I was quite looking forward to reading this - an opportunity to see the "inside" of a crime family and understand what drives them to that lifestyle.
Sadly this book didn't do that, for me. It's a fairly basic tale of Michael's life but probably more to do with this family relationships/love life than the criminal aspects I was expecting.
The writing style didn't particularly work for me either - lots of very short sentences which were to the point and, almost, blunt. I found the simplicity of style almost off-putting - though I can imagine that this is exactly how the protagonist speaks, so I guess that was the reason for writing it this way.
I didn't really feel like I had any insight into Michael the man or what drove him though. I think that was mostly because the writing style didn't draw me in - I just felt like I was reading about a life in a series of bullet points. Some quite major events were covered in the space of a mere couple of sentences.
It also probably doesn't help that I'm not religious in any way so the whole business of finding God just felt a bit hollow.
Fair play to Michael though for turning things around - not an easy thing to do I imagine.
Sadly this book didn't do that, for me. It's a fairly basic tale of Michael's life but probably more to do with this family relationships/love life than the criminal aspects I was expecting.
The writing style didn't particularly work for me either - lots of very short sentences which were to the point and, almost, blunt. I found the simplicity of style almost off-putting - though I can imagine that this is exactly how the protagonist speaks, so I guess that was the reason for writing it this way.
I didn't really feel like I had any insight into Michael the man or what drove him though. I think that was mostly because the writing style didn't draw me in - I just felt like I was reading about a life in a series of bullet points. Some quite major events were covered in the space of a mere couple of sentences.
It also probably doesn't help that I'm not religious in any way so the whole business of finding God just felt a bit hollow.
Fair play to Michael though for turning things around - not an easy thing to do I imagine.