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For such a bleak narrative, it was a joy to read Jonathan Ames' "You Were Never Really Here." Only 97 pages, there is not a wasted word or phrase in this book. I know Ames admires the work of Richard Stark, and clearly, he learned from the master. Ames is mostly a humorous writer of essays and fiction, so the noir writing is a new avenue for him. It's a perfect example of how to tell a tale. I don't want to get into the plotting of this story, because that's for the reader to know and enjoy, but...
Re-watching the movie while waiting for "Joker" to finally hit theaters!Joaquin Phoenix made me read this! :-) I think the guy has an amazing ability to seek out great roles in edgy, unique films with unusual storylines. For his lead role as Joe in "You Were Never Really Here" (in some countries released under the title "A Beautiful Day"), Phoenix won the Award for Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival 2017, and director Lynne Ramsay collected the Best Screenplay Award. The movie is based on Am...
'You Were Never Really Here,' by Jonathan Ames is a really dark book about a young girl kidnapped by the mob and used for prostitution and the man, Joe, who's hired to save her. Joe is damaged and fully aware of his derangement. Former FBI and former Marine, the culprit of Joe's aberration is an abusive father, dead during the telling of the story, but readers will know that the abuse lives on in Joe's psyche. Joe is a hired gun, who works on the wrong side of the law. Rescuing girls that have b...
Not really sure what the point of this was. It's a fairly decent set-up to a mob revenge story... and then it just ends. It's like the first part of a much longer novel.Certainly doesn't work as a book on its own as far too much is left hanging and 97 pages isn't really long enough to explore the many plot strands, not to develop characters properly.
3.5 starsA soon to be released movie, this book is crime noir at it's best. Our protagonist, Joe, is a former Marine and former FBI agent who now is a man for hire. His specialty is finding young girls sold into the sex trade. He is called into a very unusual case and once he has his hands on the targeted girl, things seem to come unwound. I had not read Ames before, but believe that he usually writes humor. If that is the case, he has hid his cold blooded thriller image very well. This story to...
3.5/5⭐.Such a good novella.I'm surprised that this was made into a movie that I was not aware of. I am so gonna watch it.
If revenge is a dish best served cold, Joe (the main character of this story) is serving up some icy entrees. If this story were a person it’d be lying passed out face first on the floor of a dive bar in a puddle of various human (and some inhuman) liquids, covered in cuts and bruises and, upon hearing your approach, would stagger upright, spit out a tooth, take a double shot of whiskey and lurch outwards to pick a new fight with anyone. The shadow of death and hopeless despair hangs over this s...
Visceral breakneck pace straight down the line in cinematic style, starts with some nice characterization of this ex-marine and ex-FBI fixer, whose choice of weapon against assailants is a hammer, and builds up with the situation of taken and the task to be undertaken, all plays out in the need for successful return of a young daughter to her Senator father.Straight to the meat not so many details, economy of words and pages that hook you into a effective little thriller that can be read under t...
I've always admired Jonathan Ames for how funny a writer he is. And now it turns out he can write a cold-blooded thriller, as well. I'm very annoyed and very impressed.
Novella Made into a movie Ex soldier Ex fbi Now Pi On a mission to find a kidnapped daughter Her father is a senator It goes downhill ....
I really enjoyed this one; I was utterly gripped throughout... right up until the ending... or, rather, the lack of an ending.I suppose you could argue this abrupt ending was dramatic and ominous but I just came away feeling like the author got bored with the story and couldn't be bothered to write anymore. Knowing what I know of Ames from reading his non-fiction I find this entirely plausible.Still, as I said, right up until the somewhat lack-lustre ending, this was absolutely great.
170918: intense. that is the best 112 pages i have read this or many other years. i call it poetry because it is so stripped down, language minimal, plot simple but complex, concise but emotional, basically everything i love in poetry. is there a sequel? i do not know. i think i have to watch the film...
3,5/5. Action packed novella that won’t slow down for the entire reading. That would be the kind of read I would like to share with my father, he would have love it, if he was a reader. For myself alone, this was an entertaining read. The action is always well described and the plot is captivating without being truly original. There are two things I didn’t like. First, the writing seems nearly adapted for a movie or a tv show, no surprise they did a movie with (going to watch it soon enough...),...
Sloppy, he thought. What the fuck is wrong with me?Soon the one in the car would come looking. Joe didn't want any more fights, because you didn't win every fight. Joe figured they just wanted to know how he had gotten them and if others would follow, and then they would have killed him. But he didn't need to take them all out because they wanted information. He was just one man. Not the complete arm of justice. pg. 5Short, brutal novella about a Marine who has turned to becoming a rescuer for h...
**3.8 stars**“There were differences between memories and dreams. He had only dreams of things he had wanted to do, while Lespere had memories of things done and accomplished. And this knowledge began to pull Hollis apart, with a slow, quivering precision.” Ray Bradbury, The Illustrated ManA few years before the days when people were fawning so much over the tragic life of Arthur Fleck in Todd Philip’s nevertheless extraordinary depiction, there were a handful of people who were shocked by J
This novella packs a punch in its short pages! You Were Never Really Here opens with some action and the pace never stops until the end. I had no idea what to expect when I started it, but by the end I was wishing it was a full novel because I didn’t want it to end.I’m not going to lie, I was drawing comparisons with a certain Mr. Child and his Jack Reacher character while I was reading this book. Joe is very similar to Reacher which in itself if was enough to make me want more.The plot, for suc...
After watching the movie of the same name and ending up befuddled over what was just seen, I then read Jonathan Ames' novella You Were Never Really Here and was pleasantly pleased with both. Be forewarned, both are with graphic violence. Also, if one intends to watch the film, I would suggest reading only about half of the novella. And to be honest, I would do the reading before watching the film. Unfortunately, aspects of the film are too ambiguous and reading half of the novella explains away
After watching the movie and then reading a very creepy, dream logic, hidden meaning theory about the mom-son relationship and many other aspects I couldn't wrap my head around this and it kept me thinking for days, so I decided to read the book . After finishing Ames’s novella I couldn't help but smile because it turned out that it was a classic case of over thinking and taking pieces of a movie to form your own theory. Anyway, the book includes 100ish dark, gritty and tight pages which are rea...
Dude works outside the law to rescue sex trafficked girls. Shit goes sideways. Dude has a hammer.Imagine Jack Reacher but terrifying and faster.I read the whole thing aloud to myself.It's 90 pages.
In a change of pace and authorial style, I also read You Were Never Really Here by Jonathan Ames, a novella that runs to 87 pages and soon to be a feature film starring Joaquin Phoenix. Joe, a former FBI agent and U. S. Marine, harbouring the memories of an abusive childhood, and the violent events of his recent careers, now has largely dropped out from society, earning a living tracking down and rescuing young girls from the grip of the sex trade. Now he has been hired to save the daughter of a...