I received this book from NetGalley and the publisher, in return for an honest review. This review is based entirely on my own thoughts and feelings.

Overall rating : 1*
Writing skill : 1*
Plot: 1*
Characters: 1*

This was really not my idea of a good book unfortunately. The theme of teenage boys having sex (lots and lots of sex) is not really something I care about, and the characters were very 1 dimensional at that. The writing style was very odd, there wasn't any speech marks so was very confusing to read whether it was text or speech and even who was talking. Luckily it was short. I must stop requesting books without diving a bit deeper and checking whether its actually something I want to read.

I unfortunately wasn’t able to finish this book as I just didn’t love the story. It felt disjointed and disconnected which I understand may just be the writers style but that alongside the subject matter I just didn’t want to continue reading the story.

Great writing, but just couldn't get into. Guessing I'm not the target audience.

I loved reading this book. It was a very unique writing style and a very /interesting/ perspective. I think its a good book for young people to read as it starts conversations about many things that young adults should be talking about but are often discouraged. This book covers topics such as slut shaming, sex, sexuality, consent and relationships with young people. I believe these are all topics that should be talked about more openly as they are important conversations to be had. Very short and quick read. Would recommend picking this book up!

Lemony snicket remains bar far my favourite children’s writer of all times for me. Even Harry Potter hasn’t done what Lemony Snicket did for me. Since then I have watched multiple adaptations of ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’, the most recent one with Neil Patrick Harris being my favourite. Although I have just read 6 books out of 13-books series I absolutely love the writing. I do hope to get to reading rest of the parts very soon, hopefully before the next season of ‘A series of unfortunate events’ comes out.

While requesting the book on Netgalley I wasn’t aware of Handler’s work on ‘a series’ series but now that I know it I am most enthusiast to tell you about this recent book that he has written for his young adult readers.

Cover page
There is not much on the cover page. Only the book title written oddly across the front cover. I like the cover. It’s simple and straightforward. The copy I received from Netgalley, however, did not have any cover on it. I can say I am disappointed.

Characters
The entire book is about Cole. Cole is a sex obsessed teenager. In his own words ‘Let me put it this way: this is how much I think about sex. Draw a number line, with zero is, you never think about sex and ten is, it’s all you think about, and while you are drawing the line, I am thinking about sex.’ That’s the boy for you. Oh, and he sketches too. But that doesn’t hold much importance for him. That is because he is always thinking about sex, and only that.

Brush up against me in the hall at school, any girl I am thinking of, the way she smells walking behind her up the ugly staircase, trying to keep it together while my whole body rattles like a squirrel in a tin can. To couple up with them, to capture their whole bodies under a blanket with enough light to see the pleasure of what we are doing. Marinated with it, the snap and the sigh of longing to be inside all of her. It’s a story that keeps telling itself to me, my own crackling need in this world lit only by girls who might kiss me, like a flower, like a flytrap, the delicious sex we would have if we weren’t in the idiotic marathon of going to class. Oh, good. Calculus. This will clear everything up.

Waking up in the morning, miserable with bad weather. School in front of me, the whole day, like a wall I’m going to bang my head against. Think of the girls, I tell myself, like cookies in the oven to lure me out of bed. Think of how pretty they are. Don’t you want to see them, Cole? Come on, brush your teeth.

There are other kids in the book too but Cole is way too self-obsessed to give anyone any importance in his story.

Content
A lot of sex (talking, thinking, and doing) described in Handlers competent writing is what sums up this book. There is some emotion thrown here and there but the book primarily is how I described it in the first sentence. Now if you are not grossed out please read further where I try to explain to you why it is not all bad.

Cole is a school going regular teenage boy who is as obsessed with sex as any teenage boy can be. He begins the book by describing his obsession with sex. Not with him being a school goer or a sprint runner or even as an artist. Sex is clouding his brain as much as to give him an identity that he talks about in the entire book. He talks about all the girls that he has dated, almost as if they meant something to him. He describes each girl with some precision but quickly comes back to generic way in which to treat a girl. 'Take her out on a date. Buy her an ice cream. Just talk about your day and hers. But sometimes you are just hungry.'

'We fed the ducks together, but they ruined it all, so aggressive it wasn’t fun, surrounding us and squawking so loud we just ended up dumping it all on the ground, OK-OK, take it, asshole birds. So I get that, if you act too hungry it’s not fun anymore. Calm down, sit and wait, you’ll get something. But you know, sometimes you’re just really, really fucking hungry.'

Handler’s mastery in describing both inner and physical tumult in single sentence is impeccable. You will find it in multiple places. You applaud it for some time till you realise Cole is not a poet. He is a jerk. Universe does take care of it. Grisaille enters. She is an exchange student or something. Her parents are divorced. She has spent her life shuttling between Cairo and Portugal. She belongs to nobody and nowhere. But by some miracle she agrees to go out with Cole.

'She looked so fucking fantastic agreeing to go out with me. She didn’t look like a girl who would ruin the whole thing at all. Beautiful, breasty, like so warm to roll around in was my first impression. And, the next seventy thousand impressions'.

'She is a girl who doesn’t let someone do her. She participates in sex. She tells you what she likes and asks you to do it. She screams and shouts.'

'I don’t feel safe with her I guess. It feels, not dangerous, but with no seatbelt, no helmet, hanging onto her on that roaring motorcycle day after night after day.'

The author here talks about emotional instability. Sex comes around like a sweet musing but often stirs up a tornado. For a teenage boy who does not really differentiate one from the other, it gets to him. Cole is not the same man. He is suddenly not okay with experimental sex. He does not like sharing his girl. And eventually he is a wreck after Grisaille leaves. Like a village after a cyclone.

And that is what the book is about. A teenager obsessing over the miraculous inter-dimensional wonders of sex who is human after all. Even though it does seem like a regular teenage story with all the cards laid out on the table, I urge you to read it just for the beautiful writing.

Language
Snicket/Handler is a brilliant author that we already know. The book is written in first person from Cole’s point of view. There is an overlapping of dialogue and thoughts that is seen everywhere. His thoughts and spoken words go mixing somewhere but your mind knows how to place them. The writing is unchained. It reminds one of Eimear McBride.

Good points
The cover page is simple and beautiful. The characters are described awfully well. The language is stunning.

Bad points
The content is not life changing. It is predictable but you still like reading it for the beautiful writing.

Overall
I enjoyed this book. I loved the writing but I guess it was for the short length.

Whom do I recommend this to
This book is for those who enjoy good writing.

I picked this up because it seemed intriguing and the author is also wrote as Lemony Snicket.

It was as said in the title, all the dirty parts. And damn, that boy thinks a lot about sex. He’s also kind of an assole and had some homophobic tendencies.
He angered me a looooooot. I really could not stand the main character. I wanted to slap or shake him constantly.

Also, the fact that the book is only “the dirty parts” kept me from relating to any of the characters or to really root for the friendships and relationships.

I wanted to see what it could be, but it was very disappointing.

I thought All The Dirty Parts was very good in many ways. It's well written and has some valuable things to say. (It's worth saying at the outset that there is a lot of extremely frank talk about sex, often expressed in what TV announcers call Very Strong Language, so if you don't like all that then this won't be a book for you.)

The book is narrated by Cole, a young man at High School in a small US town who is, shall we say, sexually active. It's an episodic narrative in short sections with no chapters which for me gave it a strong drive. It is hard to say much about the story without giving too much away, but Daniel Handler captures well Cole's unthinking, exploitative sexism, his obsession with sex and the painful learning which that brings.

The book is short (only 140 pages or so) but Handler's style manages to cram a lot into it. I was Cole's age in the early 1970s, which was a very different age indeed; I didn't think or behave as Cole does, so I can't really vouch for the authenticity of his present-day experience, but his voice, his internal experiences and his behaviour seemed very well drawn and plausible to me. I found it an easy and compelling read and although the message was not an original one, it makes its points pretty well, although the later parts did seem just a little unsubtle. Nonetheless, it held my attention to the last.

It is almost impossible to quote from the book because of the subject matter and language, but one bit which I liked in language suitable for a review here was: "For every girl I thought I was uncomplicated sex, it wasn't. Put it this way: if you can't see the complication, you're probably it."

Teenage boys especially should read this, but so should anyone looking for a portrait of a certain kind of modern teenage male mind. It's not a groundbreaking classic but it's very readable and makes important points. Recommended.

(I received an ARC via NetGalley.)

<p>Summary: Don't hate the playa, hate the game, and then the playa gets playa-ed. With lots of teen sex bits (Handler might have made them all over eighteen, I can't recall.) </p>

<p>So you want to read a creepy book about a compulsive, masturbating, teenage boy, who seems to have nothing the least bit interesting about him yet still manages to get laid (Marty Sue *cough cough*), I guess <A href="https://www.librarything.com/work/18857246/book/144679093">All the Dirty Parts</a> is it. It's a mildly amusing read as an adult, but I'd be loathe to give it to a surly, fourteen year old boy; the last thing this world needs is more boys growing into men thinking, by virtue of them having a cock, that girls fuck them just because <i>hey look, a dick!</i>. At least he goes down on his girlfriend. Teenage boys can read all about that part. Too bad Handler didn't keep the cunnilingus and then write a book full of sex and well-rounded teenage boys with interests outside of pornography.</p>

<p>In any case, I defer to The Simpsons [Aside: There seems to have been a collective <i>Stop Watching</i> order in regards to The Simpsons. Any time any one quotes something from The Simpsons, it's always from an episode I've seen; it's never from whatever episodes are on now. I assume The Simpsons is still on now. I assume people are watching it. I'm guessing maybe I'm now too old to be hanging around with the kids quoting the new episodes, or the new episodes are barren of quotes. Either way.]: <i>The Girl Who Slept Too Little</i> and author Milton Burkhart:</p>

<blockquote>
I wanted to be a children's [writer] ever since Playboy wouldn't publish my cartoons because they were too filthy.
</blockquote>

<p>Yes, it's backwards -- Lemony Snicket was around <b>before</b> <A href="https://www.librarything.com/work/18857246/book/144679093">All the Dirty Parts</a>, but I couldn't stop thinking about that quote as I read the book. I still like Lemony Snicket, but the more I read by Daniel Handler, the more I don't want to, and this book, while entertaining for an adult, still is very much <i>ick</i>. </p>

<p><A href="https://www.librarything.com/work/18857246/book/144679093">All the Dirty Parts</a> by Daniel Handler went on sale October 19, 2017.</p>

<p><small>I received a copy free from <a href="https://www.netgalley.com/">Netgalley</a> in exchange for an honest review.</small></p>

I'm currently taking a short break from my blog due to health reasons

As a whole this really fell short for me, I feel like I just didn't click with the style of writing. If you enjoy short books with quirky writing I think you might enjoy this book, but I just really didn't like it.

The characters were not well developed at all in my opinion, I realise that was the idea and that the book is literally 'all the dirty parts' but you still need to be able to connect with the characters or at least have a plot that you are enjoying. But I found it boring and not much actually happened.

The writing was almost like notes, it just felt unfinished. Cole was an interesting protagonist and I definitely haven't read from a character like him before, but you really don't get to know him as a character at all due to the way this is written.

The descriptions were crazy, once you've read that you can't unread it. Truly I was extremely surprised by how descriptive some parts were. My opinion is that it went too far. I would like to mention though that I was however pleasantly surprised by the diversity in terms of the exploration of sexuality, as there was a same sex relationship. From reading the description prior to reading the actual book, it wasn't something I was expecting but I was happy about that and definitely praise the author for including it.

“For every girl I thought I was uncomplicated sex, it wasn't. Put it this way: if you can't see the complication, you're probably it.”

I was expecting more and was rather let down. I did get to the end but I actually considered putting it down and giving up a couple of times, and I never dnf books, I mean sometimes I put them down to go back to them later but with this I really wasn't enjoying it at all. But it is so short so I pushed through but I kind of wish I hadn't because the ending just made it even worse. So I guess that shows my feelings on this pretty clearly. I would say give it a try but no actually I really don't recommend it at all.

This book was just so frustrating to read. Considering that it was interesting perspective to read from and a very original concept in all, is the main reason why I have decided to give it two stars instead of one.

Thank you to Bloomsbury Publishing for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

2 Stars.

Gosh, is this really what it's like to be a sex-obsessed adolescent male? The title is quite correct so don't read this if you're offended by graphic promiscuous sex, porn, masturbation and so on. There are places where our protagonist sounds not so much like a 'normal' teenage boy and more like a sex addict who needs serious help - only then the story switches and suddenly we're in a teenage love story.

This is enjoyably quick to read but Handler perhaps tries too hard to give a moral to the tale - I would be interested to hear what male readers make of this and how far they think it epitomises masculine adolescence.

First of all thank you to NetGalley for providing me with the ARC for this – however all opinions are my own.

This was an . . interesting and strange read to say the least. First of all, I obviously can’t speak or how true the subjects that this book deals with as I’m a woman and this is a book about a teenage boy which I have no first-hand experience with. I do feel however that the depiction of a teenage by in this book isn’t really one of a typical teenage boy – Cole was literally sex-obsessed to the point where he states that he’s taking an art class because of the ratio of girls to boys and how most of the boys who are in the class are gay – but oh he enjoys the drawing let’s not forget!
There wasn’t really a plot to this as such, it just seemed to be us following Cole though his school year in snippets here and there. I understand there is a message in this and that Cole learns a lesson and gets to see what it’s like to no longer be wanted by the person he’s in love with which was good to watch as it happened organically and didn’t feel forced. I liked the Alec story arc and what it represented and I could actually see that perhaps happening in real life, especially in modern times with more younger adults being open with their sexuality and willingness to experiment.
I struggled with how this was written in some places, especially with the dialogue and I found it difficult to discern who was talking in a lot of places. Also, with Alec at the start, I struggled with them talking online and it got confusing as to if they were talking in person or nor and again who was actually talking.
I didn’t mind the explicitness of the book; it’s meant to be an adult novel and I enjoyed that it didn’t shy away for “all the dirty parts”, so-to-speak and it added to the authenticity of how the story is being told. Just note that it is explicit and therefore isn’t suitable for children or less mature young adults.
Overall I did like the book but with the lack of plot and the issues I had with the way it was written I only gave it 2 stars.

*I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for ahn honest review.

I don't think I've ever read a book with a more apt title. All the dirty parts is just that, all the dirty disordered thoughts of a horny high school boy. No talking around it, no censoring and absolutely no lack of details. I mean it! if you don't want to read about a sex-centered teen don't read this.
On the one hand, I found it refreshing, but on the other, I couldn't bring myself to give it a 5 stars rating because there was something that didn't click with me for the main girl.

Chaotic, but very honest, this book depicts a new take on sexual and emotional development.

Unfortunately I stopped reading 1/2 way through. Whilst I've been a fan of all of Handler's previous works this just read like a bad dirty novel. Felt nothing for the character and there was no real story apart from the main character constantly wanting to get his end away.

Well, this is going to be controversial! Public libraries rush out and get this as soon as it is available, school libraries, I bet this one gets you some interesting comments! I can see the lights flashing and the censors racing to ban this from every library in the land.

Someone here on Goodreads has placed a comment that it should be reviewed by males, and I can see that, after all, we are firmly placed inside the head of a teenage boy who is thinking about sex, having sex, exploring all manner of sex and being generally a sex crazed teenage boy. This isn’t a relationship book and yet it is, this isn’t a helpful guide and yet it is.

I liked almost all of this novel.

I liked that it was short. There was no need to draw this out. Nice job Daniel Handler.

I liked that this teen guy seemed real, no stupid conversations, no helpful parents, just him and his penis and his constant thinking about using it.

I liked the honesty, the judgments that he was putting it about too much, the attitudinal change of his friends and classmates as he embarked on a relationship which excluded all of them.

I loved the way his relationship with his best friend changed as they tried out sex and then tried to figure out where they fitted in the hetro/homo state of the world.

What I didn’t like:
I didn’t love the girl in here, she seemed so one dimensional compared to him. But I get it, it is really all about her – ahem … attributes.

Many people will cringe at this book, but I’m going to buy a copy and hand it to our school counselor because I really liked it and I see it as having a voice that young people might really like, but there will be a bunch of haters and they are gonna hate real strong.

Yep, this is a novel about sex. All of the everythings about sex, from the point of view of a teenage boy and so it is really aptly named.

Thanks Netgalley and the publisher for giving me access to this. It was very enlightening and I won’t be looking a teenage boy in the eye for a couple of days now that I know what is going on behind those eyes.

A very interesting book.. It jumps around a lot but does a very good job of portraying Cole not as a lecherous person but one who can't help his desires and needs and the conflicting emotions he goes through as he tries to find himself. It is a literary take of the dirty thoughts of a teenage male and his constant need for sex and how that effects the world around him. Well worth reading.

Phwwwww, this is sure to be a controversial book, this snapshot of a very sex-obsessed teenage boy and his surprising emotional journey over the course of several months. I recommend with caution: it's honest (the title sure delivers in its promise), and I think its honesty will be both its appeal and its repulsion depending on your perspective as a reader.

Daniel Handler’s new release, All the Dirty Parts, is an entertaining story and a stark insight into the inner workings of a teenage boys mind.

The story follows Cole, a bit of a player, likes the sex but doesn’t deal with the emotional consequences for his conquests. His main goal is to score. That is until he meets his match in Grisaille.

It is through Grisaille that Cole finally gets his emotional comeuppance. Finally he gets a taste of his own medicine.

So imagine The Inbetweeners with less humour and you have All the Dirty Parts. That sounds a bit harsh but there really wasn’t much humour in the story and maybe it took itself too seriously.

All the Dirty Parts by Daniel Handler is available now.

For more information regarding Daniel Handler (@DanielHandler) please visit www.danielhandler.com.

For more information regarding Bloomsbury Publishing (@BloomsnuryBooks) please visit www.bloomsbury.com.

All The Dirty Parts is a short, sharp novel about teenage desire from Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket. It charts the inner thoughts—mostly dirty, as the title promises—of a high school boy who is gaining a reputation, or so people warn him. Cole is obsessed with sex and has slept with a number of girls, and described them all to his best friend Alec, but when things with this best friend move in a new direction and then new girl Grisaille takes over his focus, Cole finds out things aren’t as simple as he’d made them out to be.

Handler writes in a distinctive style, giving Cole a clear voice, and the whole novel is written in tiny snippets, like thoughts jumping back and forth. He takes the conversational narration of Holden Caulfield, the frank and explicit content of Bret Easton Ellis, and his own serious handling of young people’s thoughts and realities that will be recognisable to fans of A Series of Unfortunate Events, and creates a brash novel with a main character who seems all too typical. Everything is sketched lightly and the novel’s pace is quick, making it easy to consume in one sitting, and the ending leaves the kind of ambiguity found in teenage life, unsure what will happen next.

All The Dirty Parts is not for everyone. It is blunt, it talks extensively about teenagers having and thinking about sex, and it does with a narrator who is no simple hero. Some readers will find it uncomfortable; others will find Cole too unlikeable, or too honest a teenage boy. However, what Handler recognises is that teenagers will always consume media like this—maybe by discovering cult adult novels with famously explicit content, or through film and TV, or fanfiction, or otherwise. By writing a novel that appeals to both a sense of relatable content and a desire for that which feels shocking or exciting, he is depicting teenagers in a way that could be insightful to both them and adults, whilst also being entertaining.