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Title: Kill Your Friends
Author: John Niven
Narrator: Tom Riley
Format: Unabridged
Length: 7 hrs and 37 mins
Language: English
Release date: 11-05-15
Publisher: Random House AudioBooks
Ratings: 5 of 5 out of 1 votes
Genres: Fiction, Contemporary
Publisher's Summary:
Meet Steven Stelfox.
London, 1997: New Labour is sweeping into power, and Britpop is at its zenith. A&R man Stelfox is slashing and burning his way through the music industry, fuelled by greed and inhuman quantities of cocaine, searching for the next hit record amid a relentless orgy of self-gratification.
But as the hits dry up and the industry begins to change, Stelfox must take the notion of cutthroat business practices to murderous new levels in a desperate attempt to salvage his career.
Members Reviews:
Cartoon satire
Hedonistic nutter A&R man sniffs, screws and eventually throws the moral compass out into space, in his rush to survive in the 1990's music business. Apart from Steven Stelfox, the star of this story, characterisation is cartoonishly thin. I think this is done on purpose, so that the reader cares as little for the fate of each character that comes unstuck, as Stelfox does himself.
There is a lot of grim humour here, one or two bits genuinely causing me to laugh out loud, partly in shock at the latest antic. As the book was written 8 years ago and deals with an industry in the last days before the internet revolution, there is a nostalgic feeling that this might be back in the bad old days and it couldn't happen today!
I enjoyed the narration, which caught the air of the privileged exec very well.
Not for the easiy offended
Very graphic and crude novel but very entertaining diving into the world of a clear psychopath. The narration is incredible and I'd recommend this book.
It's all TRUE
I've worked in music for 12 years.
This is ALL TRUE. And highly entertaining.
Most of the characters are real and still work in music.
Film bad. Book good.
A great story read poorly...
There are a couple major issues with this audiobook, which I feel have completely ruined the listening experience, and unfortunately, I wouldn't recommend it.
I say unfortunately, as I thoroughly enjoyed the book. So much so, that I've bought it three times and still don't have a copy.
Firstly, the sound quality on the recording is, in parts, just plain terrible. There are sections when you can barely hear Tom Riley at all (notably, the protagonist's Stephen Stelfox inner monologue), then parts where the audio is so painfully loud, it distorts (mainly Derek/Rudi screaming). I mean it physically hurts to listen to, and I found myself constantly turning the volume up and down....
It's a pretty easy fix; Tom, you generally don't whisper when recording an audio-book, and if you're going to shout, move away from the microphone a bit.
But recording quality aside, I have the same issue with this as I have with the film adaptation; the actors and/or director seemed to have completely misinterpreted the characters.
This is hardly surprising, as on further examination, it turns out Tom Riley is actually an actor from the film - and it soon becomes clear that he was doing his best (and actually quite a good job) of imitating the actors' portrayal of their characters from the film. The problem being, they all got it wrong in the first place.
Stephen Stelfox is a loathsome character. An absolutely hideous example of a human being. But in the book, for some unbeknown reason, the reader is completely engrossed by him. You're really rooting for him and find that you have this strange kind of respect for him.
