Savages by Don Winslow

Just finished this and I need other some other opinions. I can't stop thinking about it.

This is not a good book.

I'd go as far as to say that this is a bad book. I couldn't put it down. Finished it in a day, staying up late to finish. Every single weird decision he made with the writing style was awful. The non-stop acronyms. The made-up slang. Constantly giving the etymology of this weird slang that nobody has ever or ever will use. The 2 word chapters, and the sentences running from one chapter to another so that chapters ended up looking more like formatting errors than any intentional creative idea (290 chapters in a 300 page book?). Trying to make the three main characters so 'cool' that I was cringing regularly throughout. The sudden changes to typewriter-style scripts in the middle of chapters that had no purpose. The chapter that was just a directory of a shopping mall. All of it was terrible.

The characters were pretty one note, and Ophelia (O) was terrible. Nevermind someone who had no friends, she was like the idea of a cool person for someone who had never actually met another human being. She had essentially no redeeming features, but was loved and adored by the two successful millionaires, who loved her so much that they were willing to share her? Her main attributes essentially boiled down to she likes sex and she liked to eat and shop a lot. And these two 'cool' guys are obsessed with her, to a point of ridiculessness. Again, terrible.

But I could not put it down. It was good. The pacing is insanaley fast and it read like I was watching an action movvie unfold in double-speed (have only just realised that it actually was made into a movie – I assume it is also terrible but unforgettable?). I've enjoyed other Don Winslow books and also found them very hard to put down – no one I've come across has as fast-paced stories. I just don't know how to rate this book. It is one star and five star simultaneously. I don't know if it is the genre of Lee Child, James Patterson etc popcorn books to be read by pool, or should it be studied in English classes.

It was unlike anything I had ever read. I am dreading reading the prequel, the frighteningly terribly named 'Kings of Cool'. I can't wait to stay up all night reading it. What has this book done to me.