Customer Reviews

Kamby Bolongo Mean River

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

100% original novel from Rob Lopez. All I can say is go out, get it and read it. You will not be disappointed. Rob is writing incredible stuff with a completely unique style that no other author is coming remotely close to matching.

I really liked this one and the ejoyment becomes cumulative as you go along and progressively more information is revealed by the very disturbed and unreliable narrator.

I liked it a bit less than Lopez's first book, "Part of the World", however because the earlier work seems more original while the newer one shows maybe too much indebtedness to Gordon Lish.

Can't wait to see what Lopez comes up with next time around.

When Kamby Bolongo Mean River arrived, I was very excited. Just look at the cover of this book! It's a nice color, and the picture is pretty swell. Feel the cover of this book! It's textured and rather silky.

But you can't judge a book by its cover, can you?

Can you judge a book by Amazon reviews?

If I answer that second question the way that I would like to (a resounding NO -- in the case of this stinkbomb), then my review would be rendered useless and self-deprecating. So, let me tell you what I think about Kamby Bolongo Mean River. The idea behind it is truly novel. As a seven-sentence synopsis, this book can't be beat. But when you read the whole thing... Ugghhh.

Let me ask you a third question: Is purposely poor writing a clever and unique style? Or just a painful gimmick?

Painful gimmick. The stupidly written prose of this book certainly did help paint our hero, the narrator, as a mentally inept moron. The author did a splendid job of this. But it got old after the first few paragraphs.

And too bad you never find out who the heck the narrator is. Or why in the world he's in that little room being observed by scientists or doctors or terrorists. Or why that phone is there. Maybe I'm just not smart enough to deduce the answers to these questions from the narrator's moronic 200-page rambling.