Pro: Fratire that takes place during one night in LA.
Con: Fratire is not for everyone.
Pro: If you've lived in LA, you've met these guys.
Con: The LA locations and name dropping are great if you know the city, but I worry that people who are not familiar with the metroplex won't understand some of the references.
Pro: The story is told in little vignettes that are connected by the prologue and build toward the ending.
Con: The huge chunks of conversation are jarring and take you out of the narrative.
Everything in this novel is connected, but it's not always apparent how one vignette is connected to another immediately. Each chapter slowly unravels the story line and the character's connections to each other. While reading this novel I kept thinking of the movie Go, where it was only after you heard everyone's stories that the night made sense. I also really enjoyed the little "a-ha" moments when a quick sentence or appearance built the connection.
The first 20% of the novel could have used a stronger editor. There are chunks of conversation that jar you out of the story. Sadree's writing improves significantly throughout the novel and the issues/things I wanted to correct are mostly gone, including the way conversations were written. Which in some ways made me more frustrated, as Sadree is a talented writer who manages to capture the tongue-in-cheek humor that makes the entire "fratire" genre worth reading.
A quick note for those of you have never picked up anything in the "fratire" genre (i.e. Tucker Max), there is a lot of bodily function humor and women are always represented as two-dimensional cliches. Sadree does a good job of capturing the over-the-top, "you're never going to believe what happened" type of story telling that makes this genre entertaining.
Overall, it was a quick, fun read and I'm looking forward to seeing what Saldree writes next.
* * * I received a copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review. * * *