Kill Your Friends

by John Niven

Book Overview

AS the twentieth century breathes its very last, with Britpop at its zenith, twenty-seven-year-old A&R man Steven Stelfox is slashing and burning his way through London's music industry. Blithely crisscrossing the globe in search of the next megahit--fueled by greed and inhuman quantities of cocaine--Stelfox freely indulges in an unending orgy of self-gratification. But the industry is changing fast and the hits are drying up, and the only way he's...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0061690619
• ISBN13: 9780061690617
• Release Date: December 2008
• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.62 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.2" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Killing in the name of

"Kill Your Friends" isn't really a serious novel. It's serious in that it's well written and the author knows what he's talking about regarding the music business but other than that it's not going to be a psychological study in murder and the build up and after effects of such a deed (except of course getting away with it). And it's also not serious in that it's actually pretty bloody funny in parts too. The part I laughed out loud to was the part involving the coked out rapper bunkered down in his studio working on 30 minute songs. I also loved the indie bands portrayed in here. I wondered what bands they were based on and then thought they're all the same anyway so all of them. There's also a lot of corporate ladder climbing by our wily protagonist which leads to the murders. It's a really quick and funny read satirising the music industry and I loved it. John Niven's character voice is bloody minded but strangely likeable and always interesting. Good stuff. Encore!

Kill Your Friends

This is a razor sharp witty tale of a guy working in the music industry in the mid nineties. The main protagonist Steven should be very unlikeable but due to his refusal to ever apologize for his actions or repent he becomes quite a fascinating character. What starts off as quite an amusing piece of observational comedy soon develops into a quite tense and brutally dark horror comedy. Not for the easily offended but ideal for music fans and lovers of pop culture.

TUNE!!!

Highly entertaining. I constantly questioned what is truth and what is poetic license. Scary part is, I feel there is more truth than fiction! Love it :)

Contact me when the movie is being developed.

If you like things dark and you're not overly sensitive then this is for you. But then again only people with a dark soul will pick up a title called Kill Your Friends anyway. I wasnt exactly sure what to expect with this book. I was really surprised at how much I related to this character from his musical standpoint. I'm not very fond of popular music. I also felt that the other characters couldn't believe some of the things that he was saying which would have been a natural reaction. Very entertaining.

A Winner!

Imagine a character so completely depraved, degenerated and perverted that he makes Hannibal Lecter seem like a Sunday school teacher. Now imagine that character fueled by a mountain of cocaine and an ocean of vodka. Now take away any sensitivity he may have learned for others of a different race, gender, physical capability, social class, postal code or sexual preference. Make him believe that there is nothing so important as the pursuit of money, put him in a nice suit, give him an expense account and turn him loose on the world without a modicum of care about the consequences of his actions to himself or others. Now if I told you that you were going to read a novel centered on such a character, you might expect it to be a horror novel, or a thriller, maybe a mystery or police procedural. You would probably not expect that it would be the funniest thing you've read in years. I will caution you here: if you don't think humor can possibly mix with buckets of blood, vomit, urine, feces and semen, or if you couldn't possibly laugh where there is blatant bigotry, or if wretched excess offends you to the point where you lose your sense of humor, this might not be the book for you. If, however, you're possessed of a strong stomach and aren't easily offended, you're in for a treat.