So, recently things haven’t been going so well for me and my family. We did find a small house that fit our family. Only to have new neighbors move in, and their 5 year old stab my 7 year old in the neck! After a long four hour drive to Seattle (because flight for life doesn’t have room for even one parent!) my son was doing good in the emergency room there. He is fine now, he actually likes to show people his stab wound! Children! Needless to say, I could really use some positive things to happen.
But, I went over to that train wreck of a house that we previously lived in and checked the mail not to long ago, and when my son went to the door, there was a package there for me. I was checking the mail only because I had bought an item and the tracking stuff said it had been delivered…only it hadn’t. So, I went to the old house to see if it was there…nope. But, there was a book. It was sent to me from Random House (love you guys) and I am always happy to get a new book. My day=brightened!
The book is called “Low Town” by Daniel Polansky and it is a different sort of book. I admit that at first I wasn’t sure if it would be “up my alley”. I only say this because, I’m not really into the whole pimp/drug scene which is where this book started out.
I don’t think the story really caught me until there was a child murdered and the main character was hunting down the killer. Because when he finds the guy, he stalks him and then some kind of demon comes for the bad guy. Then, I felt like I was invested in the book and needed to know that someone paid for the death of a child. To me, there isn’t much lower then a child murderer…except for one who molests children…and this guy did both. My opinion=hang him. Sorry, if that offends anyone’s senses.
There were somethings that didn’t sit right with me and were a little confusing to being with. There was a lot of made up words (to differentiate between new races) there were also new/made up drugs. The only reason these gave me pause, is because there were really no explanations to them. Within the first few pages the guy is talking about inhaling pixie breath (not once is a real pixie in the book…but then again I guess when making angel dust there aren’t any pieces of angels in there either…)
I liked that the main character had a fall from grace. He used to be a good guy, but became a bad guy when love got in the way and he got the boot. I do, however wish there had been a little bit more told about that love story. Because the main character is kind of mysterious. And I find myself (like many of the people he interacts with) wanting to know more about him. I want to make him more relatable to me.
Not that he isn’t relatable. He has my vote by going after child killers. And I do root for him, and I turned ever page with the hope that no more kids would die and that he would make the deadline that we set for him and that he would die. (There was a lot of “ands” in that sentence, I apologize for that. J
My one negative thing about this book, that I really could harp on, was the ending. I felt like I was in the book from about a quarter of the way in until the end. And, in my opinion, the ending was completely rushed. Once he figured it out, there was no more of the main characters usual build up, no more of his intricate mind games. It was just an “aha” moment and blam, done. Twenty pages or less. I just felt like there could have been more.
However, that being said, it was a good book. I would definitely read another of Daniel Polansky’s books.
Until Next Time…Happy Reading!!!
The Sexii Librarian's Book Review 