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Skill
Stephen Long is a high school teacher at the start of summer vacation. He's out for a jog trying to better himself--middle age has brought with it a paunch and high cholesterol--when he finds a discarded duffel bag full of money. A lot of money. 1.2 million dollars to be exact. Game-changing money. Life changing money. So much money that Stephen knows it will better his life and the lives of his wife and kids. He takes the money, ignoring the fact that the duffel bag he's found it in is bloodied and bullet pocked.What Stephen hasn't noticed out in the woods where he found the money is the bag man lying mortally wounded some distance off. But the dying man has seen Stephen, and when two out-of-town gun men arrive looking for the cash owed their boss, the last thing the bag man does before he expires is to tell them everything he knows. Including what Stephen's description.The out-of-towners--who refer to themselves as Bandit and Snowman--are stone cold killers from down in New York City, sent to retrieve their boss' money. What they quickly piece together is the crew that owed their boss the money was robbed by the dead bag man. They hook up with the crew, which is led by a young thug named Antoine. Sure, 'twan is a gangster, but he has ambition and skill. He wants to parlay the money he makes hustling into his career as a magician for children's parties. Snowman and Bandit tool around town with 'twan and his boys, hunting down leads that will show them the way to their money. Meanwhile, Stephen is already dreaming of the ways he'll spend the fortune he's come into. He'll buy a new car, hire a personal trainer, and leave his wife for Ming, the younger woman at work he's infatuated with. He's bubbling over with excitement and tempted to tell someone, but who's he going to tell? His neighbor, Allen? No. Allen is distraught over the disappearance of his drug-addled youngest daughter, Trina, who appears to have run away again. His other neighbor, Kyle? No. Kyle is beset by PTSD from a war in the desert and often stands around outside by himself outside at night on the lawns. Stephen won't be deterred. Brimming with optimism, and feeling that, for the first time in his life, things are going his way, he calls Ming and asks her if she'd like to meet him for a cup of coffee downtown. Surprisingly, she agrees. Things definitely are going his way.Until they aren't. Stephen meets Ming at the coffee house and does his best to woo her. Unbeknownst to our high school teachers, one of 'twan's boys spots Stephen, recognizing him from a detail the bag man let on to Snowman and Bandit. Whne he follows Stephen to his house, he reports the information. Now the out of town killers know where Stephen lives. They know where their money is. And things are about to get crazy.
290 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 25, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 1, 2015
~I received this book through Goodreads First Reads in exchange for an honest review~
Warning: There are mild spoilers in this review.
Plot
Due to the back cover, I thought that this would be the type of book that I would get hooked on right away. However, it turned out to be the type of book that I was mildly interested in and took some self-coercion to pick up. The pace was slower than I'd hoped it would be, though it did pick up in the last few pages. Aside from these negatives, though, the storyline itself was good and the concept interesting enough to read through to the end.
Characters
A lot of the characters in this book didn't have a whole lot of depth, but nevertheless, I did have emotions relating to a few of them.
Firstly, there's Stephen - he completely pissed me off. He was very hypocritical - "He was a man who didn't want but also didn't have a lot of things." says the guy who stole the bag of cash from the park with plans of extravagant purchases. One paragraph later, "The one point two million on his kitchen table was a lot of things. For starters, it was his. That was the most important part." Page 42. Riiiiight Stephen, you don't want a lot of things at aaalllllllll...and he was also a bit of a dick. Every chapter he had required a good sitting-down and talking-to on how you should and should not behave towards other people.
All of the other characters I either mildly liked or mildly disliked, but I do have three favourites - Lindell for his tolerance (driving and spending time with people he wouldn't likely want to spend time with), Antoine for his hopes of a better future, and Jack for his badassery.
General Things
A lot of sentences were choppy, and it felt like a lot of words were missing - I know it was most likely done for effect, but it interrupted my reading flow and took me out of the story rather than bringing me in.
There were quite a lot of racist undercurrents that bordered on over-currents, which felt a little unnecessary.
Overall
I enjoyed the story that this book tells, and would probably have enjoyed it more if it had been told in a slightly different style.
Warning: There are mild spoilers in this review.
Plot
Due to the back cover, I thought that this would be the type of book that I would get hooked on right away. However, it turned out to be the type of book that I was mildly interested in and took some self-coercion to pick up. The pace was slower than I'd hoped it would be, though it did pick up in the last few pages. Aside from these negatives, though, the storyline itself was good and the concept interesting enough to read through to the end.
Characters
A lot of the characters in this book didn't have a whole lot of depth, but nevertheless, I did have emotions relating to a few of them.
Firstly, there's Stephen - he completely pissed me off. He was very hypocritical - "He was a man who didn't want but also didn't have a lot of things." says the guy who stole the bag of cash from the park with plans of extravagant purchases. One paragraph later, "The one point two million on his kitchen table was a lot of things. For starters, it was his. That was the most important part." Page 42. Riiiiight Stephen, you don't want a lot of things at aaalllllllll...and he was also a bit of a dick. Every chapter he had required a good sitting-down and talking-to on how you should and should not behave towards other people.
All of the other characters I either mildly liked or mildly disliked, but I do have three favourites - Lindell for his tolerance (driving and spending time with people he wouldn't likely want to spend time with), Antoine for his hopes of a better future, and Jack for his badassery.
General Things
A lot of sentences were choppy, and it felt like a lot of words were missing - I know it was most likely done for effect, but it interrupted my reading flow and took me out of the story rather than bringing me in.
There were quite a lot of racist undercurrents that bordered on over-currents, which felt a little unnecessary.
Overall
I enjoyed the story that this book tells, and would probably have enjoyed it more if it had been told in a slightly different style.
May 12, 2015
Skill is one of those books that I find to be rare. What has made it rare is that is so different than anything Tony Monchinski has written before. I started off reading Tony's work with the Eden series of books. Eden was just one of those type of books that I couldn't put down and I couldn't wait for the next one in the series. I was hooked from the first book to the last one.
Tony then introduced us to the I Kill Monster series. One of the few authors today that is not writing Vampire's and Werewolves that feel like they belong in a teenage star crossed lovers world. It really put the bite back into Vampires.
Warlord Dervish was another book by Tony that hooked me in right away. It has the action mixed with elements of horror. Tony's book Little Bird's was one of the first books to cause me to stop and look at the person sitting next to me. That was until I read Skill. Skill now has me wondering, what is it that my neighbor might be hiding? Why does that car keep circling the neighborhood? Who are those two strangers that keep walking past my neighbors house?
Skill has something for everyone to connect with. We live in a world that anything can happen at anytime and Skill brings that to light. Tony Does a great job in showing that and creating a world that is so true to life. I think we all know a character or two from Skill in our own lives. Knowing that makes me look at my friends, family and neighbors and wonder what they are true capable of.
Tony then introduced us to the I Kill Monster series. One of the few authors today that is not writing Vampire's and Werewolves that feel like they belong in a teenage star crossed lovers world. It really put the bite back into Vampires.
Warlord Dervish was another book by Tony that hooked me in right away. It has the action mixed with elements of horror. Tony's book Little Bird's was one of the first books to cause me to stop and look at the person sitting next to me. That was until I read Skill. Skill now has me wondering, what is it that my neighbor might be hiding? Why does that car keep circling the neighborhood? Who are those two strangers that keep walking past my neighbors house?
Skill has something for everyone to connect with. We live in a world that anything can happen at anytime and Skill brings that to light. Tony Does a great job in showing that and creating a world that is so true to life. I think we all know a character or two from Skill in our own lives. Knowing that makes me look at my friends, family and neighbors and wonder what they are true capable of.
April 1, 2015
I don't want to get to into the plot and spoil anything but I will say that if you read the synopsis and think this is for you then you should give it a go. I enjoyed it and I really like that it's broken into small chunks so you can take a little bit in at a time, sort of like a busy day book that you can read a page or two and put it down then come back in five minutes.
May 14, 2015
Very well written. Suspenseful plotting. Hadn't heard of this author until I won this book on goodreads. I'm glad I did. Characters are flawed and real. About consequences for bad decisions Ends like things do in real life. Really good.
April 23, 2015
NOTE: I received this book free through the Goodreads First Reads program.
I’m sorry to say I did not like this book (mostly because I received it as a free giveaway; to be negative feels ungracious). Nevertheless, I offer my honest review.
It seems that every cliché in the book has been dumped into Skill. Some of the characters, for example, include: the Italian wise guys, one an overly aggressive juice head decked out in various track suits, the other, a slob who overindulges in food and drink; criminal, lazy black thugs “chilling” their lives away doing nothing of substance; black women who are primarily whores/whorish; the petite Asian woman who is fetishized by the middle-aged, overweight, white male protagonist living through his midlife crisis; white women who are either nosey, nags, or whores (because we need more thrown in for good measure); and the veteran, who is a PTSD lethal hot mess. The storyline is no more imaginative than the characters.
As I navigated the stilted, weirdly abbreviated sentences (which I suppose was an attempt at regional dialect?) I wondered, “Who is the target audience for this book?” I can only surmise that it isn’t me. But then, I tend to avoid misogynistic boys club narratives replete with tired tropes, gratuitous pejoratives, and worn out storylines.
I’m sorry to say I did not like this book (mostly because I received it as a free giveaway; to be negative feels ungracious). Nevertheless, I offer my honest review.
It seems that every cliché in the book has been dumped into Skill. Some of the characters, for example, include: the Italian wise guys, one an overly aggressive juice head decked out in various track suits, the other, a slob who overindulges in food and drink; criminal, lazy black thugs “chilling” their lives away doing nothing of substance; black women who are primarily whores/whorish; the petite Asian woman who is fetishized by the middle-aged, overweight, white male protagonist living through his midlife crisis; white women who are either nosey, nags, or whores (because we need more thrown in for good measure); and the veteran, who is a PTSD lethal hot mess. The storyline is no more imaginative than the characters.
As I navigated the stilted, weirdly abbreviated sentences (which I suppose was an attempt at regional dialect?) I wondered, “Who is the target audience for this book?” I can only surmise that it isn’t me. But then, I tend to avoid misogynistic boys club narratives replete with tired tropes, gratuitous pejoratives, and worn out storylines.
December 5, 2015
This book had a good story but it was confusing. It skips around calling the two Italians by their first name and then their last name and even an alias, all within a paragraph and sometimes a sentence. I found that hard to follow. No, no, there aren't 4 people we are talking about, it is only two.
I was totally disillusioned with Stephen, the school teacher who found 1.2 million on his jog, trying to get rid of the extra weight he had gained - referred by others in the book as fat. So he arrives home with this money, stacks it all on his table and goes outside and washes his car, huh? Then he proceeds to leave this money sitting in a bag in the kitchen. Goes out and buys a new Jeep, calls up a hooker, writes a breaking up letter to his wife and mails it, tries to hit on a younger woman a colleague at that, surfs the porn sites, jerks off....... Just too out there.
So for the rest of the story, there are numerous groups trying to find this money.
I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads
I was totally disillusioned with Stephen, the school teacher who found 1.2 million on his jog, trying to get rid of the extra weight he had gained - referred by others in the book as fat. So he arrives home with this money, stacks it all on his table and goes outside and washes his car, huh? Then he proceeds to leave this money sitting in a bag in the kitchen. Goes out and buys a new Jeep, calls up a hooker, writes a breaking up letter to his wife and mails it, tries to hit on a younger woman a colleague at that, surfs the porn sites, jerks off....... Just too out there.
So for the rest of the story, there are numerous groups trying to find this money.
I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews