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    Hating Olivia: A Love Story
    Unavailable
    Hating Olivia: A Love Story
    Unavailable
    Hating Olivia: A Love Story
    Ebook310 pages5 hours

    Hating Olivia: A Love Story

    By Mark SaFranko

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    “A book of quiet horrors and beautifully expressed longing. . . . SaFranko’s prose is precise, flawless, and the work of a man who truly loves and understands great writing.” —Tony O'Neill, author of Sick City and Down and Out on Murder Mile

    “SaFranko writes from the heart, and the balls, crafting a furious and passionate piece of work that is entirely his own, with some scenes that would make even Bukowski blush.” —Susan Tomaselli, editor of Dogmatika.com

    Hating Olivia is acclaimed underground author Mark SaFranko’s darkly twisted story of two people’s descent into sex, obsession, and mutual destruction. A gritty confessional tale, Hating Olivia is sure to appeal to fans of Charles Bukowski, John Fante, and Huburt Selby, Jr.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateNov 16, 2010
    ISBN9780062023667
    Unavailable
    Hating Olivia: A Love Story
    Author

    Mark SaFranko

    Mark SaFranko’s novels have garnered rave reviews and a cult following throughout Europe, particularly in France. His stories have appeared in more than sixty magazines and journals internationally, including the renowned Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. In 2005 he won the Frank O’Connor Award from Descant magazine for his short fiction. He was cited in Best American Mystery Stories 2000 and has been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize. SaFranko is also a playwright whose work has been performed on stages in Ireland and the United States. As an actor, he has appeared in several independent films, including Inner Rage, A Better Place, Shoot George, and The Road from Erebus.

    Read more from Mark Sa Franko

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    Reviews for Hating Olivia

    3.5/5

    18 ratings2 reviews

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    • 3/5
      The Short of It:Hating Olivia is about obsession and lust and how easily we can lose ourselves when we are confronted with it.The Rest of It:Max is the type of guy who cruises through life. He’s educated, but unfocused. He would rather write, than make ends meet but the writing doesn’t happen too often. Although a bit unstable when it comes to finances, overall he’s a pretty happy guy.Enter Olivia Aphrodite. Olivia is drop-dead gorgeous. She too, is not too stable in the finance department and has made a living working dead-end jobs and letting men (with money), take “care” of her.Although their personalities are quite different, Max and Olivia move in together and it goes downhill from there.The story is told from Max’s point of view so what we get is the incredible frustration he experiences in loving a creature like Olivia. Max is consumed by her and completely obsessed with her. As their relationship progresses, he realizes that he needs to break it off, but how? How does one extract himself from an addiction such as this?I must tell you right off, that there is a lot of sex in this little novel. A lot of sex, and a lot of language that you may not be comfortable with. Putting that aside, I found myself able to relate to both characters. Although you may never experience a relationship such as the one Max has with Olivia, you’ve probably known someone who has.The story is a bit repetitive because this couple flounders over and over again while trying to make it work. But there was something about the novel that kept me reading. Perhaps, I wanted Max to find a way out. Perhaps it was a bit like watching a train wreck. Either way, I could not pull myself away from the novel and found myself completely wrapped-up in the story.The writing is tight and the characters never waver. Also, Max is quite the reader so there are lots of literary references that you might enjoy. Overall, I enjoyed reading it even though it’s not something I would have normally picked-up on my own.
    • 3/5
      This book initially sounded intriguing, but somehow it was different than I expected. I'm torn on this one. There are things that I liked about the book, but the characters were not really very likeable. Olivia is just trouble from the get-go. I also would not call Max and Olivia' relationship "love" in any real sense - obessession, most definitely - but not love. The story is told from Max's point of view, so we only get his interpretation of Olivia's motives for her behavior. Max is just this guy who reads all the time and thinks he is too smart or too good to work like everyone else, so he holds down a series of low-level, unchallenging jobs to pay the bills --- but only when he has to. He would prefer to let Olivia support him while he spends his time reading and supposedly working on his novel. For most of the book, Max gets nothing useful done. All he cares about is not being required to actually work and having sex with Olivia. And occasionally talking about writing his book. He knows he is just stumbling through his life, but he keeps doing it. The relationship that Max and Olivia have is just so wrong on so many levels. They are one of those couples that bring out the worst in each other. We've all known a couple or possibly been part of such a couple. It is painful to watch and it was painful to read about them. But here's the thing -- I couldn't put the book down once I got a couple of chapter into it. Not much happens, and while I didn't really like Max or Olivia much, I thought Max was pretty funny and the writing is very good. There are lots of literary references throughout the book, which were fun. And, I wanted to see if Max and/or Olivia made it through to the other side of their completely awful relationship. Review copy provided by Harper Perennial.