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rly18's review against another edition
3.0
3.5 stars you can find all my reviews at www.itsbooktalk.com
For some reason I'm finding this book hard to review. On the one hand, there is so much I liked about it and up until about 60%, I felt it was ticking along quite nicely. I loved that it started off with a safecracking scene and felt that until that point I was really invested in the story. After that, however, it started to slip for me and by the end I feel like I had disconnected from the story just a little which is very strange considering how much I started off liking it.
The story starts off action packed as we are introduced to Ricky, aka Ghost, a safecracker who freelances for the DEA. He's been called to a house of the DEA's most recent drug bust and then left alone (yes alone!) to open the safe with instructions to call the DEA agent in charge after he gets it open. Here's what's so interesting about this scene....we learn from Ricky's first person narration that in his past he was an addict and criminal who did some very bad things but for the past several years he's tried to do right and now has a plan to really help some people who need it. His plan involves taking the cash in that safe and using it to help others in need. And with this current safe, he hits the jackpot. Time is ticking though because the safe he has just cracked and the money he has stolen belongs to one of the biggest drug lords in LA and you just know things aren't going to go well when he finds out his money is gone.
Here is where the story alternates narration and we then meet Rudy Reyes, aka Glasses, the top associate of the drug lord who's safe Ricky just cracked. Glasses has his own story to tell and soon a very interesting tale is weaved that will connect him and Ricky in ways that ended up being very surprising and in several instances quite suspenseful. The author's style certainly shines with his use of language and dialect for both of these characters.
On paper, this is the perfect story for me and I found the author's writing to be so wonderfully authentic. The dialogue was perfect and I really felt the characters were unique and multi-dimensional. Where it started to go downhill for me is the repetitive number of times Ghost was driving in a car and playing various songs on the mix-tape that his past girlfriend, Rose (she had died), had made for him. As narrator, he would then reminesce about times together (in detail) and repeat over and over how much she meant to him. I got it, I really did but by about 65% I'd heard enough because what that effectively did was break up the pace of the story and cause me to become bored which isn't at all how I felt starting out and during the safe cracking scenes. Couple this with an ending that I just don't feel made sense for what we knew of the characters and I was left slightly disconnected.
For some reason I'm finding this book hard to review. On the one hand, there is so much I liked about it and up until about 60%, I felt it was ticking along quite nicely. I loved that it started off with a safecracking scene and felt that until that point I was really invested in the story. After that, however, it started to slip for me and by the end I feel like I had disconnected from the story just a little which is very strange considering how much I started off liking it.
The story starts off action packed as we are introduced to Ricky, aka Ghost, a safecracker who freelances for the DEA. He's been called to a house of the DEA's most recent drug bust and then left alone (yes alone!) to open the safe with instructions to call the DEA agent in charge after he gets it open. Here's what's so interesting about this scene....we learn from Ricky's first person narration that in his past he was an addict and criminal who did some very bad things but for the past several years he's tried to do right and now has a plan to really help some people who need it. His plan involves taking the cash in that safe and using it to help others in need. And with this current safe, he hits the jackpot. Time is ticking though because the safe he has just cracked and the money he has stolen belongs to one of the biggest drug lords in LA and you just know things aren't going to go well when he finds out his money is gone.
Here is where the story alternates narration and we then meet Rudy Reyes, aka Glasses, the top associate of the drug lord who's safe Ricky just cracked. Glasses has his own story to tell and soon a very interesting tale is weaved that will connect him and Ricky in ways that ended up being very surprising and in several instances quite suspenseful. The author's style certainly shines with his use of language and dialect for both of these characters.
On paper, this is the perfect story for me and I found the author's writing to be so wonderfully authentic. The dialogue was perfect and I really felt the characters were unique and multi-dimensional. Where it started to go downhill for me is the repetitive number of times Ghost was driving in a car and playing various songs on the mix-tape that his past girlfriend, Rose (she had died), had made for him. As narrator, he would then reminesce about times together (in detail) and repeat over and over how much she meant to him. I got it, I really did but by about 65% I'd heard enough because what that effectively did was break up the pace of the story and cause me to become bored which isn't at all how I felt starting out and during the safe cracking scenes. Couple this with an ending that I just don't feel made sense for what we knew of the characters and I was left slightly disconnected.
itsbooktalk's review
3.0
3.5 stars you can find all my reviews at www.itsbooktalk.com
For some reason I'm finding this book hard to review. On the one hand, there is so much I liked about it and up until about 60%, I felt it was ticking along quite nicely. I loved that it started off with a safecracking scene and felt that until that point I was really invested in the story. After that, however, it started to slip for me and by the end I feel like I had disconnected from the story just a little which is very strange considering how much I started off liking it.
The story starts off action packed as we are introduced to Ricky, aka Ghost, a safecracker who freelances for the DEA. He's been called to a house of the DEA's most recent drug bust and then left alone (yes alone!) to open the safe with instructions to call the DEA agent in charge after he gets it open. Here's what's so interesting about this scene....we learn from Ricky's first person narration that in his past he was an addict and criminal who did some very bad things but for the past several years he's tried to do right and now has a plan to really help some people who need it. His plan involves taking the cash in that safe and using it to help others in need. And with this current safe, he hits the jackpot. Time is ticking though because the safe he has just cracked and the money he has stolen belongs to one of the biggest drug lords in LA and you just know things aren't going to go well when he finds out his money is gone.
Here is where the story alternates narration and we then meet Rudy Reyes, aka Glasses, the top associate of the drug lord who's safe Ricky just cracked. Glasses has his own story to tell and soon a very interesting tale is weaved that will connect him and Ricky in ways that ended up being very surprising and in several instances quite suspenseful. The author's style certainly shines with his use of language and dialect for both of these characters.
On paper, this is the perfect story for me and I found the author's writing to be so wonderfully authentic. The dialogue was perfect and I really felt the characters were unique and multi-dimensional. Where it started to go downhill for me is the repetitive number of times Ghost was driving in a car and playing various songs on the mix-tape that his past girlfriend, Rose (she had died), had made for him. As narrator, he would then reminesce about times together (in detail) and repeat over and over how much she meant to him. I got it, I really did but by about 65% I'd heard enough because what that effectively did was break up the pace of the story and cause me to become bored which isn't at all how I felt starting out and during the safe cracking scenes. Couple this with an ending that I just don't feel made sense for what we knew of the characters and I was left slightly disconnected.
For some reason I'm finding this book hard to review. On the one hand, there is so much I liked about it and up until about 60%, I felt it was ticking along quite nicely. I loved that it started off with a safecracking scene and felt that until that point I was really invested in the story. After that, however, it started to slip for me and by the end I feel like I had disconnected from the story just a little which is very strange considering how much I started off liking it.
The story starts off action packed as we are introduced to Ricky, aka Ghost, a safecracker who freelances for the DEA. He's been called to a house of the DEA's most recent drug bust and then left alone (yes alone!) to open the safe with instructions to call the DEA agent in charge after he gets it open. Here's what's so interesting about this scene....we learn from Ricky's first person narration that in his past he was an addict and criminal who did some very bad things but for the past several years he's tried to do right and now has a plan to really help some people who need it. His plan involves taking the cash in that safe and using it to help others in need. And with this current safe, he hits the jackpot. Time is ticking though because the safe he has just cracked and the money he has stolen belongs to one of the biggest drug lords in LA and you just know things aren't going to go well when he finds out his money is gone.
Here is where the story alternates narration and we then meet Rudy Reyes, aka Glasses, the top associate of the drug lord who's safe Ricky just cracked. Glasses has his own story to tell and soon a very interesting tale is weaved that will connect him and Ricky in ways that ended up being very surprising and in several instances quite suspenseful. The author's style certainly shines with his use of language and dialect for both of these characters.
On paper, this is the perfect story for me and I found the author's writing to be so wonderfully authentic. The dialogue was perfect and I really felt the characters were unique and multi-dimensional. Where it started to go downhill for me is the repetitive number of times Ghost was driving in a car and playing various songs on the mix-tape that his past girlfriend, Rose (she had died), had made for him. As narrator, he would then reminesce about times together (in detail) and repeat over and over how much she meant to him. I got it, I really did but by about 65% I'd heard enough because what that effectively did was break up the pace of the story and cause me to become bored which isn't at all how I felt starting out and during the safe cracking scenes. Couple this with an ending that I just don't feel made sense for what we knew of the characters and I was left slightly disconnected.
meganjjang's review
5.0
I expected to love this after All Involved was the beat book I read in 2016, and love it I did.
This is a really gritty urban thriller which deals with harsh topics such as suicide, illness, drugs and gang crime. And it is fantastic. The characters that Gattis writes are not only interesting, but feel real and though the stories he writes
sometimes take "outlandish" twists actually, they seem very realistic in context - like this could be happening right now in Downtown L.A. and no one would bat an eyelash at it.
Thank you for a fantastic read again, Mr. Gattis - I look forwad to many more!
This is a really gritty urban thriller which deals with harsh topics such as suicide, illness, drugs and gang crime. And it is fantastic. The characters that Gattis writes are not only interesting, but feel real and though the stories he writes
sometimes take "outlandish" twists actually, they seem very realistic in context - like this could be happening right now in Downtown L.A. and no one would bat an eyelash at it.
Thank you for a fantastic read again, Mr. Gattis - I look forwad to many more!
dncnbwrs's review
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
harper2301's review
4.0
I was very pleasantly surprised with this book.... which now sounds odd considering the ending but I thought, "a book about a safe!? I'm going to hate this" and I'm glad to proven completely wrong and terrible for judging a book by its cover!
I received this book as part of a mixed box of books from A Box of Stories and it is definitely worth the 4 star rating.
If you're going to judge by covers (as I did!) and assume this is going to be a thriller, you're probably going to be disappointed and I mean that in the most positive way as I thoroughly enjoyed it because it was the exact opposite of it!
The plot with Ricky and Rose was another pleasant surprise (again, feels weird to say it like that?
I received this book as part of a mixed box of books from A Box of Stories and it is definitely worth the 4 star rating.
If you're going to judge by covers (as I did!) and assume this is going to be a thriller, you're probably going to be disappointed and I mean that in the most positive way as I thoroughly enjoyed it because it was the exact opposite of it!
The plot with Ricky and Rose was another pleasant surprise (again, feels weird to say it like that?
leucocrystal's review
4.0
I don't often take chances on new contemporary fiction these days, because 95% of it just pisses me off at this point, but I had loved "All Involved" when I read it a couple years ago, so when I came across a galley of a new one by Ryan Gattis, I scooped it up immediately. It shares some stylistic qualities and conceits with the former novel, but that's a good thing when an author can work that style so well. (The prior bounces around between a much larger cast of characters, however; "Safe" simply rotates back and forth between two.) Once again, LA gang culture is the setting, but later on; a couple of days in September of 2008, this time. Still excellent, just like his first novel. Highly recommended.
drewsof's review
3.0
Not bad by any means, just not what I think I wanted (or wanted right now). Gattis keeps the novel zipping and renders the LA gang scene vividly - but I found it hard to really lock in with either Ghost or Glasses. It didn't help that Ghost was the far more complex, more deeply rendered character, to Glasses' detriment. Still, the cat-and-mouse plus the ultimate denouement were enough to keep me reading and I'm excited to get into Gattis' earlier work.
etienne02's review against another edition
2.0
J’ignore si je dois blâmer le roman ou la traduction. Une traduction franchouillarde, d’un tout autre niveau, des plus déplaisantes pour mes oreilles québécoises. Le récit en souffre, les personnages perdent de la crédibilité et le tout m’a fait décrocher. J’aurais sans doute plus apprécié en version orignal, mais malgré tout, l’histoire me semblait réchauffée, du déjà-vu qui manque de profondeur. Pas d’un grand intérêt pour moi… C’est malheureux. Il s’agissait du premier livre de la sélection de juin du Prix des lecteurs du livre de poche 2020
jill_rey's review against another edition
4.0
I highly recommend this book to readers interested in experiencing feelings of empathy for characters, while remaining on the edge of your seat rooting for the “good guys.” This book makes you realize we are deeper than our past and people we run with. It’s ultimately a story best described as a “ghetto robin hood.” A brilliant safecracker you can’t help but feel for.
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