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BOLO: Sociopaths On A Rampage
Two abused siblings go on a drug fueled rampage of revenge, violence, and sexual activity.
223 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 13, 2015
3 people are currently reading
59 people want to read
About the author
David L. Tamarin
21 books34 followersI am a writer, screenwriter, actor, producer, and attorney. More information on my imdb page.
http://www.facebook.com/davdltamarin
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 26, 2023
5 ⭐️ I’m not even quite sure where to start with a review for this book . I finished an hour ago and I’m still processing what I just read . I’ve read Hogg, and I’ve read Violence on the meek . Then I read Bolo. I actually had to put this book down a few times due to the violence. In this story you meet Randolph, and his son Norman which forms BOLO ….the story of sociopath vs sociopath. I highly recommend this to only readers of the most extreme books .
April 30, 2023
This is the first book that almost made me quit in the first chapter, and is the most extreme book I have ever read. Warning this book contains triggers for just about everything. I have read some of David's work, and have been impressed. Bolo showed how good of a writer David is. The ending was fantastic.
February 28, 2016
Monsters are human in BOLO!
This was an intense, gruesome, horrific story that I had to continuously put down to come back to it later due to content. I have never said or done that before! Norman was born into a psychopathic family-this is an understatement! Norman's father humiliates, physically, mentally and emotionally abuses pretty much everyone he comes into contact with including his wife and children. The psychological side of this story was absolutely amazing and left my brain whirling and my body breathless. I truly hope no one ever has to go through such things in real life. This book filled with violence, anguish, and mental instability brought on by drugs and every type of abuse imaginable. My recommendation is BEWARE, it is a truly psychotic tale but it is totally worth the time. I would call this extremely extreme crime/horror and I will gently recommend to fans of modern horror.
This was an intense, gruesome, horrific story that I had to continuously put down to come back to it later due to content. I have never said or done that before! Norman was born into a psychopathic family-this is an understatement! Norman's father humiliates, physically, mentally and emotionally abuses pretty much everyone he comes into contact with including his wife and children. The psychological side of this story was absolutely amazing and left my brain whirling and my body breathless. I truly hope no one ever has to go through such things in real life. This book filled with violence, anguish, and mental instability brought on by drugs and every type of abuse imaginable. My recommendation is BEWARE, it is a truly psychotic tale but it is totally worth the time. I would call this extremely extreme crime/horror and I will gently recommend to fans of modern horror.
October 19, 2016
Hell cannot be as bad as the situation these children were in. They were so tortured that they in turn became psychopaths. Thus is not for the weak hearted. Read at your own risk. I highly recommend to all fan's of modern horror
September 10, 2021
BOLO: Sociopaths on a Rampage
TL;DR I don’t typically trigger warning but I want to so the book isn’t rated low because of it. There is a LOT of animal abuse so there is your warning.
POSSIBLE SPOILERS (I don’t know what people consider spoilers so I’m putting this just in case.)
Wow. I thought Hurting My Toys was hard to read… this one makes you say Uncle more than once.
BOLO is drug induced, alcohol infused fever nightmare. Norman is abused from a very young age by his MK-Ultra experimented on Father. Without a doubt, his Father is a full on sadist. As Norman ages, he is subjected to being a part of his Father’s population culling. His Mother is tortured and a torturer, so she can offer no help. When his Mother ends up pregnant, the family begins become even more fucked up. The rest… well, you will have to read to find out.
Tamarin likes to torture his reader as the characters are tortured. It is easy to write a scene that makes someone feel uncomfortable but it takes a truly gifted author to put you, mentally, in the scene to experience it as close to first hand as possible.
The whole book makes you feel physically ill. Just when one scene is finished, another starts to ramp up. You want everyone to die, but at the same time, you want Norman and Saskia to live. Then die. Then live. It is like a disturbing game of insane ping pong.
There is even a love story… even though you will want to lobotomize yourself after you finish the book. But there is one!
If you think you can handle it, take the plunge. This is one savage page after another. Tamarin know how to write fucked up characters and how to force the readers to endure every word he writes.
5/5 mutilations
TL;DR I don’t typically trigger warning but I want to so the book isn’t rated low because of it. There is a LOT of animal abuse so there is your warning.
POSSIBLE SPOILERS (I don’t know what people consider spoilers so I’m putting this just in case.)
Wow. I thought Hurting My Toys was hard to read… this one makes you say Uncle more than once.
BOLO is drug induced, alcohol infused fever nightmare. Norman is abused from a very young age by his MK-Ultra experimented on Father. Without a doubt, his Father is a full on sadist. As Norman ages, he is subjected to being a part of his Father’s population culling. His Mother is tortured and a torturer, so she can offer no help. When his Mother ends up pregnant, the family begins become even more fucked up. The rest… well, you will have to read to find out.
Tamarin likes to torture his reader as the characters are tortured. It is easy to write a scene that makes someone feel uncomfortable but it takes a truly gifted author to put you, mentally, in the scene to experience it as close to first hand as possible.
The whole book makes you feel physically ill. Just when one scene is finished, another starts to ramp up. You want everyone to die, but at the same time, you want Norman and Saskia to live. Then die. Then live. It is like a disturbing game of insane ping pong.
There is even a love story… even though you will want to lobotomize yourself after you finish the book. But there is one!
If you think you can handle it, take the plunge. This is one savage page after another. Tamarin know how to write fucked up characters and how to force the readers to endure every word he writes.
5/5 mutilations
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 21, 2024
3.5 I’d prefer first person or alternating POVs because the start is a bit too generalized like a crime report essay. Norman’s family rap sheet is ran through w/ the typicals of rape and animal torture though he once loved the latter until his father desensitized him. His father trying to castrate him is addressed in a nice middle ground of graphicness. He showed him snuff that is summarized with lots of gore though I’d prefer more skin/color descriptions to feel more than the buzz phrases about blow torches. That certainly comes later. The MK Ultra inspiration is a fun twist.
The dialogue isn’t bad though everyone kind of speaks long and authoritative. I just wish everything was 50 pgs sleeker because I want to get to Norman as an addict adult already and there are a few mini-graphs that are repetitive (you don’t have to keep saying the dad loves torturing the family when we’ve seen it a thousand times), contradictory (I get the schitzo mindset adds to this but it could be done over time), or irrelevant (about crooked politicians). Though the canine torture is fully fleshed (though how is a German Shepard not fighty?), half the time the silly comparisons take me out of it (comparing things to hot dogs and meatballs). Ch. 3’s existential/instinct questions (if the dog’s friends would miss him, would the mother have a knowing sense of anxiety) by the boy are great, unique, and show compassion.
Many general questions the reader could have are addressed seamlessly (how do they not get caught, have money, etc). Though someone would suffocate in an hour if stuck in a fridge, I’ll chalk up the boy thinking it was days to delirium. There’s lots of incestuous CSA and scat type stuff yet it hardly says he feels violated until a fourth in. How the father wasn’t investigated over the mother at the hospital I will have to assume is because he dropped her off and they’re kind of off the grid.
It takes quite a while before the sister is introduced who Norman falls in love with. The timeline there is a bit muddled with ages, Norman knowing and not knowing about the molestation, and what happened to the dad kind of thinking she would fulfill a prophecy of sorts. Then we ignore her for too long and suddenly she sees Norman as a god even though we almost never see them interact. I seriously doubt he could protect her or anyone against his father at that stage alone.
Around halfway, dialogue becomes a bit too unrealistic with the monologues all around. People should be interrupted more, shrug off less. We go back to Norman’s “friends” at the most random times. He treats the “crush” Trisha pretty opposite his sis. When the moody metaphors go deeper, it’s a nice reprieve. Yet then we’re back to recapping the beginning for chs?
It’s like this book was short stories about the same family squeezed into unedited chs like The Green Mile was serialized. It makes me want to skim or give up too much. The book should’ve been called A Sociopathic Father because that’s the focus, not the sister or adult them like on the cover. Mismarketing it like that makes me restless and actually gives away what would be better kept a surprise.
The dialogue isn’t bad though everyone kind of speaks long and authoritative. I just wish everything was 50 pgs sleeker because I want to get to Norman as an addict adult already and there are a few mini-graphs that are repetitive (you don’t have to keep saying the dad loves torturing the family when we’ve seen it a thousand times), contradictory (I get the schitzo mindset adds to this but it could be done over time), or irrelevant (about crooked politicians). Though the canine torture is fully fleshed (though how is a German Shepard not fighty?), half the time the silly comparisons take me out of it (comparing things to hot dogs and meatballs). Ch. 3’s existential/instinct questions (if the dog’s friends would miss him, would the mother have a knowing sense of anxiety) by the boy are great, unique, and show compassion.
Many general questions the reader could have are addressed seamlessly (how do they not get caught, have money, etc). Though someone would suffocate in an hour if stuck in a fridge, I’ll chalk up the boy thinking it was days to delirium. There’s lots of incestuous CSA and scat type stuff yet it hardly says he feels violated until a fourth in. How the father wasn’t investigated over the mother at the hospital I will have to assume is because he dropped her off and they’re kind of off the grid.
It takes quite a while before the sister is introduced who Norman falls in love with. The timeline there is a bit muddled with ages, Norman knowing and not knowing about the molestation, and what happened to the dad kind of thinking she would fulfill a prophecy of sorts. Then we ignore her for too long and suddenly she sees Norman as a god even though we almost never see them interact. I seriously doubt he could protect her or anyone against his father at that stage alone.
Around halfway, dialogue becomes a bit too unrealistic with the monologues all around. People should be interrupted more, shrug off less. We go back to Norman’s “friends” at the most random times. He treats the “crush” Trisha pretty opposite his sis. When the moody metaphors go deeper, it’s a nice reprieve. Yet then we’re back to recapping the beginning for chs?
It’s like this book was short stories about the same family squeezed into unedited chs like The Green Mile was serialized. It makes me want to skim or give up too much. The book should’ve been called A Sociopathic Father because that’s the focus, not the sister or adult them like on the cover. Mismarketing it like that makes me restless and actually gives away what would be better kept a surprise.
May 31, 2023
This was the first time in a really long time, but I had to put the book down and pick it back up due to the content. It takes a lot to disturb me, and this one actually did it. Norman is abused from birth by both of his parents. His father is a rapist and a killer. His mother is physically abusive towards him and a drug addict. This is what shapes Normans life, and dictates the adult he becomes. This book is filled with torture, rape, sex blood, and gore. Definitely not for the weak.
September 23, 2016
Hard book to read because of the subject matter. definitely not for the easily offended or faint of heart.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews