He's On Fire

"Hey, there's this memoir about this kid that douses himself in gasoline and lights himself on fire. Yeah. You should read that."
Those were the words of a certain man.

I must admit, the idea of the book seemed pretty hot, and I personally deemed it more interesting than the story of a Colombian journalist. Just personal opinion.
No need to stone me.

So anyways, this is a memoir. It's actually pretty interesting in terms of its tone and point of view. Unlike Half a Life by Darin Strauss and St. Augustine's Confessions, this is narrated in the perspective of the author at the time. To clarify, it's like as if we're living the guy's life along with him. To reclarify, here's an example: if Brent (the narrator) was telling about his times as a 14 year-old, he actually sounds like a troubled emo adolescent dude-guy who still thinks any situation involving "YOLO" is a great idea. (I'm going to spoil it for you: It's NOT a good idea.)

To exemplify the previous reclarification, we can see some specialized language in the form of "cool kids", "that sucks", and of course, "Catherine's tits".
Oh no, I just said something that is generally not socially acceptable to say in public. Frankly, I don't think it matters too much this time due to the constant swearing and the occasional f-bombs dropped in the book anyways.

"I'm going to set myself on fire," he says. Then he promptly goes on to light himself on fire. Compared to the rest of the book, this crucial moment is actually only a few lines long. Then it's over. In a way, it will never be over. Pretty much the same thing if you don't think about it for too long. Anyways, this made me think: 'Did he purge himself of his past, or did he make it worse?'

The language used, along with the vivid descriptions of the mind provided by Brent himself, helps make him more relatable with myself, allowing readers to connect with him.
I just thought that was beautiful.