Sometimes you read a book and you just know you’re not the target audience.
Now, I am a black woman from the south side of Chicago. I have met and have known many people like the characters in this book, even called some of them friends. But I was never a part of this kind of world myself, so everything ended up feeling a bit… I guess sensationalized is the best way I can put it. And that’s probably the point of writing a book, right, so I can’t be mad at it for that.
What I can be mad at, though, is the fact that I feel like I just read the spark notes version of a book, rather than the book itself. A lot of stuff happens in this book, some of it very heavy, and we’re never really given the pacing to take in the gravitas of them before we’re on to the next plot beat. It kind of lessens the impact of everything. I feel like this author is actually good at setting a scene- you can see it once or twice when they actually slow down and explain things- but didn’t have the patience to describe or explain much of anything other than the bare minimum. I would love to read this with all the author’s ideas fleshed out, but as it is, it’s like she expected us to understand what it was she had pictured at any given time.
Three stars because the plot was actually really good once it picked up, but I did not really care about any of these characters if I’m being honest. And partially, it’s because I wasn’t given enough info about them TO care. They were barely people. How can I get emotionally invested?
I know the author is writing a sequel, but I’m very on the fence about if I’ll read it.