Wednesday 17 September 2014

Book Review: American Savage by Matt Whyman

Fun fact: The writer of this book wrote a Advise Column for Teenagers.

Vegan, veggie, carnivore... humanitarian? Welcome to the top of the food chain.

The Savages are back - this time in a country where servings come supersized. Titus, Angelica and the kids go to great lengths to fit into their new lives in sunny Florida. But that's not easy when their appetite runs to feasts of human flesh.

In this dark comic serving of everyday family life with contemporary cannibals, the Savages seek to hide in plain sight by setting up a vegan café. But when the venture turns out to be a surprise sensation, and bad apples bob to the surface, Titus is forced to question whether the family have finally bitten off more than they can chew.
 


This is the sequel to The Savages and if haven't read that there will almost certainly be spoilers for that in this review where as this review of the actual book will certainly not have any (I should know I wrote it). As for this book, it rather pointless and the main character from the last one is gone which makes this cover really fucking misleading. When it became clear that character wasn't in this book, my hopes for this book plummeted.

While they never recovered, I guess I did enjoy this book. Though, the other family members are not that likable and rather un-human. Also the youngest kid accent would be a massive mess and she would still call her Mum mum. The "Mommy" thing was dumb plot line. They should have eaten the newest family member, instead of making her family, having her replace the best character of the last book. Well, not best, but best of the family. Okay, I just don't get the complete absence of this character, in fact it like the actor refuses to come back to reprise her role so they wrote her out and she never returns even at times that of course you would at least be there virtually if you couldn't be there physical. Seriously, why not at least a Cameo? Honestly, there's a scene in the book that I think its weird that she not there, or even mentioned, because Uni must mean you've left the family altogether.

If she has abandoned the family completely, that would have been an interesting plot line. Okay, I'm going to stop talking in nonsense circles.

I think my main issue with the book is that the most of the characters end up feeling flat for most of the time. They have their human issues to deal with it all being relationship based.

The actual plot was forgettable in that I almost wrote that there was no plot but there was a plot involving mobsters and tainted meat. This was really character driven so the plot did play secondary to the characters and their relationships with each other.

Overall, I gave this book 4 out of 5 stars for mis-selling streaks. I was really excited for this sequel, but having read it I feel like it shouldn't have had a sequel. It didn't need one and all this really did is tell where the Savages end up. I'm glad I read it, but I think that my appreciation of this book would have been better if the cover wasn't so misleading. I'm glad they match, but that's definitely Sasha on the cover for no reason.

1 comment:

  1. Yeah I miss Sasha. Let's hope she makes an appearance in the next book (if there is one).

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