Great stories. Some of which are really short. ( )

Review: Born Bad by Andrew Vachss.
I don’t know why I’m even going to write a review on this one. I thought it was a terrible book. However, I did read it cover to cover. I figured it wouldn’t get any better as I read on but what the hell I made it to the end.

There wasn’t any original ideas. It was all shot stories of crime but I don’t even think they were short stories. There was nothing to them. There was no real story, no characters of interest, not even a plot to consider. They were all just parts of a story that never materialized into anything but undisruptive and confusing words.

I checked some of the other reviews and there were many who rated it high. I like to know what made sense to them that I missed….
( )

I know, I always say I will never read another Vachss book and then I always do. His endings always infuriate me. All that tension, all that tight writing, all that intense noir and it ends with a big bang of nothing. I hate it and yet I keep reading.

But this time, I am so happy to say, Vachss gets almost everything right. The stories sickening, upsetting, morally depraved and just plain nasty, and every one of them has a decent ending, the sort of ending that means you don't regret having read it.

This is an excellent collection that mines all the veins Vachss is so famous for, and in a collection of 46 stories, only two or three are clunkers. That's a pretty good ratio, if you ask me.

Never mind this borderline giddy reaction - I'm just glad that my decision to keep reading Vachss has finally been vindicated.

Also less Asian fetishization. So there's that. ( )