So, this author asked me to read his new book and review it, so here I am. Damn, what a mistake he made. I was probably one of the worst people to ask to read this book. Why? Because I'm not a white cishet man. And that's the only group this book may appeal to.
But let me start with the basics. The book starts with our protagonist (a white cishet man, what a surprise), who's a writer and receives a mysterious letter from a member of the mafia. He is asked to meet him in a small city to write his biography. When the protagonist gets there, weird things start to happen. That's basically it. That's the book. There are elements of mystery and "magic" that are absolutely useless, because they are ignored by everyone (author included). If you want to write a sort of thriller, there should be some tension, but the ending reveal is more than disappointing, and the attention of the reader is constantly diverted away from the weird things going on, just to land on the dirty thought of Mr. Finch. Because yes, this was also a poor attempt at the stream of consciousness while also having Finch talking directly to the reader. And this could have been fine if he actually had something to give to the narration, instead of always commenting on women's bodies. Because that's all he does. He calls Molly, his ex, Miss Sexy, and every woman he meets is compared to her and her curves. All he thinks about is how much he would like to f*CK every woman he meets. Poor him, he can't, because Molly is giving him a second chance and he doesn't want to cheat on her (spoiler: he will anyway). So basically we have a man who thinks with his d*CK and has no idea of what's going on. Wow, what a book. I was tired after the first 20 pages, but I read it all just so that I could give it a fair review. And this is it: this book is the perfect example of why men are sh*t. The author himself, making his character say things like "I'm like this", "I look at women like this", "I can't restrain myself and I won't change that", is justifying the toxic masculinity that's celebrated in the book. Needless to say, I was disgusted.
I think the author thought he was being funny. News flash: objectifying women is not funny, it's dangerous. It's the reason why so many men think they can own women and control every aspect of their life. It's the reason so many women die every year, killed by a man they knew. So promoting such a narrative, even if "ironically" (you can't be ironic on these things, it's very disrespectful), is misogynistic and unacceptable.
That's it. I won't read anything from this author again. And if you are a decent person, you should do the same.