A review by peeled_grape
Scrapper by Matt Bell

2.0

Man, I was so prepared to like this. I did like it until, like, the beginning of part three, and then the whole thing fell apart. I had this cool, sophisticated reading, and actually started to write it out so I wouldn't forget it (which I never do), but then everything good this novel had going for it was thrown out the window. The third part of this ruined the first two for me.

Kelly just starts spiraling out of nowhere -- or nowhere that I could place -- and throws his life away very quickly because of nothing. It becomes very clear very quickly that this man is unhinged, but the book goes in a different direction than where it was leading.

I am so, so, SO sick of narratives that handle trauma the way this one does. I am sick of trauma being the reason someone becomes completely unhinged and violent and blind to boundaries altogether. It's so cheap. Kelly doesn't overtly blame his violent nature on the people who hurt him, but his motivations all come from that pain. I think that this book is all about morality, and the blurry nature of it -- looking at this explains the pretty random rapper section -- but oh my god, the last section was so lazy that I don't think it earns this. I have so, so many issues with this.

Anyway: This book is like if someone crossed Cormac McCarthy with Lindsey Drager (and maybe more specifically, "The Road" and "The Sorrow Proper," though I liked both of those better than this). Not sure how to feel about the complete absence of question marks. Was totally fine with the first two sections, though admittedly, it is hard to get through because it remains largely stagnant. Overall, it just came out cheap and cliché.