Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Review: Dirty Little Angels by Chris Tusa

This one sort of got swept away in a read-a-thon frenzy, and since I reviewed it for the author, I thought it would be a good idea to bring it back up to the top for it to get the facetime it deserves.

Title:Dirty Little Angels

Author:Chris Tulsa

Rating:

Recommended?Yeah; I really, really enjoyed reading this book, and I think most people would.

What I Have to Say: When this author contacted me to review this book, I said yes. Not because I thought that the book looked extraordinarily interesting, but because the author was from Louisiana. Being from Louisiana myself, I do my best to check out local authors as often as possible.
Well, let's just say that I'm glad that this author happened to be a Louisiana native, therefore enticing me to read this book. Because I LOVED it!
Hailey Trosclair is one of the most interesting and hard to put my finger on characters that I have ever read. Her innocence in thought and the innocent way in which she approaches the most violent or tragic of things is, well, baffling.
Her lack of emotion when it comes to the most severe of issues is, yet again, baffling.
Hailey is this weird mixture of a 16 year old girl living the life of a 21 year old girl and yet with the mentality of a 5 year old. And I am still shocked that Chris Tusa managed to pull off a character like this, and brilliantly, at that. Is he really a man? Can he possibly be sane?
All of the characters in this book surpass the normal stereotypes given to kids of the slums of New Orleans. Through Tusa's brilliant descriptions, we get a real look at what it must be like to grow up there, what it must feel like to live a life of dysfunction when you are surrounded by poverty and more dysfunction.
To sum it up, Dirty Little Angels is the haunting story of dysfunction gone wrong, seen from the point of view of someone who can't seem to grasp what that means. It is brilliantly written, with well-developed characters, a well-developed plot, and a narrator that will capture your heart, even if you don't like her, and even though you certainly won't understand her.

SummarySet in the slums of New Orleans, among clusters of crack houses and abandoned buildings, Dirty Little Angels is the story of sixteen year old Hailey Trosclair. When the Trosclair family suffers a string of financial hardships and a miscarriage, Hailey finds herself looking to God to save her family. When her prayers go unanswered, Hailey puts her faith in Moses Watkins, a failed preacher and ex-con. Fascinated by Moses's lopsided view of religion, Hailey, and her brother Cyrus, begin spending time down at an abandoned bank that Moses plans to convert into a drive-through church. Gradually, though, Moses's twisted religious beliefs become increasingly more violent, and Hailey and Cyrus soon find themselves trapped in a world of danger and fear from which there may be no escape.

Disclaimer: This book was provided by the author in exchange for a review.

HAPPY READING, EVERYONE!!!!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Yeah wait it go! One book finished already. I'm very impressed. It sounds like a great read too.

Sheila (bookjourney) said...

This sounds really good! I thought I had heard of this book before but what you are describing here is not what I thought it was about.

This may need to hit my wish list!

Alessandra said...

I've had this book on my TBR pile for a while, now. New Orleans setting - that must be cool. I'd love to visit New Orleans one day.

My Contests

None for now!