Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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4.0 out of 5 stars
A brave and candid personal account, 6 Sep 2008
Hypomanic is the account of a down-to-earth northern student's fall from workaholic 'one of the lads' to delusional, psychotic outsider. Its thorough attention to detail only really becomes significant as you witness the author's slip into paranoia and its this detail that also builds a comprehensive portrayal of life on a graphic design course in 90s dance and britpop studentdom.
The book takes you through a journey of deterioration on a very open and personal level and the ensuing ostricization by those closest to him. As someone who experienced student life in the 90s and my own particular disintegration, I found at times an uneasiness with the author's honesty but its that frankness that makes it a sincere and insightful read.
An incredibly brave and affecting account of the struggles of university life and personal battles that educates as much as it entertains.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Brave documentation of a time that's hard to document, 25 Aug 2008
For most people, university life - especially when lived away from home - is a time of challenge and change. But many of the incidents that lead to some of life's most insightful understandings are hard to document. For me, the author takes a courageous stab at describing what students of the 1990s were experiencing.
The book offered an important form of historical documentation that often lead me to think, "I remember that kind of thing", or "Yeah, something like that happened to me too". It's not so much the macroscopic plot but the nuances, especially in the relationships, that really connect.
There is also an element of the class struggle - the main character's overly-honest, and perhaps naive, working class mentality, pitched against the seemingly sly and conniving middle classes. It's wonderfully captured, even if it's not always beautiful prose.
If you went to university in the 1990s, if you want to reflect on it raw and uncut, then this book is well worth the time. Don't blame the author if it opens old wounds, though.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
The most honest book I have ever read, 18 Aug 2008
[candid, direct, downright, forthright, ingenuous, open, plainspoken, straight, straight-out, straightforward, unreserved,unyielding, arenose, determined, plucky, resolute, sabulous, sandy, spirited]
All of the above could describe this very transparent description of student life in the nineties. I think that anyone who had their twenties during that time may find a little of themselves in the main character. Without caution, knowledge and parents to hold you back what might you do, have done?
We've all heard the story of breakdown following excessive work - now add a cocktail of drugs, booze and a time-bomb waiting to go off and you've got Victor Kennedy. We all have our own fuse just waiting to blow - Victor will show you how his fuse blew and why. I'd make this standard reading for all pre-university parents/teachers and most of all kids - how not to blow your mind.
There's nothing better than a truly great honest book. To read about the life of a real individual and to imagine it happening - while reading the book I kept asking 'where was I when this was going on, what was I doing?'
Read this book - you will not be disappointed.
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by R.J. Ellory
