Review - The Wasp Factory

Sometime during my English Lit A Level, in one of my textbooks, there was an extract from The Wasp Factory, and my English teacher gave us a rambling synopsis of the book, telling us it's "really very weird and [he couldn't] imagine why anyone would want to read it". Of course, I got curious, but never enough to buy the book. Browsing the library for some books to read, I spotted The Wasp Factory and decided I'd get it. I read it today. It's easy to read all in one go, I think. I probably took a couple of hours over it altogether.

My English teacher was right: it is pretty weird. The tone of it is matter-of-fact, confiding, and while the events would seem strange/shocking to the reader, the narrator takes it as read. The ending is also weird, along with the sudden philosophising about penis envy and whatever. The characters are pretty much all crackers.

Didn't love it, didn't hate it. I wasn't offended by it, nor was I massively caught up in it. The matter-of-fact tone, the disturbed main character, it's kind of interesting. But it's not really my thing.