Mazaradi Fox

I've come to expect a lot from Akashic books, to the extent that I've tried some books of theirs that I never might have tried if not for the publisher they were attached to, and I've never been disappointed... until now.

I have to think that this book was picked up because of the situation--the author grew up with 50 Cent, lived the life of a player and drug dealer, and wrote this book while in jail; it was published posthumously. Now, I've read a number of great books that were written from the inside of a jail cell. This one, though, unfortunately, just isn't a great one. It reads like the overblown fantasies and stories of someone thinking about the life of a drug dealer and player as lived out in rap songs and music videos--lots of sex and glamour and fun with a fair bit of violence, but not much reality, explanation, development, or consequences. You can almost hear the voice of an older teenager bragging about his exploits in relation to having sex and making money in a circle of other guys who are doing the same... "Oh, man, and then there was this one time..."

You string all those stories together and place them with one character, and you have this book.

All told, it just doesn't offer much. It needed further editing, further development in nearly every sense, slowing down.

Not something I'd recommend, obviously. I'll keep searching out Akashic books, but not from this imprint of the publisher.… (mer)