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3.87 AVERAGE
3.87 AVERAGE
At this point I think most folks who are familiar with this book know that one of the narrators is crack cocaine. I thought this was an interesting concept for a book, but I was literally so mad at some of the characters and their choices it made it hard to enjoy the book.
That being said, I think this was really innovative and done well.
That being said, I think this was really innovative and done well.
I just couldn't get into it. Abandoning it a little less than halfway through, even though it's for book club.
challenging
dark
sad
tense
slow-paced
Hannaham is the real deal. Anyone who narrates full chapters of a novel from the point-of-view of crack, and can make it not turn out ridiculous or pretentious already gets mad points for degree of difficulty. Some of the descriptions of grief, anxiety, and addiction in this novel are as artfully phrased as any I've ever read. The only reason I'm not scoring this a 5 is that plot-wise, the momentum really slows at various points. But, man, can James Hannaham write.
challenging
dark
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Hands-down one of the best books I've read in a while. Adding to my all-time Favorites list. For a book so dark and grim, it's also one of the funniest novels I've read. I found myself laughing out loud continuously and also nodding or "mmm"-ing repeatedly (often on the laugh-out-loud-lines) where the prose - or a character's unintended insight - struck a note. A story with real guts (literal, figurative, political). Highly recommended. [I listened to this on audiobook - the author's reading of his novel is a spectacular performance, particularly of Scotty.]
In the end the stories are lies and it is our animal instinct that frees us? Hmmm. Stories can be blocks yes, walls prisons like delicious. They were enslaved by Scotty's narrative, by thinking they couldn't leave, by their own fear and addictions. We go on because we must and the stories limit us? Too simple of an answer. But is this what Hannaham is suggesting? The need for justice, to redeem the past, is this animal instinct? I don't know. Both Sirius and Eddie were able to escape not through hope but through hunting for crickets for food. Darlene wasn't able to escape she was forced out. Perhaps the way out is not a striving for better, a hoping for more, but a return to an animal state. This is where we find healing or freedom; in the opposite direction than one would think. We lose our limbs and we learn to work without them. Does blackness make one inherently no-handed? Every character of color in this book is so desperate. I don't know. I don't know.
"The men passed laughter between them like beer, mollifying a shared disappointment, frustration, and rage intense enough to turn murderous if you provoked it, though the opportunity to vent wouldn't ever arrive. Even if they got a chance, the talons of injustice would swoop down soon enough, dismember these men, and be gone, and everybody would forget that any of it had happened, leaving no trace aside from a lingering miasma that might rise into the Spanish moss." Pg. 63
"...she could faintly accept the romance of it; of human beings, all by themselves on a wet rock in an outpost of a universe whose size they couldn't comprehend, staring into the heavens to make primitive pictures in the air based on lights that might not even exist anymore. And one of these days all of it would disappear... Space would collapse, the planet would get torn apart by a comet, the sun would fry the solar system with a supernova, some catastrophe would obliterate human history and civilization. We'll be lucky... If our bonds become somebody else's fossils. " Pg. 365
"The men passed laughter between them like beer, mollifying a shared disappointment, frustration, and rage intense enough to turn murderous if you provoked it, though the opportunity to vent wouldn't ever arrive. Even if they got a chance, the talons of injustice would swoop down soon enough, dismember these men, and be gone, and everybody would forget that any of it had happened, leaving no trace aside from a lingering miasma that might rise into the Spanish moss." Pg. 63
"...she could faintly accept the romance of it; of human beings, all by themselves on a wet rock in an outpost of a universe whose size they couldn't comprehend, staring into the heavens to make primitive pictures in the air based on lights that might not even exist anymore. And one of these days all of it would disappear... Space would collapse, the planet would get torn apart by a comet, the sun would fry the solar system with a supernova, some catastrophe would obliterate human history and civilization. We'll be lucky... If our bonds become somebody else's fossils. " Pg. 365
Absolute Cracking good story but what sets this book apart is the wholly original narration. Numerous passages are from the POV of Crack Cocaine. Sounds odd but it's clever and it works.
Great read, will make a point to re-read someday
Great read, will make a point to re-read someday
Good, but hard to get through.
I was really excited to read this book since it had an alternate narrator (crack cocaine), but It just didn’t deliver for me. As long as it took me to get through it, I found that many parts were monotonous and vague. I really would’ve loved for there to be more about the development of Eddie and Darlene’s relationship post Delicious. In addition, I would’ve loved to know more about the trial, and more character development with others at Delicious (or, TT, Michelle, Sirius etc)
Glad I read it, but definitely glad I’m done. Onto the next!
I was really excited to read this book since it had an alternate narrator (crack cocaine), but It just didn’t deliver for me. As long as it took me to get through it, I found that many parts were monotonous and vague. I really would’ve loved for there to be more about the development of Eddie and Darlene’s relationship post Delicious. In addition, I would’ve loved to know more about the trial, and more character development with others at Delicious (or, TT, Michelle, Sirius etc)
Glad I read it, but definitely glad I’m done. Onto the next!