I LOVE everything about Trainspotting. I love the language, though it may be confusing at first, once you get the hang of it its beautiful. I love every character (especially Sick Boy and Spud, they're hilarious). The story has gritty realism and fantasy at the same time. It's moving, compelling, disturbing and one of my favorites.

The film is also great; Danny Boyle gives Trainspotting the respect it deserves. ( )

Perfect read and not as intimidating as the first page makes it out to be. Like the movie but added bonus of different narrators throughout. I loved it. ( )

Fan-fucking-tastic. This book was incredible, very bizarre, but great. The movie of the same title is based on it and that also is good. I read this for work, but loved it anyway. I’m glad I read it for work, otherwise I probably wouldn’t have. Written in dialect with no quotation marks, stylistically very interesting. About a bunch of junkies running around Scotland trying to live. ( )

After reading Trainspotting I had to ask myself what else I've been missing. The main characters are addicts, junkies, heavy drinkers and a sicko or two, with heroin as the star here. It's an alien culture to me, but I just couldn’t put the book down, dialect and all. I also have no clue about this subculture of underclass in 1980s Scotland, but Welsh writes it as if he’s been there and followed this group of people around. I won’t go into the plot here (there are lots of places you can find info on this book), but at times I was horrified to find myself actually laughing in the midst of what seemed several pointless and hopeless situations – in appreciation of some scenes of incredibly black humor. At the same time, I found myself getting into the characters emotionally, seeing them as people who are disenfranchised on many levels. Welsh does a superb job of capturing the anger, boredom and disconnection of his characters (who come off as being very real) showing both the positives & negatives of friendship & other emotional connections in a series of small, connected vignettes, told in chronological order.

Very well written; I highly recommend it. If you get stuck while reading it, there’s a glossary in the back; I found myself at least at first trying the dialect orally and after a while it wasn’t even noticeable and the book flowed. Readers of Palahniuk or other writers who have the ability to capture the rage of a generation might enjoy this one, but this book is definitely not for everyone. ( )