Review: Sons of Mayhem 1: Oil and Leather reviewed by The Book Vixen
Rating: 1 out of 5
Date: 01 9, 2014
This review is for Part I (Oil and Leather) and Part 2 (Blood and Whisky) of the Sons of Mayhem serial.Why I Read this Book: The first book was (and still is at the time this review posted) a Kindle freebie so I picked it up. Then I had some Kobo coupon codes to use so I also picked up parts 2-4. Let me just note that this is a 4-part serial. I usually do not read serials because (1) the price is too steep for my taste and (2) I don’t like being left waiting, usually with a cliffhanger ending, for the next installment. But because of the great deal I got on the installments and the fact that all four installments had already been released, I went for it.What I Didn’t Like: There were too many similarities between this serial and the FX hit TV series Sons of Anarchy (henceforth SOA), beginning with Exhibit A: the name. Exhibit B: You have Jase (Jax), the club VP with “dirty blonde hair” and “cool blue eyes”. Brodie (Opie), Jase’s best friend, has “a full beard which hung down to his chest”. Exhibit C: Even some of the dialogue reminded me of SOA. “Don’t worry. I’ve got this.” – Jase (Jax). “What the f*** Jasey-boy.” – Bottle (Chibs). Exhibit D: Some of the Sons of Mayhem (henceforth SOM) members ride Harley Dyna Super Glides, like some of the guys from SOA. Exhibit E: Jase’s sanctuary is on “the roof of the Sons of Mayhem headquarters”. Like how Jax from SOA would retreat to the rooftop of the SOA headquarters for a moment of peace and to collect his thoughts. Exhibit F: “Lonnie and Brodie had a thing going with some women; putting the party chicks to work as they called it, but that shit hadn’t gotten all that far yet.” – I’m not sure exactly what this means but it sounds a little bit like the Diosa escort business in SOA. Exhibit G: An opportunity comes to the table for a vote for the SOM to distribute Crystal Meth. Like how SOA got into mulling Cocaine. Exhibit H: One of the SOM members was brutally murdered, like in SOA. Bigfella, the president of SOM, was arrested for a double homicide. There isn’t any evidence, yet, but I only read two of the four installments. Clay (SOA’s president) was arrested for triple homicide in season one. Clay was later released due to lack of evidence.The narration was a bit all over the place. The first installment was completely Nicole’s POV. Part 2 had multiple POV narration from Jase, Nicole, Brodie, and a villain’s point of view.There were some inconsistencies. In the 2nd installment, the villain rides in a truck that later becomes a van when he exits the vehicle. Then when the villain returns to the vehicle, it’s a truck again. Then there was this line: “As I undid the buttons of his shorts I felt his boxers pushing out.” – I don’t understand how boxers can be pushing out but the reason I’m pointing this part out is because Jase wasn’t wearing shorts, he was wearing jeans. Two sentences earlier was this line: “I let my hand brush against the front of his jeans…”.There was a character, Johnny, mentioned in the 2nd installment in reference to Jimmy, the deputy. “Jimmy was a classmate of Johnny’s back in school.” I have no idea who this Johnny character is, as this is the first time he has been mentioned but the way it’s worded, it’s as if I’m suppose to make some sort of connection. And speaking of Jimmy, Exhibit I: he’s a childhood acquaintance of Jase. Kind of like Jax and Hale’s relationship in SOA.Then there was some things that didn’t make sense to me. “He walked towards them confidently, not running or walking.” Say what? And this line: “If that’d boring then I must be an eighty year old grandmother, I’d hate to see exciting!”Even with all the SOA similarities, the MC life portrayed in the SOM series didn’t feel authentic. There was a scene where Jase used rubber bullets on some intruders. Rubber bullets??And lastly, this series could’ve really used an editor. In addition to what I’ve already mentioned, there were so many missing commas.Overall Impression: Reading this series gave me SOA flashbacks, which was distracting for me since I would remember similar moments or characters from the SOA show. The main different between the SOA and SOM is the word “f***”, where it’s completely absent in the TV series and over used in this series. (There were 354 uses of the word “f***” and other forms of the word in the entire 278 pages of this serial.) SOA is big right now, I get that. I also get how readers are enthralled by MC romances. I, for one, am one of those readers. But this series felt like SOA fan fiction. Maybe it was, I’m not sure. Even though I am currently craving MC romances, I want originality. I don’t want the same premise and same characters hashed out over and over. I do not think I will be reading the second half of this series.