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A review by fantasyfunk
The Dirty Streets of Heaven by Tad Williams
1.0
Just didn't do it for me.
The main character was just not that likable to me. He is and isn't a complete jerk and basically the difference was whether or not he was around female characters. I can handle the snarky smart-ass cliche, but the misogyny was just too much eye-rolling for me. Plus I didn't really understand what the internal struggle was for Dollar. Lots of things happened to him or were happening around him, but other than trying to stay alive, he almost seemed involved because he had nothing better to do. Yes not dying is a good reason to do things, but it's not a super interesting character motivation.
Ohhh how I wanted to love Caz especially when every introduction of her got over the initial school girl costume. I wanted her to be the strong female demon opposition to Dollar. I wanted her to kick ass (even if dressed as a school girl) and just live up to her potential to be a great villain. Instead she completely seems to forget her introduction as a bad ass to go from one terrible abusive relationship to the next with lots of sex in between.
The plot seemed to happen mostly in the background since Dollar accidentally winds up in the middle of something he knows nothing about. The book was a lot of him trying to find things out but never really finding anything useful (just going to different places and meeting different characters) until at least midway through. Then we get a bit of reveal of things that might be wildly important and may or may not have anything to do with the big mystery of the beginning. Finally some more struggle to find things before everything is just tidily wrapped up together at the end. Or not so tidily as it seems like there's a lot left to be answered but at least we finally get to see that everything is related.
1 Star. I would have put it down if I didn't have a thing about finishing books and I wasn't trying to slog through with a friend.
The main character was just not that likable to me. He is and isn't a complete jerk and basically the difference was whether or not he was around female characters. I can handle the snarky smart-ass cliche, but the misogyny was just too much eye-rolling for me. Plus I didn't really understand what the internal struggle was for Dollar. Lots of things happened to him or were happening around him, but other than trying to stay alive, he almost seemed involved because he had nothing better to do. Yes not dying is a good reason to do things, but it's not a super interesting character motivation.
Ohhh how I wanted to love Caz especially when every introduction of her got over the initial school girl costume. I wanted her to be the strong female demon opposition to Dollar. I wanted her to kick ass (even if dressed as a school girl) and just live up to her potential to be a great villain. Instead she completely seems to forget her introduction as a bad ass to go from one terrible abusive relationship to the next with lots of sex in between.
The plot seemed to happen mostly in the background since Dollar accidentally winds up in the middle of something he knows nothing about. The book was a lot of him trying to find things out but never really finding anything useful (just going to different places and meeting different characters) until at least midway through. Then we get a bit of reveal of things that might be wildly important and may or may not have anything to do with the big mystery of the beginning. Finally some more struggle to find things before everything is just tidily wrapped up together at the end. Or not so tidily as it seems like there's a lot left to be answered but at least we finally get to see that everything is related.
1 Star. I would have put it down if I didn't have a thing about finishing books and I wasn't trying to slog through with a friend.