Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by jenbsbooks
Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby
3.75
I'd heard some buzz about this one. When I found it in a Little Free Library, a BOTM, I snagged it. While having a physical copy shifts a book up my TBR ... I still go with digital. I was able to get the audio and Kindle copy from my library without much of a wait. I went primarily with the audio.
Ike and Buddy Lee are the two MCs, there is also Grayson and a few others. A single narrator in the audio, which was fine, as it was 3rd person (if it's 1st person, my brain requires different voices!) ... the narrator was good, I could tell he was black, which totally matched Ike, but didn't "fit" some of the other POVs as well. All past tense. None of the chapters had headers indicating the POV, you just had to pick it up from the text. Quite a few characters. I think I needed to have read the blurb before-hand, know what to expect, to understand the story from the start.
Honestly at the start, I wasn't sure I was going to like this book. The two MCs weren't very likeable. Ike had his violent past, Buddy Lee seemed the stereotypical "white trash" and both had been pretty lousy fathers to their sons. Grayson ... a bit of a personal problem here, as that's my husband's name, and I didn't like having a Grayson as a bad guy! Ike, and even Buddy Lee grew on me though, despite the continued violence. As the book says "Folks like to talk about revenge like it's a righteous thing, but it's just hate in a nicer suit." There were definitely several revelations along the way. Lots of possible "bookclub" discussions (I had brought this to a bookclub but it hadn't ended up being chosen). I really appreciated the discussion questions included in the Kindle copy (not in the physical book or audio).
As it progressed, it got a little "too much" in the action. Just a bit over the top. Something that I probably wouldn't really blink and eye at if it was live (tv/movie) ... I think I'm always a bit more judgmental when it comes to books. I know, suspension of disbelief and all that, but ...
I also noticed SO many similes. I know it's part of descriptive writing, but again, it just felt like too much. I actually enjoyed this in Sanderson's Steelheart series, but it was a running joke there, and the similes were crazy! Here ... they were a little too standard. Just in the book's first three sentences, there were two. "Ike opened his eyes. His lower back felt like it was filled with spun glass. He rose from his office chair and listened to his knees pop like rifle shots" ... others: had slaughtered that kid like a pig and fed him to the wood chipper like a mama bird feeding a chick. glimmer like gold nuggets, felt like the precipice was covered in bacon grease, came out low and long like the bottom note in a blues song, like hearing a rabbit scream in a trap, preserved like some cured meat, the tent flap like the wings of a dying bird, rumbled out of his chest like a freight train, the word caught in his throat like a chicken bone, the thought flashed in his mind like an LED sign, his head dull and brown like old pennies, the fight flowed out of him like water pouring through a sieve, made him glow like a shooting star, gleamed like showroom models, stacked next to each other like rifles in an armory, it was like slicing his face open with a razorblade, his esophagus was being pulled like saltwater taffy, cheap whiskey hung around him like a cloud, his brain is beating like a heart, popped them full of holes like a piece of chicken wire, standing out in sharp relief like a 3D map, slow and brutal like cinder blocks, it was charged like a thunderstorm, like he was trapped in an old photograph, smoke floated around her head like a gray halo, the cigarette tip glowed red like a dragon's eye, it lived inside him like a demon, released it like a hungry beast, his eyes shined like wet concrete, hot as the devil's backside, silent as stones, as cold as a mountain stream, black as an ace of spades, the warehouse was as sparse as a military barracks, the manager was pale as the belly of a fish, hard as a brick ...
That was just the first eight chapters, and there were metaphors too ...
It felt forced. Overworked.
Lots of proFanity (217), and racism and homophobia and murder, torture, violence ...
Words I note: cacophony, hirsute, swathe, panoply, detritus. I think this was the first book NOT in England that mentioned hedgerows (I see it all the time in books set in the UK, but not the US, didn't know if it was strictly a "British-ism" .
Title tie-in (two times) ...
"Tears for who they were and what they all had lost. Each drop felt like it was slicing his facee open like a razorblade." "The tears came again. They poured rom his eyes and ran over his cheeks. Flowed down to the stubble on his chin. This time they didn't feel so much like razorblades. They felt like the long-awaited answer to a mournful prayer for rain."
So ... I liked this, and I think I'll remember it fondly. It's not one I'd recommend to everyone, but to some. Would create good discussions for a bookclub (that can deal with the stronger content). I made some notes/highlights.
Ike and Buddy Lee are the two MCs, there is also Grayson and a few others. A single narrator in the audio, which was fine, as it was 3rd person (if it's 1st person, my brain requires different voices!) ... the narrator was good, I could tell he was black, which totally matched Ike, but didn't "fit" some of the other POVs as well. All past tense. None of the chapters had headers indicating the POV, you just had to pick it up from the text. Quite a few characters. I think I needed to have read the blurb before-hand, know what to expect, to understand the story from the start.
Honestly at the start, I wasn't sure I was going to like this book. The two MCs weren't very likeable. Ike had his violent past, Buddy Lee seemed the stereotypical "white trash" and both had been pretty lousy fathers to their sons. Grayson ... a bit of a personal problem here, as that's my husband's name, and I didn't like having a Grayson as a bad guy! Ike, and even Buddy Lee grew on me though, despite the continued violence. As the book says "Folks like to talk about revenge like it's a righteous thing, but it's just hate in a nicer suit." There were definitely several revelations along the way. Lots of possible "bookclub" discussions (I had brought this to a bookclub but it hadn't ended up being chosen). I really appreciated the discussion questions included in the Kindle copy (not in the physical book or audio).
As it progressed, it got a little "too much" in the action. Just a bit over the top. Something that I probably wouldn't really blink and eye at if it was live (tv/movie) ... I think I'm always a bit more judgmental when it comes to books. I know, suspension of disbelief and all that, but ...
I also noticed SO many similes. I know it's part of descriptive writing, but again, it just felt like too much. I actually enjoyed this in Sanderson's Steelheart series, but it was a running joke there, and the similes were crazy! Here ... they were a little too standard. Just in the book's first three sentences, there were two. "Ike opened his eyes. His lower back felt like it was filled with spun glass. He rose from his office chair and listened to his knees pop like rifle shots" ... others: had slaughtered that kid like a pig and fed him to the wood chipper like a mama bird feeding a chick. glimmer like gold nuggets, felt like the precipice was covered in bacon grease, came out low and long like the bottom note in a blues song, like hearing a rabbit scream in a trap, preserved like some cured meat, the tent flap like the wings of a dying bird, rumbled out of his chest like a freight train, the word caught in his throat like a chicken bone, the thought flashed in his mind like an LED sign, his head dull and brown like old pennies, the fight flowed out of him like water pouring through a sieve, made him glow like a shooting star, gleamed like showroom models, stacked next to each other like rifles in an armory, it was like slicing his face open with a razorblade, his esophagus was being pulled like saltwater taffy, cheap whiskey hung around him like a cloud, his brain is beating like a heart, popped them full of holes like a piece of chicken wire, standing out in sharp relief like a 3D map, slow and brutal like cinder blocks, it was charged like a thunderstorm, like he was trapped in an old photograph, smoke floated around her head like a gray halo, the cigarette tip glowed red like a dragon's eye, it lived inside him like a demon, released it like a hungry beast, his eyes shined like wet concrete, hot as the devil's backside, silent as stones, as cold as a mountain stream, black as an ace of spades, the warehouse was as sparse as a military barracks, the manager was pale as the belly of a fish, hard as a brick ...
That was just the first eight chapters, and there were metaphors too ...
It felt forced. Overworked.
Lots of proFanity (217), and racism and homophobia and murder, torture, violence ...
Words I note: cacophony, hirsute, swathe, panoply, detritus. I think this was the first book NOT in England that mentioned hedgerows (I see it all the time in books set in the UK, but not the US, didn't know if it was strictly a "British-ism" .
Title tie-in (two times) ...
"Tears for who they were and what they all had lost. Each drop felt like it was slicing his facee open like a razorblade." "The tears came again. They poured rom his eyes and ran over his cheeks. Flowed down to the stubble on his chin. This time they didn't feel so much like razorblades. They felt like the long-awaited answer to a mournful prayer for rain."
So ... I liked this, and I think I'll remember it fondly. It's not one I'd recommend to everyone, but to some. Would create good discussions for a bookclub (that can deal with the stronger content). I made some notes/highlights.