WOWWW. This book is absolutely insane. I’ll just say this: if you can make it through the first chapter without throwing up (no, seriously) then you should be good to go.

Before reading this book, I knew Manson was a great guy, because of interviews and praise from other people, but by reading his autobiography, you actually understand that he’s a really decent guy, and deserves a lot of respect.

Ever since watching fragments of a VH1 special on Marilyn Manson, I’ve wanted to read this book. He impressed me with how articulately he spoke, and I was convinced that all the bad rap was misunderstanding. He couldn’t be as bad as all that.

What I have learned:

1. Rock stars do even more drugs than I imagined possible.
2. Shock rockers get involved in more bizzare, twisted, depraved shit (sometimes literally) than I thought possible.
3. Marilyn Manson had a really twisted childhood.
4. He is also extremely arrogant, which goes along with being a shock rocker and a Satanist.
5. He is not, in fact, as bad as “all that”. But it isn’t all an act, either. He really is that dark and twisted.

Even with an acknowledged ghost writer, the prose was not fantastic or riveting. Lucikly, the subject matter was enough to keep me going out of morbid fascination at first, and then just plain stubbornness, and desperation to finish it and move on to something a little bit less cheery.

I’m glad I finally satisfied my curiosity, but I’m glad that I’m done reading this. The coworker who lent it to me commented that it’s “like watching a train wreck” and I agree wholeheartedly. A bloody, animal-entrailed, drug-laden, shock-rocking train wreck. And that’s never good.