Bang Bang Sisters by Rio Youers
Rio Youers is an author I have great respect for. After his powerful surreal horror debut Westlake Soul, Youers created a style very much his own over the first couple of novels. Lola on Fire and No Second Chances are like literary Luc Besson movies. The reason I say that is not just the action plotlines but the super vile bad guys that make the books more tense.
Bang Bang Sisters will get many false comparisons, the look on the cover sells a 70s grindhouse vibe, but the women and the band inside the book have a more modern feel. The Bang Bang Sisters of the title are three women Brea, Jessie, and Flo. With a set-up of A-Team meets Bikini Kill I thought it was a great start. What the dust jacket describes as Blood, Bullets, Rock and Roll.
The characters are great, not a shock coming from Youers who excels in creating people you want to read about. By night the band travels the country planning small gigs, and off stage they are highly skilled vigilantes. Alternating with chapters from the point of view of The band members, a serial killer the Wren, and a gangster the BBS pissed off.
Everything is well written, and perhaps it was timing as I was reading this book just as I got super sick, but I sorta lost the thread or momentum of this book. As much as I liked the set-up, the characters, and even the storyline about the Wren, one of the twists of the book really didn’t work for me.
Using a clue about the Wren as a trap, the BBS is lured to Alabama where Chance Kotter a gangster creates an elaborate plot for revenge that involves a game of survival where the BBS are turned against each other. It was this twist that didn’t work for me. I was vibing on the book until that point.
Rio Youers is an incredibly talented writer, I think this was on the reader, but I didn’t connect to this book like I did the last two. Again, I was sick when I read it, and that also put me a bit behind on book reviews, so consider all this. While I didn’t like the final act I could see reading more stories about the Bang Bang Sisters, because Rio Youers is an author I will always read.
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