Neon in Daylight

I enjoyed this. She writes well.

A fancy title doesn't guarantee a good book. Not even if the setting is New York. I don't think I've ever felt disgusted by a novel before, but I suppose we live and learn, right? I can't begin to tell you how much I wanted to love this work, I was already positively pre-occupied with it. It had an interesting blurb, a striking cover, a Londoner deciding to live in New York. What could go wrong? Well, as far as I am concerned, everything went wrong...

First of all, what's wrong with Billy bookcases? Does the writer know how many beautifully, wonderfully clattered readers have found their lives' solution in pretty Billy? Get off your high horse, please, and yes, that was rude!

So, the story is that Kate, a London girl, decides to stay in the Big Apple temporarily, leaving George, her boyfriend, behind. In New York, she meets Bill and his daughter, Inez. And if you haven't guessed already, the book continues to show how each one's life is changed by these magnanimous encounters. Yes, it is a story that places human relationships in its centre and tries to develop itself around the issue of living in a culture that is quite different form your own. This would make for a great read. Except it quickly turns into something else. What I felt- and this is my strictly personal opinion, mind you- was that I was reading an excuse for porn and swearing. And it goes without saying that I don't read this kind of ‘'books'', sorry.

Where to begin? The characters were so bad I feel I'm lacking all the proper adjectives to describe them. Kate is as interesting as an undecorated white wall and then some. She is meek, docile. I mean, picture this: she supposedly has the courage to start a life in a new country, but not the determination to interact with people, acting like a frightened mouse and finding solace in smoking. And Skype. She tries out a new hair-cut as a revolutionary act, except it's a hairstyle previously demanded by her controlling boyfriend.

Bill wasn't a person, but a cardboard figure. Gross and indifferent. His daughter, the nineteen year old Inez, was a much different case. Yes, she had potential, I'll grant you that. I am all for expressing yourself and I'd like to believe that I am open-minded, but her ‘'look at me, I'm a bad girl'' attitude doesn't make for an interesting character without some skill. She is drug-crazed and sex-crazed, and excuse me, by my personal standards, this is not literature.

Mediocre writing, mediocre prose, horrible dialogue, indifferent descriptions. It's the first time I read a book set in New York and I didn't feel transported to the city. The writer failed to do that, in my opinion. I found that some effort has been made with elements taken from other urban contemporary novels but they weren't used well. There was too much unnecessary emphasis on sex, too much swearing. I don't understand what was the point of it, it made the novel utterly tasteless, almost pornographic in nature. If you want to shock- although this is very difficult in our times, because we have read and done everything- if you want to break the system, you need to have the chops as a writer to make it work. I am sorry, but in this case, I didn't see that.

There's so much good material in the Contemporary genre, so many excellent efforts and debuts that books like this one make me think that they have nothing to offer. Yes, my standards are high, my tastes particular and I am used to a different quality of language and themes. There were too many times when I seriously thought I should abandon it. It's supposed to be a novel about immigration, running free from what keeps you chained on the ground and finding yourself. I failed to notice whether any of these happened throughout the course of the story. What I did find were miserable, empty people and a kind of language I'd usually hear in a basketball derby between Panathinaikos and Olympiacos (If you are a basketball fan, like yours truly, you'll know what I'm talking about.) I'm far from a prude, nor do I shy away from controversial material. This isn't controversial, though. I doubt whether it's even a ‘'material''. Don't try to pass mediocre writing and constant swearing and porn as innovative or daring. It has been done before with dubious results.

I am never one to say ‘'oh, there's one star, I'll never read this book.'' I don't like this behaviour. It is hypocritical and presumptuous. I urge you to give every book a try, even the ones that I considered a disaster because your chances may be better. In this case, however, and honest to God, I have difficulty to do so now. I don't think that vulgarity without any purpose is a token of a book that wants to be taken seriously. Possibly the worst book I've managed to finish this year...And if there was any underlying deep piece of wisdom about life, I failed to notice.

Many thanks to Catapult and Edelweiss for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.