Review: Bad Writting and Racist Stereotypes for the meh
Rating: 1 out of 5
Date: 07 12, 2014
Disclaimer: A copy of this book was provided by the publisher for an honest review.This book started out so promising, but it began to slide down hill fast and eventually pissed me off to the point I had to quit reading.The premise is interesting and I really wanted to like it. The world of the story has a very golden age of detective comics/film noir feel to it, which is great until you realize it also has the blatant racist caricatures popularized by these genres.From the Eastern European gangster landlord to the Asian escort neighbor (with the porcelain skin) both speak in ridiculously exaggerated broken English and embody equally outrageous and offensive stereotypes. When you add on top of this that the MC is a privileged, white girl, I have no clue why I would even like Bremy much less root for her.All this aside, the dialogue and characterizations are weak. All the characters come off 2-dimensional and silly. I suspect that was intentional, to make them seem funny, but it comes off as lazy and boring. Bremy bumps into a mysterious guy who she describes as a wall. He's wearing glasses and obviously is a stand-in for the Clark Kent/Superman love interest, and I would have be intrigued if it weren't for their bizarre and mildly homophobic conversation.They have a typical meet-cute moment, she slams into him and describes him as a wall at least 4 times in the same paragraph. Can you say overkill, FOUR TIMES? Yes. When he mentions her shoes she assumed he is gay. He immediately insisted he isn't and while I'm sure this is all hilarious to someone who is homophobic and believes in narrow gender role is funny. I however wanted to slap both of them upside the head, and throw the book out a window.I couldn't be bothered to finish.