Irvine Welsh's Ecstasy is a collection of three thematically-tied novellas from the author of Trainspotting, all three subtitled "romances" that feature fetishistic (often taboo) sex acts, revenge, phonetically-written British accents (I watch enough BBC programming to get my hear around them, though the third story did try my patience), and of course, the drug Ecstasy. I kind of wish the first story had been a novel. A writer of historical romance jilted by her husband starts writing pornographic passages into her next book (Welsh does a passably dirty Jane Austen) with a necrophilia scandal brewing at a nearby hospital thrown in for good measure. The characters and structure could have entertained me for more than 75 pages. It's a case of diminishing returns after that. I did like the second tale, about a bank robber who falls for an armless young woman who in turn wants revenge on the manufacturers of the drug that made her be born with this deformity, but the third and longest story has far less motive power. We switch between the points of view of two characters destined to meet, and while I like Heather's rapid-fire stream of consciousness, party-boy Lloyd's sometimes impenetrable accent has nothing to say I want to hear. I could (should?) have stopped after the first story and been quite happy with the book.