Rum & hamburgers. Lobsters & mangoes. Skinny-dipping. Falling for someone else's girl. Pissed-off Puerto Ricans. Has-beens. Spongers. Public misbehavior. A shitty newspaper in decline. Soft-core lewdness. All held together: despite the fact Paul Kemp is far from sober most of the time, by a Hemingway-esque, first-person, clear and simple prose. No beating around the bush - just straight to the point in the least amount of words possible. For me, this was more enjoyable and accessible than Fear a...

Oh girlfriends, is this stuff dated! It’s so dated it stinks. I can’t imagine who would like to read it, really. Old boys, priests of the cult of St. Hemingway, who feel nostalgic about the good times when women, coloreds, and queers knew their place? Honestly, I can’t see the appeal.So the dude knew how to write, but hey, there are plenty of good writers who manage to write well AND stay fresh and relevant. Thompson isn’t one of them.It’s a sad and Tragic story of tough white Guys who are alone...

I guess I should explain the rating to those of you who would argue that this is Thompson's weakest work, and therefore undeserving of praise...*This novel catches Thompson before he is wrapped in the arms of fame and can get away with anything he wants. In this particular story, he still has to worry about going broke, getting stuck somewhere without hope or help, and potentially watching his dreams smash against the rocks like a heavily polluted ocean wave. Though much of this narrative is fic...

LOVED IT - Much preferred this the 2nd time around. Loved him referring to the other woman as his pig date all the time! So funny.

It isn't very good. The writing style isn't compelling, there is no plot and no hint of the future nor of the direction of the book. This is the kind of novel that you either adore or feel indifferent about. It's definitely NOT my cup of tea. There's no deep characterization nor natural growth of the bond between characters. Paul is an arrogant journalist who makes his way from New York to Puerto Rico to work at the only English-language paper on the island. As the paper sits near bankruptcy, he...

I just spent more than an hour and a half finishing The Rum Diary. I wanted to stop and hit the sack but something inside me whispered to go on. It was when I realized that nothing actually happened in the book. Large portion of the book was very descriptive; it’s like reading a strong-opinionated newspaper article about Puerto Rico and its appalling inhabitants. The Rum Diary opens very promising, with snippets of office politics, masculine desperation and one’s search to find the meaning of li...

I thought the story was a little slow, dull, and uninteresting at times. The plot was linear and logical but it lacked a hook to keep me interested. The dialogue and the interactions between the characters were believable The saving grace was Hunter S. Thompson's writng style. As with 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' I truly enjoyed the voice he is able to put behind his writing. This made the writing feel alive and vibrant. Overall it was an OK story but it went nowhere it thought. Thanks!

Fear and Loathing in San JuanA Hunter S. Thompson novel (made into a movie featuring Johnny Depp), which he began writing at the age of 22, about an American journalist working in San Juan. I am sure this is not a favorite in Puerto Rico, as it features a series of Ugly American journalists who loathe San Juan and loathe their jobs, and drink constantly. The writing is very good, very lean, pre-acid Thompson, All Rum All The Time, where our anti-hero Kemp lusts after his abusive colleague's girl...

The summer is getting steamy. Endless days above ninety degrees has me sitting in air conditioning nonstop. When I go out to on errands like I did yesterday, I find myself craving an ice cold drink. This summer I also actually participated in a seasonal challenge. I am a mood reader so I tend to avoid challenges other than open ended ones, but seven letters of scrabble was too fun to pass up. One of my letters was “r” and in need of a book, I caught the notice of rum. Rum and coke is definitely

I have a fascination with Hunter S Thompson. To me, he is the quintessential bad boy of the late 60s and onward. In your face, always high, and getting away with it. I used to fall for guys like that. I even married one but it didn't last. Still, I have a romantic remnant that attracts me to such rebels.But I haven't read his books, just his Rolling Stone pieces as they appeared during the years I was reading that mag, before it lost its edge. So, in my usual way, I am starting at the beginning....

This book was brutally normal. It went along nice and regular for a while and then something happens and you are sort of left to wonder how you should feel about it. Hunter S. Thompson is cool and collected in his thoughts and it really feels genuine. John Zelazny is another emerging Aspen writer and he is picking up where Thompson left off.

2 and a half starsThe Rum Diary is an early work by the Gonzo Journalist. Ostensibly a novel, the line between fiction and fact feels blurry when reading Thompson. The story is about a bevy of young hard-living journalists working for a struggling newspaper in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It's the late 1950's and Paul Kemp (Thompson?), the first person narrator, tells us of his and his disillusioned cohorts alcohol fuelled follies during his stint as a writer for a floundering newspaper.An unlikable c...

Dead or alive who would you like to have dinner with?Hunter S. Thompson would be a wonderful addition to any dinner party.Dude's brain is fascinating!

'"Happy," I muttered, trying to pin the word down. But it is on of those words, like Love, that I have never quite understood. Most people who deal in words don't have much fait in them and I am no exception -- especially the big ones like Happy and Love and Honest and Strong. They are too elusive and far too relative when you compare them to sharp, mean little words like Punk and Cheap and Phony. I feel at home with these, because they're scrawny and easy to pin, but the big ones are tough and

Journalist with bad attitude get a job in Puerto Rico working with other ill-tempered men. By the end of the story he has landed a beautiful girl who is simultaneously innocent and whorish. In between there are several rather pointless episodes of newsroom politics, and a stint at the Carnival which is climaxed by the girl dancing naked at a party: exposed to a pointedly non-white audience she clinches the narrators sympathy. Fans of HST may wish to read this for a look at his writing before he

'Here I was, living in a luxury hotel, ,racing around a half-Latin city in a toy car that looked like a cockroach and sounded like a jet fighter, sneaking down alleys and humping on the beach, scavenging for food in shark-infested waters, hounded by mobs yelling in a foreign tongue - and the whole thing was taking place in quaint old Spanish Puerto Rico...'I would guess that in the time that lapsed in this story, a couple tons of rum was consumed. I suppose that explains the title. But serious,

"No matter how much I wanted all those things that I needed money to buy, there was some devilish current pushing me off in another direction - toward anarchy and poverty and craziness. That maddening delusion that a man can lead a decent life without hiring himself out as a Judas Goat." Allegedly autobiographical, The Rum Diary is an accounting of newspaper journalist Paul Kemp's alcohol induced misadventures in Puerto Rico, circa 1959(ish). Aptly titled with a plethora of boozy contrivances an...

I have no doubt Hunter Thompson could have been a decent and successful novelist. Instead he created and named his own branch (Gonzo Journalism) of the New Journalism Tom Wolfe and others had pioneered. He probably made the right decision if a lasting literary legacy was his goal, and I think it was.This novel is influenced heavily by Hemingway and in particular, The Sun Also Rises. It is more engaging and entertaining than Hemingway's Parisian non-adventure, and the narrator is more believable

I’ve been a fan of Thompson’s writing since I first read and fell in love with Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and I haven’t looked back since! I absolutely adore his writing style, it’s just so gritty and has this really spectacular punch. I think this book is my least favourite out of the three of his I’ve read so far but it doesn’t mean it wasn’t great! It was an excellent story and I felt like I was living an episode of Narcos as I was reading and I loved it. But I do have to deduct one minor...