I was hoping that that was fake. Nope. Amazon review. >> Masterful and deceptive display of irony and parody Reviewed in the United States on October 4, 2013 Never before have I seen an author so bold as to entirely mask their identity and so capable of sliding into the patois of the streets - going so far as to write the ENTIRE BOOK in the thug lingo. Such dedication to the craft is truly admirable, but highly deceptive. "Deandre", although I would be willing to wager that this street persona is little more than another character in the real author's master stroke of irony and social parody, paints such a compelling picture of the complexities of ghetto life that it requires every ounce of my strength to NOT don a pair of jeans 3 sizes too large and tattoo my knuckles with SWAG. >>The true strength of the work is in its ability to communicate subtleties through the mangled prose (which was almost certainly written this way as a matter of the author's intent, for nothing happens in literature that is not consciously intended by the author), comparable in this case to such masterpieces as Riddley Walker. His characters, as complex as the tyrants of Greek tragedy and the figures of Shakespeare's greatest work (an ambitious claim to make for an author's first work, but please, trust me on this one: read past the first chapter. What at first appears to be complete shit evolves in parallel with the fluid narrative, blossoming into a work of completion as beautiful and as whole as any of Hesse's greats). >>I almost never buy books - I admit it, I'm a shameless eBook pirate. My Kindle is chock full of PDFs that I never paid a dime for. But let me tell you: I bought THREE copies of this book, created two whole Amazon accounts to be able to get it. So if you want an extra copy of it just email me at: fedora@euphoric.com. I'll hook you up. 27 people found this helpful