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alice28010's review
adventurous
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
zosiagibb's review
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
At times pretty difficult to believe but quite gripping and well written. Develops a conscience but pretty slowly and makes me ask a lot of questions.
beckyhendy's review
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Read this after Graeme Armstrong's "The Young Team". Can say this book is definitely not as good and I struggled to get through the middle. I felt it lacked significant moments in the book where you were wondering what would happen next. However, this was still a good read. Raw, real and portrays the voice of the voiceless.
ratherberead's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
dukegregory's review against another edition
5.0
I don't really know how to talk about this. It's incredible. It feels fresh. It feels fresh, because this is genuine counterculture being made literary, the ghosts of the underprivileged made immortal by the violence excavated by Krauze's pinpoint prose. It is so brutally human while considering the sociopolitical melodrama of contemporary Britain. Race, classism, the relativity of morality, masculinity, sex, family, nostalgia, etc. come together in a searing take on the Bildungsroman. I am just spouting nonsense. I am kind of in awe of this novel, and I'm depressed that its American release date is in June 2021, so I can't force the people around me to pick up copies and, hopefully, experience and reciprocate my emotional response to this novel. Krauze should have made the shortlist, and would have been a top contender for the grand prize in my mind if it had made it. Depressing choice from the judges when The Shadow King and The New Wilderness made it instead. Where is the taste level??
sarahbbooks's review
dark
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
bbqxaxiu's review against another edition
3.0
I started reading this because I love Top Boy and heard somewhere that the creators of that show used this book to do research (?) and I ended up liking it. I appreciated Gabriel’s authenticity, his shedding light on the lives and experiences of “troubled” youth, and his moments of vulnerability. one of the quotes that stuck with me was:
“we carry on eating, the kitchen filled by the sound of cutlery knocking against plates and I’m thinking about Gotti and Kaos and Solo and Yinka and Mama and Tata when it hits me: only love can hurt me.”
how I interpret this scene is that, as someone who has had to go through so much, grow up so quickly, witness—and enact—so much violence, and be a part of the cycles of trauma/death/poverty/drug abuse that are a part of growing up on an estate, he’s had to close his heart off and put on this tough guy act. oh nothing can get to me this, no one’s gonna step to me that. but at the end of the day, it’s still the relationships in his life and those he loves that have the most power over him. I think this is a great way of conveying what I believe to be true about real life, which is that at the end of the day, our relationships are the most important and have the most power to hurt us, sure, but also—and this is my hope for everyone, including Gabriel and others who live his life—to heal us.
my one critique is that in the middle of the book, things felt kind of repetitive. as a reader, it’s not entertaining to read the same scenes of Gabriel smoking, drinking, eating fried chicken, committing crime, having sex, going to jail, going to sleep, having scary dreams, and going to school over and again again. so I felt like some of this could have been scratched.
a good read and I hope to get more from this author soon. good work! all love ❤️❤️
“we carry on eating, the kitchen filled by the sound of cutlery knocking against plates and I’m thinking about Gotti and Kaos and Solo and Yinka and Mama and Tata when it hits me: only love can hurt me.”
how I interpret this scene is that, as someone who has had to go through so much, grow up so quickly, witness—and enact—so much violence, and be a part of the cycles of trauma/death/poverty/drug abuse that are a part of growing up on an estate, he’s had to close his heart off and put on this tough guy act. oh nothing can get to me this, no one’s gonna step to me that. but at the end of the day, it’s still the relationships in his life and those he loves that have the most power over him. I think this is a great way of conveying what I believe to be true about real life, which is that at the end of the day, our relationships are the most important and have the most power to hurt us, sure, but also—and this is my hope for everyone, including Gabriel and others who live his life—to heal us.
my one critique is that in the middle of the book, things felt kind of repetitive. as a reader, it’s not entertaining to read the same scenes of Gabriel smoking, drinking, eating fried chicken, committing crime, having sex, going to jail, going to sleep, having scary dreams, and going to school over and again again. so I felt like some of this could have been scratched.
a good read and I hope to get more from this author soon. good work! all love ❤️❤️