Title: Au revoir, Crazy European Chick
Author: Joe Schreiber
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Rating: Worthy!
Well this is different again: I'm writing this review after I've finished the entire book, so no "live blogging" as it were. Yes, I know I haven't finished blogging The Darwin Elevator yet. I'm still going strong on that one, but I had problems getting that onto a Kindle, so I slipped this one through the cracks when I couldn't read the other. I'm glad I did! I loved this novel. I started loving it, then it slipped a bit on the credibility scale, then came back towards the end. It's a very different kind of book. No paranormal wussiness here, this is hard and gritty, and while it does take some swallowing at times, it's crazy enough and amusing enough that I was willing to take the ride.
Schreiber is a fellow blogger here at blogspit. You can read an interview with him here. This very short novel (190 pages) is about a guy in high school pondering which college to go to, pressured by his father, a high-powered lawyer, although we learn every little about his family or his friends, except that his dad, he learns, has not ended the affair he was having. Perry ends up having to take this quiet, reserved and rather dowdy Lithuanian foreign exchange girl (called Gobija Zaksauskas - not her real name!) to the prom - at her request!
Perry resents this immensely, because he has a date to play in his band in New York City - their first chance at an important gig, but he's brow-beaten into doing this by his over-bearing dad. He gets to drive Gobi (as she prefers to be called, although her real name is Zusane) in his dad's Jaguar, and they hang out at the prom until Gobi is picked on by two bullies (why they waited the whole school year to do this is a mystery). Perry stands up for her and gets into a fight in which he fares badly. Gobi suggests that they leave, and while he goes to get the car, she goes to freshen up.
They drive downtown and Gobi directs Perry to take her to a high class club, where Perry gets stamped with an 'underage' marker. Gobi disappears into the rest room again, but this time when she returns, she's changed - not just her clothes but her whole appearance. Now, of course, she looks hot. Worse than this, she has a gun and shoots a guy dead, breaking the front window in the process. She and Joe retreat in the Jag.
Thus starts the night of revenge. Gobi is on a mission to kill those people who kidnapped her sister, whose name really was Gobi, and sold her into white slavery, and eventually killed her to satisfy the sick lust of a client. This night, prom night, is the time when all of them are in the city together, and it's the night Gobi has chosen to exact her revenge. And she's a trained assassin. One by one those slime fall at her hands, and Perry keeps trying to get away, but is threatened by Gobi that if he does, she will blow up his house with his mom, dad, and twelve year old sister.
At one point, Gobi directs Perry to take her to the club where his band is playing, so he gets to be on stage with them for one song, until the lights mysteriously go out and Gobi grabs him and leads him out, telling him they're being followed. This is rather where it gets beyond belief, because it's really not possible for them to wreak so much havoc in NYC and continue driving in the same vehicle and not get caught, but what the hell! It's a fun story, so let Schreiber have it.
Other than her directions and the violence, and her threats, there's very little going on between Gobi and Perry except this one time when they dance closely together as part of their cover, and there's definitely a reaction going on with Perry. Gobi teases him. Schreiber has written her well. She's not a caricature. They way he has her speak is sweet and really lets you believe she is foreign, but not alien.
Perry eventually manages to escape, and he tosses her BlackBerry, the device she's using to plan her moves, into a lake, and she forces him to talk with her contact to recover the information about the last two targets. Visiting the penultimate one, Perry and Gobi are captured, and she's beaten, but they escape, and the final target happens to be in the law offices where her father works! I was believing that the target was Perry's father. Was I right? Is it revealing too much (or not enough?) to tell you that at the end - not the very end, but close enough - Perry's house does blow up right after Gobi was in there...?
I highly recommend this one. What do you have to lose? It's very short, very readable, a little far-fetched, but fun, and the ending is not at all what you'd expect. Go for it!
