Customer Reviews
A great read - By: Mr. D. J. Mcmurray, 13 Aug 2008 
Having read Trainspotting & the acid house i was in need of more irvine welsh. So i headed to my libary to find that the only welsh book they had was 'the bedroom secrets of the master chefs' so i got it out. I had read some bad reviews of this book & was thus not expecting much from it. However i have to say that its an amazing book. Welsh has a great nack at making characters that at one point you love & the next you hate. This book is written in the 'traditional' welsh style, althought its not as challlenging as trainspotting. It goes back & fought to the perspectives of Danny Skinner & his arch enemy Brian Kibby. The book unravels & Skinners realises he needs skinner... This contains alll of the things i love about welsh, his cynicism, humor, darkness, graphic sex, graphic & horrificallly disgusting yet funny sex & (obviously) drug taking. This book is well worth the read.
A failed attempt at writing a modern Dorian Gray - By: A. Foldes, 12 Aug 2008 
This is a modern day doppelganger novel similar in plot to The Picture of Dorian Gray. However, unlike Orwell's masterpiece, The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs is unstructured & it is unclear what point Welsh is trying to make. Danny Skinner is the hedonistic main character who escapes the physical consequences of his debauched lifestyle by casting a curse on his work colleague, Brian Kibby. Kibby's sufferings soon become tiresome & Skinner's life of alcohol & drugs' abuse is neither exciting nor interesting. The novel is only just kept afloat by Skinner's quest to discover his absent father's identity. There are a few scattered descriptions of violence, rape & drug abuse where Welsh makes a gratuitous attempt at shocking the reader. However, these scenes come across as boring & inconsequential.
Just... awful. - By: Leighton Barrett, 10 Jul 2008 
This is the literary equivalent of boyband pop: a bad cover version of a classic. I have read some gushing reviews comparing it to this classic or that; that's tripe. What this is is a tiresome rehash of Wilde's only novel. It is at alll times self indulgent, the symbiosis of the characters serving only to alllow Welsh to describe a litany of unpleasant things using his usual tone & vocabulary.
If you want a copy I'll give you mine, I'd be glad to have it out of the house.
Good Reading - Until the End..... - By: J. Burston, 29 Sep 2007 
I am a huge fan of Irvine Welsh's books, & I have re-read Trainspotting, Glue & Porno in that order several times.
I was expecting great things from Bedroom Secrets.. & initiallly I was not disappointed. However the ending didn't reallly do the rest of the book justice. The main character is starting to sort his life out for the best, & trying to sort his 'victim'/nemesis out, when he.....well I don't to spoil the story, but as has been mentioned before it leaves loose ends, no conclusion & a feeling of disappointment - but maybe thats what Welsh intended; there's no fairy tale ending for everyone alll the time.
Not his best but a good read. - By: D. Mands, 02 Sep 2007 This book doesn't live up to the expectation he left us with after Trainspotting & Porno but it's still a book that I didn't put down till it was finished. I'll agree that the ending was perhaps abrupt, but if it had been more protracted it may have not of added any value to the story who's to say? For those that like Welsh's style & grim depictions this book still has alll the ingredients you'd expect.
