Saturday 15 August 2015

Review ~ The Goodbye Man by A Giannoccaro and Mary E Palmerin

Reviewed by Donna ~ 4 stars


“This place is as close to hell as you can get without dying.”


When someone dares you to read a book you just have to…I mean I am no chicken when it comes to reading. I have certain genres that I just cannot read because they bore me to tears but dark is not one
of them. There is something about reading a book that takes you out of your comfort zone, you get all those new sensations of dread, queasiness and that OMG does that really happen????

This book is disturbingly disgusting, it should have shocked me so much that I gave up but I found myself addicted, intrigued and compelled to finish, I couldn’t put it down. I found that because I was consumed by the story the actual acts that were happening didn’t really affect me as much as I thought they would. Yes they were horrible to read about, yes they churned my stomach, but I was so riveted to what I was reading I just pushed on regardless.


“Tears fall from my eyes as I come to the conclusion that this disorder is both disastrous and stunning. Chaotic and profound. Beautiful and decrepit.”



Underneath all this dark and disturbing, believe it or not there is a love story somewhere…three broken souls that you would think are beyond healing, yet maybe they may be each others salvation in some sick, demented way. Perhaps it takes two people that have gone through the horrors that they have to make sense of each other and understand each other, I don’t know, I’m no expert, but I found myself hoping that somehow something could be done for these characters, especially Svetlana. Caesar and Mateo were their own worst enemies, in their own convoluted way they thought that what they were doing was actually saving people from a fate worse than death and in a way I agree with them, but I still couldn’t have done what they did, but in their minds, they were helping.


“This isn’t supposed to happen to me. I don’t get attached to beating hearts.”


Please heed the warnings with regards to this book, think of any vile act and it is in here in some form or another, not limited to rape, child abuse, necrophilia, incest, drugs, organ trafficking, in fact there were so many taboo areas that I found that the more I read the less shocked I became.


“Cut my flesh, make me bleed. Give me the man that makes me burn with need.”


The trouble is though, I am sure that these things do happen in the real world and that is what saddens me the most, This book peels back those layers of misconceptions, that even behind the most inconspicuous of doors maybe just maybe something heinous is going on behind it. It may just look like an industrial building, with a perceived legitimate enterprise, but what is really happening? This book makes you ask yourself a lot of questions. I finished this book yesterday and I am still thinking about it, I just cannot get these characters out of my head.


“Kill them with kindness, slay them with a smile and murder them with a kiss.”


My heart was truly broken for Svetlana, from a little child and since the death of her mother she has known nothing but brutality, starvation and poverty, all she wanted was to be loved, cared for and wanted, not much for a child to want bearing in mind the expectation of kids today. It takes the kindness of a stranger to save her from near death, but is she just being taken from one dark, disgusting mess to another?


“You’d think that after five years of being in these situations, I could travel far away to a place where I could become detached. Too bad it doesn’t work that way. Every part of my sensory system is magnified by a million. My vision, hearing, taste and lastly, feeling.”


I really cannot go into this story, only to warn you to expect the unexpected. I honestly don’t think this book is for everyone, it is not a pretty read in any respect. It will take you beyond your comfort zone, it may make you physically sick and it will certainly mess with your head, but at the end of the day it was well written and disturbingly addictive reading. I did have a few issues with it though, it does need a proofread, there were quite a few errors but they didn’t detract from my “enjoyment” of the book. I really don’t think “enjoyment” is to be read in the same context with regards to this book. My other issue was some scenes were repeated in three different POV’s. This did become extremely repetitive especially when the same things were happening more or less verbatim.

So in summary, if you want to push your boundaries and your limits, you have the constitution of an ox and you like the dark and depraved, then this is the book for you. Being a romance junkie, I found it a refreshing break from the norm and something that I will not forget. With regards to the end I feel that there is another book coming and I for one will be reading. I need to find out what happens to these characters as sick and twisted as they are they certainly left a lasting impression.


“I am the Goodbye Man.”


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