2024 Larry Prater Award for Best Read

The 2024 Larry Prater Award for Best Read goes to The Shards, by Bret Easton Ellis. This year, I’ve finished my retrospective of Bret Easton Ellis’ novels and he truly saved the best for last. It's almost unfair because only a seasoned writer could pull off a novel like this, but the perspective and the playfulness it requires to explore your past and transform it into such a reckless and hilarious metathriller is not given to everyone. No one can use past, present, real and imagined at the same time the way Bret Easton Ellis does.

What differentiates The Shards from Ellis’ older novels (and from everything else I’ve read that year) is that on top of standout craftsmanship, the novel doesn’t takes itself (and the era it’s set in) seriously at all. The hindsight on forty years of evolution that doesn’t always equates to maturity is delightful. I’m known to be extremely critical of endings in fiction, I find that none of them live up to their stories, but the ending of The Shards ranks among the most satisfying and entertaining I’ve ever read.

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