Krime Story by Marcin Gutkowski

I made a goal to read most, of not all, books in Polish for the rest of the year. No matter how slow it goes. This was my first one finished. The author is also known as Kali, a Polish rapper.

I have a love-hate relationship with this book. I mostly hated it, because I think it could've been so much better - the description sounded interesting - but it really let me down.

Here's the description, roughly translated:
"An intricate criminal plot, set in the dark atmosphere of the Silesian City of Sin's dirty streets as a thorough sociological novel of manners on existence of young people in Poland. How thin is the line that divides the good from the bad? When does a man turn into a beast? Is there is still such a thing as unconditional love? Told from the point of view of the main character, nicknamed Krime, in a daring, brutally real novel".

No, that's not what it is at all and none of those questions were answered. This is a story about a gangster (and what's the difference between a gangster and just a straight up hooligan - another question this book made me think about) committing crimes until he meets up with a girl who suddenly changes him, even though she's just as bad. The author also happens to mention himself several times in the book, which came off a little pretentious.

I liked the story overall. It did indeed keep me interested, but there was just so much wrong with it. Like the ending. It came out of nowhere and there were no explanations about where that came from. And why. And what happened after.

The most distracting for me was the author mentioning Kali (HIMSELF!!) so many times. Kali is the only Polish rapper the main character likes, the rest are awful. There was also a Kali concert that some of the characters attended.

There were also some English lyrics mentioned - but spelled "hi" instead of "high". That combined with the name-dropping made me feel like the book was just a marketing gimmick for the author and not a real attempt to write a story. And it's just lazy to get lyrics wrong when you can easily double-check online (unless you never think you're wrong, that is).

Overall the story was okay; it was entertaining to say the least. I also learned a lot of vulgar words, which was fun to ask my husband about when they weren't in the dictionary.

Proceed with caution if you don't like violence, sex, and drugs - they're mentioned a lot.

Rating: 1/5
Pages: 256
Borrowed from: Friend
Recenzja powstała w ramach wyzwania WyPożyczone.

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