Reviews

Brokedown Prophets by S.A. Cosby

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meresilenth's review

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No

2.0

This isn’t the rating I expected to give this book. I have really liked (sometimes adored) everything else I’ve read by Cosby, four books, and so I came in with high hopes. I discovered Cosby with Blacktop Wasteland and enjoy his writing style. He’s a masterful wordsmith able to invoke emotion, and make characters who are vastly different from myself relatable.

If this book will be your first exposure to Cosby; STOP, don’t pass go, and start with a different book. Everything that is beautiful about his other books is lacking in this one. Here’s my favorite quote from Blacktop Wasteland, I emphatically urge others to try that instead.

“Talk didn’t mean anything. Talk didn’t drive the car. Talk was just noise. He had one thousand dollars in his pocket. It was all the profits from the last two weeks at the garage, after most of the bills had been paid. He was $800 short on the rent for the building that housed his business. It had come down to a choice between the rent or glasses for his youngest, which wasn’t really a choice at all. So he had reached out to his cousin Calvin and asked him to find out where the nearest street race was being held. Calvin still knew some guys who knew some guys who knew where the money races could be found. … He needed someone who would look at the duster and see an easy payday, look it’s stripped down exterior and assume it was a pushover. … From here to the oak tree that’s split down the middle. … They took off for the split tree a quarter mile down the road, Beauregard hadn’t seen any other driver since they arrived. Most people avoided this stretch and used the four lane highway that snaked its way from the interstate up through shepherds corner proper. Progress had left this part of town behind. It was abandoned just like the store. A blacktop wasteland haunted by the phantoms of the past. … the engine sounded like a pride of lions … the secret ain’t about the motor, that’s part of it, the real thing - the thing most people don’t want to talk about is how you drive. If you drive like you scared you gonna lose.

… you don’t want to have to rebuild the whole engine, you gonna lose …

You gotta drive like don’t nothin’ else matter ‘except gettin’ to that line. Drive like you fucking stole it.

Beauregard heard his daddy’s voice every time he drove the Duster. Sometimes he heard it when he was driving for crews. In those moments it offered him bitter pearls of wisdom, nonsensical chatter that reminded him not to end up like his daddy, a ghost without a grave.”

paull9115's review

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adventurous challenging dark lighthearted sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

cassiecat's review

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mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Loveable characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

3⭐️

Full cast audio production, I love multiple narrators all doing their own parts in full. I don’t need all the sound effects though, it feels a bit over stimulating. Plus I found it difficult to hear what the actors were actually saying due to the speed and lack of clarity of speech at times when things were frantic. I even tried reducing the speed it was easier for me at .9. The sound effects over the voices made it even harder for me to hear clearly what was being said. I found the Russian voices, don’t know how many there were, hard to distinguish from each other, the accents were a bit naff. I also had problems identifying some of the male voices. There were just too many characters. Interesting that Cosby has a small voice part as the homeless man ( the performance credits are at the end, there’s even more producers than voices!). There are far too many characters. The whole story is dialogue based so it’s more of a play than a story I’m not keen on this format.

Action packed funny at times down and dirty fast and furious, at times frenetic street thriller. Preach,Digit and Maria end up on a crime spree while on the run after they accidentally kill a man connected to the Russian mob while trying to hustle him. They are very much hapless criminals.

I can’t say that I really enjoyed this, I was disappointed as I love S A Crosby’s writing style usually.

gigi_40's review

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dark tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

nicnic_readsbooks's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.5

4.5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 stars! Digit, Maria and Preach are hustlers trying to make some money. Maria lures a Russian mobster (who she didn’t know was a monster) to a hotel room and he was he was hoping to have a good time with her. When the mobster realizes it is a set-up, a fight ensues and they wind up killing him. They look through his bag and see a bunch of money that they want to keep, but the people that the cash belongs to are in pursuit of trying to find the three of them and kill them. We also learn more of their backstory and why they are in the position that they’re in.

This book read like a movie and I was here for all of it! There was sadness, seriousness and humor throughout this story and the narrators were fantastic! I definitely recommend.