Instagram next to their PSLs and blueberry muffins with one perfect bite taken out (or pretend to read until their latest Tinder date shows up). It’s insufferable – the performance of it all – and everyone knows small presses are where the real literary vanguard is happening these days anyway. Well, maybe not everyone. But that’s kind of the point of your being here, isn’t it?

You consider yourself something of a snob when it comes to your reading choices, though not in a pretentious way. You’re discerning is all. A serious person of uniquely refined and sophisticated tastes. Perhaps you felt drawn to click on this particular novel due to its provocative, all-caps title, or the cheeky contrast between its memeified typeface and classical-realist cover art. Perhaps you were intrigued by the blurbs and social media chatter invoking transgressive iconoclasts like Michel Houellebecq, Bret Easton Ellis, and Chuck Palahniuk. Or perhaps you’re already an acolyte of this particular indie press and its stated mission of “degeneracy and degradation.” You are, after all, the kind of unflappable literary deviant who actively seeks to have your ethical buttons pushed and your moral boundaries tested. The kind who enjoys nothing quite so much as a vicarious tramp through such aberrantly foul and filthy lives as you could never dare live yourself. And the kind who, even while wallowing in narcissism and self-loathing at your own complicity in same, feels such a profoundly personal anguish at the ongoing commodification of all art beneath the endless crush of content culture that you probably think this book is about you, (don’t you? Don’t you?).

And quite frankly, if you’ve read this far, then maybe it is. Maybe you are exactly who this book is about. And by. And for. And as such, maybe you should give it a look, and let the world know exactly what you think. It’s not like anyone reads anymore anyway. They’re all too busy watching, and posting, and “liking” and “following” to notice a true original like you. So what’s the difference? Why shouldn’t you add your voice to the fray? After all, nothing matters these days quite so much as what you think about it. And as you’ve already mentioned, you do have excellent taste.

Genres: Fiction, Humor, 21st Century

578 pages, Paperback

Published April 12, 2023

Reviews

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh man. The pressure of being the first to write a review for a book on Goodreads!

Told in second person, Troll is a brick of a book, clocking in at 580 pages, and delves deep into the mind of an honest-to-god asshole. Oh, sorry. Deep into YOUR mind. Because you're the asshole. And there is no escaping yourself. There's also no escaping all the porn and drugs and bowel movements and, well... did I mention assholery?

We know you. We've met someone like you. We've found ourselves caught up in the web of inescapable conversations with someone like you. Hell, we've run screaming in the opposite direction from someone like you. You're a dick. A weirdly charming but incredibly obnoxious dick. You're an insufferable movie buff with a penchant for pissing other people off. You take the opposite side in every arguement just to get under people's skin. And the one time you find someone who might be willing to put up with your shit, someone who is able to go head to head with the bullshit that constantly spews out of your mouth, you know you're going to fuck it up. You'll full out sabotage it. Because you just can't help yourself, can you?

I can't tell if this review makes it sound as if I didn't like the book. I did! I'm a big fan of Whiskey Tit and the books they put out. And I'm glad to have had the opportunity to support Dave and his new novel! It would have been a solid 4 star read if it hadn't occasionally gotten sidetracked, deviating down rabbit holes and spending pages upon pages on full-out rants. I am not ashamed to admit that I'd find myself skimming a lot of those. I mean, man, already faced with such a heavy page count, I just couldn't afford the time or eye strain (oh if I had a dime for every time my eyes rolled of their own accord, lol) and wanted to get back to the debauchery and aforementioned assholery!

[Charlene Elsby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Troll recalls that time when we’d gather around the screen to read the new Swaim article or watch the new Strong Bad Email, when internet legends like Zezima gained prestige in micro societies developed around superlative accomplishment in things that don’t actually matter. Fitzgerald’s character is the guy behind the screen, growing filthier and more hate-filled, his ego expanding with his knowledge of obscure films and popular television. As his acerbic wit alone fails to satisfy his entitlement, the smallest slight becomes persecution, and all manner of offence is justified by the amplification of trivial problems, scaled disproportionately to a narrow worldview. I know this guy; we all do. Charming, sinister, and all-too-real, Fitzgerald’s brilliant characterization reveals in unabashed detail his breathy snicker, his feminist misogyny, the toxic social structures under which he came to be, and the continuous dread that extends beyond this book—that he’s going to hurt somebody.

[Alex Delogu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant. Follows the tribulations of a man, who starved of real social connection, fills that void with the always unsatisfactory fabulations of film, TV, and internet.

The writing in this is so florid. If I retain even a fraction of his lexical agility I'll be all the wiser.

[Jesse Larkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Started on Thursday August 3rd 2023 and finished on Friday August 11th 2023
You are despicable. Truly. You are
inexorably headed towards self destruction; propelling forward and transmogrifying into that darkness.
Troll is uniquely disorienting as it places you as the central character; accentuating all the aspects of your personality you try to keep tucked away in crevices.
You are self aware and ignorant
A slobbish shut-in circa 2016
You work for an entertainment clickbait company where your opinions on media makes you feel separated from your peers
You feel an intellectual superiority despite understanding that you’re part of the chain of things you reject
But this is also not about you
This is about a perception of a kind of man who has chosen media obsessions in lieu of identity
Who loves his isolation and craves it likes having barriers between himself and the world
Someone actively allowing themselves to be molded by the horrible things that happen to them
The worst aspects of online behavior consolidating into one person
Has trouble properly assimilating positive information he receives from media
Stagnant in every aspect of his life
Dependent on weed
Sexual satisfaction from cruelty
Self righteous and self loathing
Insecure and jealous
Petty
A kleptomaniac whose lost touch with reality.
The only true sense of sentimentality is adorned for paraphernalia
He only digests media to retain his elitism
Can never accept when logic fails him and the world doesn’t adhere to his perception
Seeking relief from self
Projects his insecurities
Uses pop culture as a barometer for companionship
Pivotal life choices are carelessly sacrificed for the irony of it
Fuels his own psychosis
Purity spiraling diatribes
His attempt at a fairy tale film reality leads to annihilation of the self
We are demonstrated the power of his potential to disrupt societal norms; escalating rapidly until a final expelling of waste to cement his place beneath the things he thought he was above
This is an epic tome diving into the depths of a hyper manic identity crisis
Mannered aesthetic to the unwinding pointed nature of the sentence structure
Finds the rhythm of a crass austerity reflecting the consumption of high and low cultural intake
Great observational humor into the decay of the social landscape
It examines the human detritus that comes from traps of instant gratification cycles
How we domesticate our nature through the bare minimum required for the protective armor of society
Viewing life through a filter; the relationship between the self and the screen which culminates in an erotically charged dissociative eradication of the spirit
Satirizes the depleting global attention span, completionism , and how we consume our media
The novel itself in its long form indispensability is emblematic of this
Thematic pop culture parallels and effective use of them to paint comical and accurate representations of personality types
Dissects the archetypes with such nuance that they become identifiable
Gradual creeping allusions to murder and social anarchy
For something that can be viewed as an indictment I found myself easily identifying with it. I was immediately grounded through the hyper specific film references and details of human minutiae
The confrontational 2nd person narrative has this lingering effect of layers amalgamating and creating this weird headspace like being isolated in a hallway.
Scenes from this book creep up on me when I least expect it; the tell-tale sign that it has burrowed little holes in my brain

[MR. OMAR KING · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve been spreading the word about TROLL to my co-workers at work. Talking about the writing and how wicked and rich it is. IT IS FUCKING AWESOME!

“What the hell is this book?”

“A book about a troll.” I replied

“The one that lives under bridge?”

“Not that kind of troll.”

“Are you sure it’s not about an ugly old creature that lives under the bridge?”

“I can assure you that is nothing like that.”

“To me when I think of a Troll. I think of an ugly looking creature. Idk?”


I give them some of information about the book or what I was reading so far.

There is a scene I remember reading and talking about it with friends at work: scene where the enigmatic main character is at his weed guy’s place having a deep conversation. Weed guy confesses to the main character that he’s having an affair with his uncle’s wife— so weird and totally unexpected. And the way it was written is hilarious.

“I can’t recommend it enough— give it a read. You will be laughing out of your sit.” I probably was exaggerating there, but I don’t care.

“Yeah that is weird and funny. I will look it up when I have the chance, thanks for the recommendation.”

“Anytime.”

So far on Episode 9 and I am enjoying the read so far. The enigmatic troll is quarreling with a bunch of MadMen fans. What the hell?!?!!! 😆😆😆👍👍👍👍👍.

[Andrew Merritt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Imagine the worst person you know. The snobbiest of bastards whose first words very well may have been “well ackchyually,” and whose entertainment obsession covers the full spectrum - ranging from the most popular of pop culture to the most pretentious of cinephilia, to the seediest of pornographic addictions - and he certainly knows more about it than any of you. Someone who hates women more with every unsuccessful dating app pick up line, and who will never take personal responsibility for their shortcomings in this scenario. Now imagine this person rapidly (and/or rabidly) descending into inceldom is you.

Now wrap this all up into a 585 page paperback and you have Dave Fitzgerald’s new novel - Troll. Trolls takes a wild ride through the rabbit hole of the toxic male psyche, and follows an unnamed twenty something’s vilest attempts to get by, i.e. get high, get laid, and make other people uncomfortable. Which he does - cross break rooms, online comment sections, karaoke bars and public parks - our protagonist always manages to get a laugh at someone else’s expense.

There are several passages throughout Troll that made me laugh out loud and that I will chuckle at for weeks to come, but the most startling takeaway from the novel, spurred by moments of uncomfortable relatability for anyone who has experienced loneliness in the 21st century; and the second person perspective Troll uses (a strong stylistic choice I didn’t expect to like as much as I did), is how easily anyone of us could become just another asshole, chastising our coworkers for their choice of binge material, blaming our romantic failures on the society we live in, defacing public memorials, and wishing death upon strangers in the comment section of a Mad Men blog post.

Despite the discomfort you may feel while reading it, Troll was an absolute blast to read, as thought provoking and insightful as it was fun, and I can’t wait to read more from Fitzgerald in the future.

[Mark Morrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

(NO SPOILER REVIEW) What a read! This book almost defies encapsulation - which is what reviews tend to do. But as our unnamed protagonist says, "sometimes the universe trolls us all." Written in the risky second person narrative, this book itself is the ultimate Troll; the penultimate being our illusory vicarious existence while reading. We are this protagonist, not in specifics, but the average Millennial will, by the process of socialization, share his bleak outlook. He reacts in a more extreme way, which causes the reader to cringe at times, but when being honest, we are cringing at ourselves. That is our motivation in turning the page.

You know how when younger, you would be engulfed by rage pre fisticuffs, blind by fury during, but win or lose, feel admiration and respect for your opponent post fight? No? Just me? Well the reading of this book mirrors that process in ways. There were points I wished I could holler at Fitzgerald for creating such a contentious, arrogant, entitled narcissist of a protagonist. But through a lens of empathy and fascination - created by razor sharp prose - I understood how he became this portrait we are observing.

With insurmountable wit and control, through endless mythical, religious, scientific, Literary, cinematic and social references (have google ready if you are like me and want to know every simile and metaphor), David Fitzgerald created what may be the first modern Literary novel set in real time. This impersonal generation where immediacy and convenience reign supreme; where relationships are overtly transactional and altruism as a word and act has become a misnomer. People will settle for less, but intellectualize their failure until they believe it's a choice. Our protagonist says to himself that he could be successful too - he's merely above the theatrics of it all.

While Troll is an easy read in the sense of following the plot and understanding the story, Fitzgerald showcases a verbosity rarely seen in such Literature. Filled with portmanteaus, historical, scientific, multicultural mythical references, reappropriated words and a knowledge of cinema that perhaps only George Salis or Quentin Tarantino could rival - he is seemingly writing an adjacent story between the lines. It is up to the reader to take this second narrative journey. You will nonetheless have a great experience and be aptly entertained, even develop new awareness and insights into modernity. But if you want his Wallaceian "footnotes" and "endnotes", look up all these words he uses throughout (you won't miss them). There is a whole other world and narrative inside this novel that acts as a non-fiction companion and exposes the lineage of the type world we are viewing. It is implied delicately and brilliantly. I found myself asking the question: "Can anything be original?" Therein we find the Troll.

The surgical precision which David Fitzgerald weaves these tales together is deserved of the highest esteem and Literary praise. I don't want to posit the hackneyed review locutions, but allow me to digress this once and say that Troll is a monumental achievement that stands as the first Literary flag in modernity!

[Nick Padula · Rating 5 out of 5]

The publishing house of Whiskey Tit was already on my radar after reading David Scott Hay’s NSFW, so as I combed through their unique catalog of literature for something else subversive and deviant to read, this novel caught my eye. With the blurb on the cover comparing it to my favorite author’s seminal work Fight Club, how could I not be intrigued?

Does it live up to ol’ Chuck’s punk-rock fable of toxic masculinity? I’d say it definitely captures a similar vibe, but it’s also doing its own thing. Fitzgerald’s Troll digs into a different part of humanity’s nasty underbelly than what Palahniuk was commenting on. Toxic masculinity is still a factor here, but it’s evolved (or possibly devolved) into something less palatable than the philosophy of that charming bastard Tyler Durden. Our nameless protagonist’s toxicity is deployed not through acts of terrorism or cults of personality, but through mostly innocuous acts of Internet trolling that occasionally leak into the real world. On a few rare occasions, his stream-of-consciousness thoughts veer into very dark places and when those dark thoughts were on the verge of manifesting in the physical realm, I was fucking terrified.

There is very little to like about our vile lead. You’ve probably met an asshole like this, either virtually or in person. They’re becoming much too common in our current dark age of the interwebs. Despite that, I found myself wanting to see what this misanthropic little goblin got up to next. Also, I unfortunately found my movie snob ass relating to him a bit too much at times. At the very least, I couldn’t relate to him when it came to the more unpleasant aspects of his personality.

Some might have trouble committing to almost six hundred pages of unpleasant rhetoric ranging from the vulgar to the pretentious to the outright hateful, but it was 100% my shit. Literature rarely gets an out-loud laugh out of me, but this definitely got me quite a bit. Speaking of shit, there’s plenty of creative potty humor here. The impressive prose Fitzgerald deploys provides a great juxtaposition with all the disgusting things his protagonist does. The comic timing in many of the jokes and gags throughout our bumbling lead’s odyssey are definitely guffaw-worthy.

For his first book, Dave Fitzgerald is off to an excellent start. I’m quite curious to see whether his next novel involves more deviance and perversion or if it’ll be something a tad more palatable for the “normies”.

[Kyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

[Caveat: the author of this is one of my old-time friends. A knucklehead since olden days.]


You. Hey you. You’re a good person, right? More stuff done right than wrong? Generally feel pretty good about yourself? …So you’d have no problem letting anyone see your search history, right?


Reading Dave Fitzgerald’s Troll, it felt somewhat like someone had turned over a stone in my psyche and showed a bunch of the nasty skittering things beneath. The entire book is written in second-person (“You take the second of your shits today”) and I honestly found it very effective. I wouldn’t say that I have a LOT in common with the main character (a porn-addicted, marijuana-ruined, misogynistic shit-stirrer) but there were several times where I felt it struck closer to home than I’d like. 


With that said, it may be unnecessary to say this, but this book is not for everyone. It plunges right into  William Burroughs and Chuck Palahniuk-style depravity and mixes it with a whole lot of commentary on modern pop culture. The narrator has impeccable taste in films, music, and books - and that’s about all he has going for him, and it’s not like knowing Almodovar’s oeuvre or every detail of Friends makes him any more appealing to the opposite sex. As he deplores the state of modern society from behind his computer screen (whether at his job writing listicles for a shitty webpage or at home stoned out of his mind on Mad Men discussion boards) you can see how bad habits and crippling self-doubt have sentenced him to his terrible life… though modern society is hardly blameless, either. And every time I began to feel some sympathy for the poor fucker, he goes on and does something horrific and cruel all over again. This is no appeal to recognize the shared humanity we have with the trolls, incels, and jerks of the world - this is a deep dive into rancid life.


This is not my usual wheelhouse, but I respect the huevos Dave had for writing this thing. It is nasty, offensive, erudite, scatalogical, can't-look-away-from-a-car-wreck compelling. And it's real good. 

[Travis Meyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Men are ticking time bombs of rage and idiocy.”

Troll is an unflinching deep dive into the depravity and despicability of the male psyche. That seems really reductive though, and the capital tee Truth is that I had an absolute blast reading this. It’s among the most blatantly funny novels I’ve ever read and the writing is sharp, witty and perceptive. The bold second-person narration felt fresh and chummy. Despite moments of considerable cringe towards the pathetic and occasionally perverse proclivities of the protagonist, I think most readers, against all odds, will still root for him. Why? Well, I think we all know a version of this character; that colleague who is gossipy and self-serving, the friend who continually disappoints you, your family member who could do and be so much more if they could just apply themselves!

A-and it’s about the lies we constantly tell ourselves! Half-hearted intentions smoked away. Eventually, if we keep pushing towards that edge, it arrives with unwelcome violence.

Here, we are privy to every part of our nameless narrator’s psyche and, sadly, I found myself sometimes sympathizing with his slothful tendencies. I too struggle with balance and can be extremely lazy, somewhat reactive, occasionally selfish and/or withdrawn. I need to get off my ass and start taking better care of my body, temper the sodium and alcohol intake, maybe treat the people I love a little better sometimes…

Anyhow, thanks so much to @ , You’ve written a great fucking book and I can think of a few reluctant reading buddies who would dig this. They’re good men, and thorough!😜

Cheers and be good folks,

[Benjamin Allee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow. I can't recall a book that made me laugh this hard. Ever. And beyond that, I can't recall one that made me feel so ashamed--for myself, for its anti-anti-anti-protagonist, for the greasy little world bridged by the subtle 'you' shared between us. That's saying something.

Troll is an experience you should not forget. A bewildering, hysterical, riotous, one-of-kind, can't put it down because you can't look away, 17-car pile-up of a read. With several fatalities.

For the moment, I can't pin down its moral, message, meaning (odds are we ain't supposed to), but I sure as hell am gonna plaster its voice, manner, and depravity to the shmutzy corkboard of my brain's furthest backrooms.

When you're feeling good, read Troll. It'll remind you that you shouldn't. When you're feeling down, read Troll. It'll help you feel even worse.

To some extent, that sort of humility might be precisely what we need.

[Shirley · Rating 5 out of 5]

5/5 stars and unlike anything I’ve read before. Bitter and nihilistic, yet shamefully funny. The advantage of this novel using second person narration is that you really feel the repulsion and second hand shame. The projection of vile behavior is perfect at getting under the reader’s skin, making us the perpetrator of a hedonistic rampage. This book goes far into the gross out imagery, which will turn off many viewers, but the flowery prose utilized to capture the mundane morning dump is too ridiculous to me to not find funny. Super wild and grossly satisfying.

[Jason Bergsy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Our main character is a young man, living well below his age. Working as a writer for an online blog, pushing out slop content aimed at engagement. The content doesn't really matter as long as it's getting hits/clicks. Perfect for the main character who is a complete troll, just looking to stir the pot and enjoy the drama. His views on the world are very problematic, based on television, movies and of course, online pornography. We watch as he navigates the world, seemingly never learning about his own flaws and problems.

I have never read a book like this, and while I did really enjoy it, I don't know if I would want to read another like it. It's a tough read, a difficulty in the writing style of second person, and in content because it is very foul, disgusting, vile and misogynistic. But it's like that in the best ways. It wants you to feel those emotions, to be disgusted by hygiene and actions. The character is not supposed to be likable. You're supposed to sit in the proverbial shitty pants that our main character is sitting in.

It kind of explains the descent into troll culture and how young men can easily become part of movements and culture like the incels. It's not making a pitch for you to join, or make an excuse for people like that, but is giving you a map or guide, explaining what you need to understand to avoid it. It's giving you the knowledge of the mistakes that can be made, and the consequences that follow.

Overall I really enjoyed this book. I don't think it's a timeless read, but it is a great read in the current day. While I do think it's full of a great narrative and important lessons for young men to learn (even though I'd hope they would already know them), I would find it hard to recommend. It's not for everyone, but if you can get past vile descriptions, the utter cringe of the character, and the second person view the story is told in, I think you could really love this book.

[Christopher Sarvis · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The most anyone can hope for is to be heard above the squall for a week, a day, an hour, before the world scrolls over to the next-big-thing. It’s not something you can reverse, this lemniscate, backchannel exchange of ego and id social media provides. It’s already in place; ingrained in an entire generation, uploaded from the day they were born to the day they could start uploading themselves. Even your most righteously felt outrage is still part of the outrage machine. “ ///// It’s not often that you read a 585 page book in just four days. What is in those pages making it close to impossible to set free. Written in the rarely used second person, Troll was an absolute fantastic read that is equal parts funny and uncomfortable in the best way. Dave Fitzgerald has written a book that is captivating from start to finish and done with a main character that is an obnoxious twenty-something that we have all run into before and somehow through it all and some understanding you feel for this vile person. Cheers to Dave Fitzgerald and Whiskey Tit Books for such a great offering!

[Max Restaino · Rating 5 out of 5]

A novel about one of the absolute worst types of people society has to offer. Hysterical, frustrating, sad, and much more relatable than you want it to be.

[Jess Hagemann · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author, David Fitzgerald, warned me before I began reading this book that its target audience is the angry young man, and that as a woman, I might find it hard to read. Purportedly a story about a misogynist stoner internet troll, TROLL is undeniably nihilistic—but it’s not woman-hating. TROLL’s unnamed protagonist—the second-person “you”—never actually sinks into an abyss of irredeemable assholery. Because the reader is inside his head at all times, we know he’s capable of decency, even at times of love, so while it’s true that TROLL devotes whole chapters to describing the excruciating minutiae of a professional pothead’s day, including detailed play-by-plays of the *plots* of the porn he watches, the book is never so detestable that you want to put it down. Instead, weirdly, it’s driven by heart, such that when the character gets his final comeuppance, I didn’t feel he deserved it; I felt bad for him, and realized I’d been rooting for him all along. Sure, he occasionally acts reprehensibly in public, while in private keeping encyclopedic accounts of his bowel movements. But thanks to Fitzgerald’s incredible command of the English language (seriously, you might want to keep a dictionary handy for this one), literal shit has never seemed so highbrow. At all times, I found myself justifying the narrator’s actions for him, thinking, “He just wants to *feel* something.” And I get that. Since 2016 (when TROLL is set), the world has become a darker and more terrible place. The only appropriate response has been numbness. That TROLL’s protagonist is numb, and sometimes does really stupid stuff trying to cut through the anesthesia of his own (self-preserving) self-medication is not just forgivable, it’s understandable. He’s the modern-day everyman, an endearing-if-not-cautionary tale about where we go from here.

[Jack Houghteling · Rating 5 out of 5]

I kept thinking about pain and guilt - traits of pathogenic size and ubiquity that sit so close to one another and yet vector into such variant directions of the unknown – when reading Fitzgerald. He’s capacious, he’s hilarious, he takes seriously and writes majestically about the infinitude of the human cultural universe – a form of desirous love, of hope for connection. And yet make no mistake, Troll is a story about finitude: about failing to see, absorb, be and use a love that is transitory, that refracts and lessens and escapes as lassitude, thinglessness and transgression take its place. And where do we go from there?

[Preston · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fight Club for the online age. Fitzgerald has captured a very real type of amoral narcissist native to the internet. "You" will be imminently recognizable to anyone who's spent any time on social media as the sort of self-important content creator who experienced a minor moment in the sun and subsequently got terminally addicted to the fleeting dopamine rush they got as a result. It's a darkly funny, frequently uncomfortable but ultimately fulfilling book that places the reader in the head space of a unique, repellent, yet imminently watchable creature.

[David Hay · Rating 5 out of 5]

No joke, this book is the most profanely hilarious and disturbing satire I have read in years.

How a writer can take a Troll and turn them into an understanding and sympathetic character is mind-boggling.

Also, the situations sprinkled throughout would be climatic set-pieces for other authors. This book contains an embarrassment of riches.

Enjoy!

[jo 💫 · Rating 4 out of 5]

i can’t tell if i loved this or hated it? it’s absolutely vile and disgusting. but i think the fact that it elicited such visceral reactions in me is reflective of how well-written it is. the main character is absolutely nasty and atrocious and i hate him, but that’s the point.

[N. Poe · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like to thank the narrator of TROLL for articulating my disdain of the sitcom "Friends" far better than I ever could.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is everything it promises to be, but does it really promise anything?

[Thomas Kendall · Rating 5 out of 5]

My blurb for this:

There is something about the sensation of reading ‘Troll’ that is like discovering teeth can grow in a human’s liver. Which is to say the novel’s fascinating, and weirdly real, and gets into the tissue of things. Those morbidly wadded and discarded as well as those prone to scar, that knit together in death in protection of the living, in order to show the way something terribly wrong can develop and survive. Except Trolls main character is still open wounded enough to rage about the calcifying of their identity even as that rage accelerates the process. An abject, humiliated, tooth ache of a human being

[Noah Isherwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was a nasty good time! the second-person works quite well, mad props to Dave for that :)