Alice in La-La Land: 10/06/06

I bought Alice in La-La Land from the Daly City library three years ago because I liked the title and the bold cover art. I then sent it around the world on a book ring. It came home after we moved and I've now finally read it. Was it worth the wait? Yes and no.

The book is a sequel and it is set in the seedier parts of Los Angeles (Hollywood and Vine, aka "La-La Land" and Venice Beach) and it revels sometimes in its crassness. It often times takes too long to explain all the different ways of being a hooker and all the different forms of sexual identity but more for shock value and less for plot or character development.

The setting , language and characters did not bother me but repetition of "shocking" things did bore me. After a while I just wanted the story to get on its way.

Here is my BookCrossing review:

For all its crass language, sex, debauchery and murder, the book ended up reminded me of an old episode of Charlie's Angels, namely, "Angel Trap" (Season 1, episode 13), in which Jill befriends an assassin, Jericho, in order to set a trap for him. I even pictured Connor Spinnernan, the antihero detective and assassin, as looking somewhat like kitten-loving Jericho.

A theme of both stories is that even "bad" people have their reasons and have their reasons for how they ended up doing what they do. Jericho and Connor come off as sympathetic characters even though they can both kill quite coldly when needed.

Although I enjoyed the book, I found the story dragged in places, especially in the many scenes used to show just how deserving Roger Twelvetrees is of his fate. It doesn't take more than a scene or two to show that he is a foul, misogynistic and violent control-freak. It also doesn't take long to figure out that he may be the target, rather than the one paying for a hit. Fortunately there are other more interesting twists, those of which I won't share here.

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