I probably bought this book after the movie was released and the whole world went crazy about Ryan Gosling. When possible I try to read the book before I watch the movie, so I can imagine the characters and places myself, rather than using pictures created by someone else (for me Don Vito Corleone will never look like Marlon Brando, as much as I liked the movie).

Finally few years after buying the book it got to the top of my TBR, while I was travelling between UK, Poland, Germany and Spain. A word of warning here – the book is very short so it can pretty much last you through one two hours flight. I think I read all of it while waiting for my flight transfer in Düsseldorf.

It is a cold book. I am no expert in noir genre, but it is one cold book. It’s even hard for me to say whether I liked it or not, I just couldn’t relate ot it at all. It was not bad, because I did read it in one sitting, but now two months down the line I remember only a general impression of distance and disconnect. It is a story of revenge, of destruction that cannot be avoided, or so it seems to the characters. The writing is good, the story not bad even if a bit simplistic, but the whole thing lacked emotion for me, it felt like an exercise in certain stylistics.

Has any of you seen the movie? How was it?

Photo by Violetta Kaszubowska