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Book Review : Don Winslow - Savages (2010)


Country: USA

Genre: Crime

Pages: 302

Synopsis: 

Ben, Chon and O. are best friends, sexual partners and dealers of the best weed on the American West Coast, maybe in the world. They are living the American Dream until the Baja Cartel makes a move on them. The proposition is simple. Work for them or die a brutal death. They refuse and since they are more valuable if they comply, the cartel leader Elena La Reina kidnaps O., thinking it will make the two loverboys docile. Well, this would have been convenient, except it's not really how it turns out...


Do not expand horizontally until you have achieved maximum vertical capacity.

Also: do not fuck with someone until you know exactly who the fuck you're fucking with.

And then don't do it.

I can tell you to stop doing whatever you're doing and go read SAVAGES now, but it wouldn't do it justice. I could tell you it's better than whatever you're reading right now, but still it wouldn't capture the scope, the boldness and the pure iconoclast bravado of the novel. I didn't believe it myself when people implored me to read Don Winslow. It took an impending movie adaptation to push him on my radar. But goddamn and I mean, goddamn. This is something entirely new. It's more potent than a dozen bricks of C4 and meaner than Al Quaïda on crystal meth. With SAVAGES, Don Winslow draws a line in the sand. It's a landmark novel for crime fiction. There is what came before and what came after it. It blew my mind, shook my beliefs and rocked my world. Sometimes it feels so good to be a reader.

Where do I begin? There are so many cool things about this book.

The style. It's absolutely stellar. It's a third person narration, but there is definitively a narrator to this story and he sounds like an old weed smoking hippie. There are 290 chapters for 302 pages and that's because the narrator keeps jumping from character to character and SAVAGES has a large cast. No character ever feels neglected because the chapters are so short. They go from three pages to..well...two words. It's not hard to read. It's lean as hell and fun. There are digressions and pop culture references scattered all along, keeping the pace frantic. The style itself make SAVAGES a quick read. It will probably take you three to four hours to complete, in one or two sittings.

SAVAGES isn't so much about plot as it is about characters. Winslow spends an enormous amount of time developing the relationship between Ben, Chon and O. It's capital to understand how much they mean to each other. The genuis of Don Winslow here is to move the plot forward at the same time. As he goes through the backstories of Ben, Chon and O., the cartel contacts them and start the blackmail. It's done with such precision that when they kidnap O., you're already firmly rooting for the loveable trio. There is always a lot going on the page and Winslow always stays on top of things. SAVAGES is a novel that never, ever stalls. I know it sounds far fetched, but you have to read it to believe it.

He would like to kill-

Hernan Lauter, and -

The fucking who was holding the chainsaw and-

Hernan Lauter again,

Chon would like to start every day by killing Hernan lauter and in a sense he does because he wakes up from what little sleep he gets by thinking about it. 

I've had difficult time choosing a favorite character. The obvious choice was Chon, the youngest retired Navy SEAL ever, who found the meaning of family in this bizarre love triangle he's in. But his partner Ben is as fascinating. Son of psychologists, he's used to be overanalyzed and therefore developed a strong knack for lying. He wants to do good and help the world, but his line of work doesn't tend towards that. O. is equally amazing. On the surface, she looks like the typical shallow O.C girl, but her spirit is sharp. Her feelings for Ben and Chon are very strong. She's not in it for herself. I'm not even going to go over the bad guys here, because they are equally fleshed out, complex and downright awesome. I'll leave you some surprise.

SAVAGES is a masterpiece. I don't like to use that word, but let's call a cat it for what it is. There was never anything like it before and it's going to inspire a new way to write crime fiction. Hell, a new way to write fiction, period. I have never seen anything like it before and strongly doubt there will be anything as well developed again. All the credit goes to Don Winslow. If you overlook the groundbreaking style, his character development and his breakneck pacing have made SAVAGES a perfect object. It's not the  proverbial "perfect novel", it's something perfect for what it is. It's a thoroughly original and it's solid on every aspect. It's a novel you will return to again and again and find new things to like about.

FIVE STARS

Book Review : Hilary Davidson - The Damage Done (2010)

Movie Review : Legion (2009)