Reviews

The Best Bad Things by Katrina Carrasco

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ahip's review against another edition

3.0

I didn’t hate this book, but it was too long and had too many characters which was especially confusing because I read it in lots of small chunks now that school has started. It also randomly switched out of chronological order which was super confusing. I did like the historical queer character aspect and thought that part had some nuance. Also not really sure what the mystery was but maybe it was misclassified as such by the library?

readingwithhippos's review against another edition

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5.0

And the award for most apt title goes to…! This book is seriously gritty, dark, bloody, at times disturbing, and after listing those descriptors I’m not sure I can articulate why I liked it so much. Maybe because, like its main character, it doesn’t apologize for how nasty it is. Alma Rosales, sometimes known as Jack Camp, is a former Pinkerton agent who is now working her way up the ladder in a smuggling ring headed by her beautiful onetime lover, Delphine. When she’s summoned from San Francisco to Port Townsend to infiltrate Delphine’s crew, sniffing out competitors on the outside and moles on the inside, Alma is sucked into a game so complex, I wasn’t sure until the very last page who was pulling the strings. And what a last page it is! I have a famously bad memory and most endings don’t stick with me, but I bet if you ask me a year from now how this book ended, I’ll be able to tell you. It’s one of those endings that somehow has both the feeling of total inevitability and total surprise—I had no idea which way it was going to go, but I felt like every word had led up to those few breathless seconds. The action takes place in 1887, and rarely has a book brought an era to such visceral life. You will be able to smell the sweat in the characters’ armpits. Whether that’s something you want in your reading or not, I’ll leave up to you. Would make a hell of a TV series.

efruitsnack's review against another edition

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3.0

I think the concept is good however the writing fell short. The plot was messy and hard to follow and the pacing was a bit slow. There was no real character building and instead we were expected to just like these characters and pretend to care what happened to them.
3 stars because the gay sex was nice.