Sandman Slim-Chance of me picking up the next one

Hello wonderful readers-look at my optimism in pluralizing reader! Let it engulf you in joy, and pick you up, if you are feeling down.
You will need this positivity, so wrap yourself in it like a blanket now...because I am going to tear this book a part with my rage. I was so unhappy with this book early into it, that most of this post will be about how everything tacked on to infuriate me. That's right dear readers, you're getting the first ever RAGE READ!

Today's instalment of Jass Reads Books brings the challenge of  A book with a Two-Word Title!
I chose this challenge to cross off, because I had just borrowed a book from the library with a two-word title! I was also excited to read it because it was an Urban Fantasy book, said to be quite good. I am a big fan of urban fantasy, due to the genre combining a lot of stuff I find entertaining to read about: Mystery, crime, magic, the supernatural. Urban fantasy is fantasy set in an urban city/landscape, which also appeals to me, because I'm a city person and I think the updated setting has a different sort of immersion. I'm actually writing my own Urban Fantasy, it's a WIP that has been a WIP for some time now...although that is not the point! I'm over emphasizing how much I'm into this genre because... I HATED THE BOOK I READ! I was so over it, so fast, you would think it was a trend from the early 2000s.

Find your own terrible 2000 trend, I'm not putting myself through that!

So what was this book? Ugh, I don't even want to write it, lest it give the thing even a smidge of attention/marketing...but alas I have to: I present Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey.

I really wanted to like it. I really did. It opens with our protagonist James "Jimmy" Stark popping out of a cemetery in a "Germs" T-shirt. As a huge fan of the Germs, and Darby Crash's near-legendary charisma, I was pretty happy to see where we were headed with this story.

Ugh.

Okay, I could explain what this is about in a succinct summary, but instead I'm going to explain why it sucks with it's sexism instead.

This book is the mother of all "Women in Refrigerators" without even being a comic book! 
What do I mean by this? Well dear readers, this is the part of the blog where I go out on a tangent to explain my ramblings: "Women in Refrigerators" or WiR, is a trope that was coined by comic book writer Gail Simone to refer to the overwhelming amount of female characters who were killed, maimed, or de-powered to move the MALE protagonist's story arc along. Their suffering and anguish are just a tool for the male protagonist's inciting incident or deepened resolve, and to add salt to the wound, they are often barely described or rounded out because they didn't matter as characters to the writers from the start. They weren't characters, they were 'sad events' for the main guy to have experienced. The name is a reference to a scene in Green Lantern, where Kyle Rayner goes home to find his girlfriend killed and in his fridge. Gross right?

So now I'm a little into this book, I'm starting to like it and WHAM! It hits me with a WiR so hard, I think a kidney burst. Not mine, just a kidney, somewhere, belonging to something. Maybe it was a kidney bean! Or maybe my misery helped out someone else's and it was a kidney stone that no longer exists...because it burst into nothing. I'm getting to sucked into this...lets get back on track.
Stark, as he goes by, but since this is written after Game of Thrones premiered (because lets face it, the books didn't have the same place in pop-culture until HBO came around) I just roll my eyes. Remember, I am heavily heated at this book within a couple of chapters, so F@#$ this Stark. Anyways, Stark, has escaped hell, where he has been for eleven years! He was tricked and betrayed by his friends, a circle of other magician youngsters, and sent down to the pit at nineteen years old, alive. He is not a trapped soul, he is a trapped, living, person. He escaped hell after eleven years to get revenge. This is essentially what the back cover said in its synopsis. It's good right: Betrayal, torment, suffering, the revenge is super justified. But Stark isn't back because of his imprisonment...oh no. He's back because Alice, the love of his life, has been killed. SHE'S BEEN KILLED! HE F$@$#@$ BACK BECAUSE SHE HAS BEEN KILLED! This is the most NEEDLESS DEATH I HAVE EVER READ AS MOTIVATION!!!! I get enraged just thinking about it all over again! There is already a strong reason to want to escape hell and want revenge...it's the whole being set up and trapped in hell part! See what I mean about the mother of all WiR's now? This poor character, who we only meet in flashbacks, doesn't even exist when the book starts! She was stuffed in the fridge, off screen, before we even had a book! And why? I'm seriously asking, why? Again, there are tons of reasons for Stark to come back to earth and want to kill those who sent him to hell.  After this realization, everything was downhill.

I don't want to waste my time on this book. 

In no particular order:
Every female character is described by looks and f@#$ability. Stark is still a nineteen year old in his head, so every young, skinny, thing mentioned, he imagines sleeping with. That's it. 

One such girl is the 'green-haired pixie' cashier at a dougnut place. Who... gives her novel the SECOND WIR BY GETTING SHOT MULTIPLE TIMES AND DYING BY THE SECONDARY VILLAINS, TO PROVE A POINT TO STARK, WHO IS AN UNLIKEABLE PIECE OF S@#$ ! Also dear readers, notice she has no name. This is a place he goes a few times, most cashiers have name tags, so I'm going to assume she does to, but he doesn't notice it. No it's more important to wonder if the mandatory alien antennae she has to wear, stay on when she has sex with her boyfriend. 

The only woman he doesn't like? A female angel with tons of authority and power, who is described 'looking in drag'. If this was a better book, written by a better person, with better words...I would give the benefit of the doubt to suggest this is meant to show that angels find being human foreign and strange. That they dress in human drag, to play a part. But this book is not a better book, with a better writer, so F@#$ this book and this writer.  

And also I love doughnuts! So how dare this book taint what is a wonderful thing. It is beyond reproachable! 

Next thing, unnecessary ableism. R-Word thrown out hear and there. I know it has to do with character's immaturity, but there are better ways. 

Then we have Stark being the worst person. He is cruel, but has a conscious. After my reader rage, this doesn't make him more noble or likeable. It makes everything he does extra cold because we know he's thinking he should let this go, or be better about it. Again F#$% this Stark.

The worst part of all, is this book, stripped away from the crap...IS a good story. It could have been a good story. Instead it is the above.

Apparently this book is going to be made into a movie, which I can't handle. I'm ending my post here, because giving this book more thought is not something I want to do. Thanks for sticking through this post with me readers. Hopefully the next book is better, where I tackle a book with a plant in the title or on the cover.

Jass out. Hit me with your thoughts in the comments.