The Yahoo Boys by Carlos Barragán

´If I´m sorry, how I gotta get money?´

A single mother of three, the mother of Carlos Barragán attempted to find new love again. Through a dating app, she ´met´ a love interest that proved to be a scam who wanted her money. Barragán is using this personal experience to document an overwhelming phenomenon of dating scams, that I had the chance more than once to touch upon and share through nonfictional and fictional accounts. 

The Yahoo Boys. Real Life  with the Love Scammers of Lagos (Yahoo boys because of the email provider usually used by the scammers) is the result of the author´s experience of months living and talking with the scammers. Mostly young men - but also few women - they mostly operate individually, driven by the need of a glamorous life, where success is weighted by the power of pursuing white victims. 

Barragán offers an unique insight into the world and mind of people involved in scamming. Although the victims´ stories are playing an important role in the story, the reasons and ways of acting of the actors is more relevant. For both sides, there is a certain depth of the loneliness that Barragán is aptly outlining. It is a cruel world and although it is possible to stay afloat and avoid turning on the wrong side, sometimes it may be just easier.

This book is an important investigation in the world of scams, a reference for any further discussions on the topic. It reads both as a real crime story and a testimony of contemporary life. Some of the stories shared are so sad that sometimes needed a break in-between to collect my thoughts.

Rating: 5 stars 

Die Kollaborateure by Katrina Tuvera translated into German by Jan Karsten

I am struggling always with keeping straight with my plans, but there is one that I always follow carefully: expanding my knowledge on world authors and literature. Last year, the Philippines was the guest of honor at Frankfurt Book Fair, but my first Filipino author ever arrived on my reading desk only six month later.

Die Kollaborateure - The Collaborators - by Katrina Tuvera was translated into German by Jan Karsten. In a bit over 200 pages, around 100 years of history are covered, shared from the point of view of a family experiencing various events, such as the Japanese occupation to the martial law and the Marcos dictatorship. 

Just before an important surgery, Carlos Armando is rememorating his life, projected against the tormented historical background. Seen from the standpoint of a particular family, the account is more intimate than a simple historical overview, allowing at the same time to discuss concepts like collaboration and complicity, without which individual survival in adverse collective environments is almost impossible.

I´ve found the approach and the context very interesting, bringing up interesting historical facts and moral takes. However, from the literary point of view, I´ve found the book structure as well as the dialogues not necessarily rich. Maybe it was also a result of the translation.

In any case, I am glad to finally be able to include a new country on my literary map, a step that hopefully will be followed by many more.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Random Things Tours: The Nanny by Heather Burnside

 

The Nanny by Manchester-based bestseller author Heather Burnside starts very slowly, introducing the reader to such a homely ambiance that I´ve asked myself few times when the crime is about to lure. Or the psychological suspense. Alex and Amanda are a young family, with a young son that just hired a nanny to take over some of the daily chores.

Few pages later, there is a crime promise luring. Because the nanny, Katelyn, is there for a mission, as she has a past with Alex. A very tormented one, in fact. As she is making her way in the family´s life, her obsession with Alex is taking unexpected turns.

The background stories of the characters, as revealed by the author are interesting and their flaws made them human and relatable. (Although, I would really love to never deal with someone like Katelyn, to be honest.)

What is shocking and twists the dynamics between characters is the simplistic and toxic idea Katelyn has on love and relationships. Alex is a very antipathic character: weak, dishonest, unable to control his reactions and to restrain Katelyn.

Both Alex and Amanda, although at different extents, are hiding their own secrets and blurry past and this web of lies they are entangled to is clearly affecting their relationship. It would have been so easy to just be honest with each other... For the reader, those revelations and twists are keeping the interest high for the next possible evolutions. The relationship between Alex and Amanda looks so empty at times and it´s really hard to figure out what really brought and is keeping them together. 

The episodes regarding domestic violence against women are strong enough to make us aware of the gravity yet everyday normality of such topics. 

As for the ending, it was really worth waiting for it. 

A recommended thoughtful read for psychological crime lovers.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own

Random Things Tours: Service by Lauren Mooney

I am very honest with my reading lists, and no matter how FOMO I am - answer: a lot - there are specific genres I am usually avoiding, unless are recommended by people of high literary taste. Hence, I ended up spending some time with a Gothic novel of workplace inspiration: Service a debut by Lauren Mooney. 

To be fully honest, the workplace part weighted the balance in favor of this book. I am my own employer for ever and used with the duress, but from my memories of working in an office, no matter how fancy it looked and was described, the horror genre comes very close. 

Danielle, the main character of Service is in her 30s, broke, hating her job and just broke up with her boyfriend. This may lead to a romantic entanglement, or to some journey of discovering herself or who knows what other positive thinking magic. Danielle of Service though is invited by her glamorous boss, Jeannie, to spend some time in the noble mannor in England. 

But the next step isn´t a kind of countryiside romance or not even an entrepreneurship plan, but a couple of interactions and there is Jeannie, who seems to literally own her. The workplace drama continues, but with a moderate taste of horror. An old mannor will stay an old mannor, after all.

The whole story is a chain of unexpected situations, some explained in a humoresque vein, some just creepy, some both. There are expectations and laugh and mystery too.

There is a certain theatrality of both the setting of the book and the dialogues, which may be because the author herself is a dramaturg as well.

I´ve read the book over the last torrid weekend and it was the most inspired literary choice in a while. It is a debut novel to remember, and hopefully it will not take too long until Mooney will be back with a new novel. The waiting will be worth it, anyway.

Rating: 5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own

Dear Debbie by Freida McFadden

´I am about to cross a line. And once I do, I won´t be able to go back. Then again, this has been a long time coming´.

Very very late, but still here, I am joining the massive readers of Freida McFadden. I am self-diagnosed with FOMO therefore I couldn´t miss it, no matter how much I resisted the temptation, and how many books I have on my TBR - the mountain of books waiting for me is only getting higher and higher, up to the sky and back.

Dear Debbie, is her latest, and felt lucky to get it from my library freshly after the publication. Debbie - a writer of a modest chronicle in a local newspaper. For the rest of her time, she is taking care of her garden - growing way too many poppies - and of her two teenage daughters. Her husband is about to finally request a promotion. 

Suddenly, everything is failing and Debbie is having a very bad day - she is getting fired, her husband resigns, her daughter are facing different issues. Plus, her much awaited photo shooting of her garden for a specialized magazine is cancelled because the neighbour may have a much beautiful rose garden, after all.

And then suddenly as well, people and roses are starting to die. What to expect from a lady who is wearing a dress with blood stains by design. 

The books sets very slowly, with fragments in the story that do not promise nothing good next. Debbie, a coding prodigy, had to leave MIT after being raped, a secret she is well keeping. This episode however shaped not only her next steps in life, but also her connection to other people around her. You may not be born a dangerous psychopaths, but created by your circumstances. 

The crescendo of the revelations is shortly towards the end. There are so many mismatched situations and even people that it´s hard not to sigh in awe. 

Dear Debbie is exploring the forms of a basic human emotion: vengeance, through the story of a very bourgeois and unsurprising lady. Until she isn´t. 

I´ve read the book in few hours, in between my working breaks. The writing and the story may keep you connected, although it´s not the smartest crime writing around. But it was definitely worth trying it, and as long as the TBR allows, would be more than keen to give to this author yet another try.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Cover Reveal: The Twenty Dates by Ko Porteous

 

Will 20 dates save a 19-year old marriage of two people that seems to not have too much to share any more? The Twenty Dates by Ko Porteous promises a lot of fun and thought about relationships at adult age, with some ups and downs and romance in between.

As for yet, I only had access to the book presentation, without reading it, but I am delighted to take part to a virtual cover reveal event. The space is carefully portioned, with a burning red used as a background, with elegantly styled lettering, and minimalistic images. No human portrayed, just two desks presented from the front, opening a couple of questions about to expect in this story.

If this book seems interesting for you, here are the link for purchasing the book, to be launched the 8th of October this year:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Twenty-Dates-Empty-Nesters-Book-ebook/dp/B0H5G54FXK/

https://www.amazon.com/Twenty-Dates-Empty-Nesters-Book-ebook/dp/B0H5G54FXK/

As usual, many thanks to Rachel´s Random Resources for having me.

Le Perfezioni by Vincenzo Latronico

 

Although with less speed as in the previous months, I´ve conntinued this month my Italian reading agenda. This time, I got Le Perfezioni/La Chiave di Berlino by Vicenzo Latronico, a book set in Berlin at the end of the first decade of 2000s. The book was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize and was translated into several languges, including English by Sophie Hughes for Fitzcarraldo Editions. 

As someone who moved to Berlin during the same time, I felt compelled to read this book. The author left Italy at almost the same time - those were the times when I made a lot of Italian friends, brought to Berlin by Berlusconi´s governments, but he is currently back in Italy.

His life in Berlin is reflected in the accurate description of places and events, ways of being and expectations of people the novel - an offline, third person account of the - almost perfect - life of Anna and Tom, Italian creatives, having the best of their life in the city.

Latronice, a member of anti-gentrification collective in Milan, is observing the silent yet radical twists taking place during those time: as Berlin is becoming more international, sought-after, its identity is getting more standardized and the city soulless. The living costs are high and the available apartments dire. The image of the city is turning into an illusion, a projection of what people expect to find here: maybe a smaller or bigger slice of ´home´, a promise of freedom, but at a lower prize.

Anna and Tom may explore other similar ´paradises´: Portugal, Sicily - while turning back and forth to Berlin in their subletted apartment - who may lose an apartment in a city where scarcity is pushing natives out of its urban borders?

The language - for an Italian student - is relatively sophisticated, C1 level and up, in my opinion, but highly literarily enjoyable. The ambiances, including the olfactive moments are very vivid and immersive.

For a contemporary novel set in the 2000s, the show-format, without characters and a proper story, the short length - 136 pages in the original Italian version - suits very well. But exactly this unclear space between essay - on gentrification and spectacle-society we are more and more each day immersed into - and hipster story leaved a space for expectations that wasn´t properly filled.

Berlin is still the hype, even when it is not what it used - or we expected it - to be, therefore, it is still so much to say and in so many different ways. Le Perfezioni uses the commonality of the inspiration, but ends up in many respects mostly as an exercise in imperfection.

Rating: 3.5 stars