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A review by archergal
IQ by Joe Ide
4.0
The folks in this novel live in a VERY different world from the one I live in. No disparagement meant by that. But I'm an old white woman, and these are (mostly) young black men who live in a rapper/gang-style culture.
I listened to the audiobook, and honestly, I'm glad I did. I felt like the narration helped me understand more of the nuance of the language than I might have gotten from reading. And ngl, I don't understand a hyper-masculine/don't-disrespect-me culture either. But honestly, I don't have to, cuz I can roll with the story.
That said, I listened to the whole book pretty much straight through, so yeah, the story caught me up and carried me along. Isaiah and Dodson make an interesting pair. Isaiah is the brain, the young man who honed his observation ability after his brother was killed, and honed all sorts of other abilities to become a pretty good detective. He's a strong thinker who came through some bad times to come to a strong sense of what's right and what's wrong.
I think I may have found a new paladin. I love competent characters who know what they believe is right, and try to do it.
The story jumps back and forth between the time of the main happenings of the novel and the time just after Isaiah lost his brother Marcus, and was unmoored for a while.
Isaiah, Dodson, Skip the hired killer, and Cal the rapper are all pretty strongly drawn characters. Some of the others tend to blend together for me.
My only gripe with the narrator of the book was that he didn't really use different voices to distinguish most of the characters. Sometimes I wasn't sure who was speaking.
I've already got the second book in the series. I'm going to eye-read it and see how different the experience is.
I listened to the audiobook, and honestly, I'm glad I did. I felt like the narration helped me understand more of the nuance of the language than I might have gotten from reading. And ngl, I don't understand a hyper-masculine/don't-disrespect-me culture either. But honestly, I don't have to, cuz I can roll with the story.
That said, I listened to the whole book pretty much straight through, so yeah, the story caught me up and carried me along. Isaiah and Dodson make an interesting pair. Isaiah is the brain, the young man who honed his observation ability after his brother was killed, and honed all sorts of other abilities to become a pretty good detective. He's a strong thinker who came through some bad times to come to a strong sense of what's right and what's wrong.
I think I may have found a new paladin. I love competent characters who know what they believe is right, and try to do it.
The story jumps back and forth between the time of the main happenings of the novel and the time just after Isaiah lost his brother Marcus, and was unmoored for a while.
Isaiah, Dodson, Skip the hired killer, and Cal the rapper are all pretty strongly drawn characters. Some of the others tend to blend together for me.
My only gripe with the narrator of the book was that he didn't really use different voices to distinguish most of the characters. Sometimes I wasn't sure who was speaking.
I've already got the second book in the series. I'm going to eye-read it and see how different the experience is.