This book was phenomenal. Full stop. Once I found the time in my own busy schedule to sit down and get into the book, I truly couldn’t stop. I don’t typically love multi-perspectives in books, and this book had a lot of that, but I found myself a little too invested in the story to mind too much. I found the characters to be very three-dimensional, and I appreciated that about this book. It is very difficult to make a multi-perspective novel and have every single character be more than just static or a stereotype. I want to compliment Mr. Battershill for this as I think he was able to give more dimension to his characters, which made for a much more enjoyable read. I also really liked the storyline idea; it was something I’ve never read before which was refreshing for a lifelong reader such as myself. One thing I didn’t love was that the ending was a little unfinished, and left a few loose endings.

I take my own rating scale very seriously, and this was so very close to a five star rating (would have been my first one, too!) but I found fault with some racist slurs used in the book. It’s only done on one page, but to me, one page is more than enough. In my opinion, the slurs were unbelievably unnecessary. The book was written fairly recently as well, so there’s no “it was back in the day” excuse either. For me, there is no excuse for using slurs in books written by white authors. I understand that the character who said it said it during a drug using spell, but I just can’t get past it.

This is definitely an adult book; the content is meant for mature audiences. There is a lot of swearing (like, a whole lot), drug and alcohol use, death, gun use, and many other things that may be triggering or unsuitable for all audiences. These topics don’t bother me personally, so I enjoyed the read. However, I do know that many people don’t enjoy these topics, so I think it’s important for me as a reader and reviewer to let others know about potentially triggering content.

Overall, I had such a good time reading this book. I recommend this novel to more mature audiences who like a bit of violence, don’t mind heavy swearing, and just wanna get lost in a good story. Another higher star rec from me!

“Marry, Bang, Kill” by Andrew Battershill details the consequences that pursue Tommy Marlo after he steals a laptop from the daughter of the head of a big-time motorcycle gang in British Columbia. After using the laptop to take more from the gang and realizing he’s in quite a lot of danger, he runs away to Quadra Island, off the coast of British Columbia, to visit his mom before trying his luck living further north. Unbeknownst to him, he is followed.

This is a book that shows multiple viewpoints. Tommy, our titular protagonist, doesn't actually make up a large portion of the book's perspective. Other important characters we see through the eyes of are Mouse, a retired corrupt cop, Mike, a rather dense cop, Glass Jar, Mouse’s drug dealer and fervent hater of hit show Breaking Bad, and Greta, the hitman hired by the motorcycle gang to hunt Tommy down. The use of multiple perspectives is something that may need to be carefully written; though the reader would get to see the thoughts of several people rather than one, they therefore might not be as invested in their lives. With hostility between some of the characters as a plot point, however, that feels slightly more intentional.

The main strength of this book would likely involve the aforementioned characters. Their motivations and thought processes are consistent and work with their personalities, and it is their relationships with each other that the book seems to invest in the most. Their dialogue is sometimes a bit strange— quite random and involving topics that often don’t have much to do with anything— but though that is a departure from other books, perhaps that is closer in tone to conversations in real life. If not, it could also be explained by the fact that half of the characters are probably on drugs at all times.

The main weakness, I feel, would be that the plot leaves a few things left unfinished. At the end of the book, there are several unresolved issues (skip the parentheses if you want to avoid spoilers, but as an example, the motorcycle gang threatened to shoot up the island if Tommy wasn’t returned within a certain timeframe, which was then not elaborated on at the end). Though some stories work well when left open-ended, it is tricky to do so in a way that won’t be just a bit unsatisfying. It is also somewhat chaotic and random in general, which I suppose could be a positive for some readers and a negative for others depending on what they want out of a story. Additionally, the beginning is rather slow, which might discourage possible readers.

All in all, with alright character consistency but a moderately uncertain plot, I rate “Marry, Bang, Kill” with 3 out of 5 stars.

Marry Bang Kill is a pretty interesting book. I read this because I wanted to collab with my fellow youth ambassador, Jazz, and they picked this book to read. See, it’s not that I didn’t like it, I read the synopsis and I thought it looked good, but this really was a book that wasn’t for me. I didn’t realize it would be for adults, and I ended up not finishing the book all the way through. I found it really hard for this book to keep holding my attention because of the slow pacing and the lack of… I dunno. This book felt empty. Lots of this book is dialogue that I didn’t care for, and swearing. Lots of swearing. It’s really hard to focus on the actual story and the plot. As for what the storyline was, all I can tell you is that some guy mugged a girl with a rich dad, and then the rich dad sends a hitman after him. There’s also a lot of drugs, like one of the characters is a drug dealer, and I did not enjoy reading about that. But this book wasn’t necessarily bad I just… didn’t like it. It really did look like something I wanted to read, but it turned out to be really slow. I’m not going to lie, this book was boring and I was really expecting more. Like, when does the marrying and banging and killing come in? I don’t knowwww, because I couldn’t get through that far. I think it’s safe to say that I didn’t like the book.

I wouldn’t really recommend this book because I didn’t enjoy it enough for that.