"When financial wealth means physical size, everyone wants to get big. Watch out for the little people… A stunning read."
When financial wealth means physical size, everyone wants to get big. Watch out for the little people… A stunning read. A fascinating and complex novel of ideas that is also a fast and brutal gangland thriller. Like such master pieces as Nick Harkaway’s The Gone Away World or Jasper Fforde’s Shades of Grey, Jesse Andrews asks the reader to accept a world similar to ours, with one vital difference. In this case it is the fact that wealth equates with physical size; the more you have, the bigger you can grow. Those who live in poverty are barely the size of rats. Our slick narrator is a street kid trying to help his family. His story starts with the bold statements that his father was stepped on and his mother was crippled by a cat. With nothing but street smarts, muscles and badly thought-out plans, he and his sister try to make it into the big rich people’s society. It’s a heart-wrenching human story. Its also a vital social commentary. Some rich people are literally too big to see the poor. It is a frightening look at how blind western society can be. The language is both simple and complicated, a rhythm of fast-speech and truncated words that brings the slums and gangs vividly to life. Enjoyable and thought-provoking, surprising and disturbing, this book is really something special.
| Primary Genre | Modern and Contemporary Fiction |
