Review by Laura_Gilmartin -- Randy Love...at your service

[Laura_Gilmartin]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Randy Love...at your service" by Shay Carter.]

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2 out of 4 stars

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Randy Love… at your service is the story of a modern-day young man to whom everything in life apparently comes easy. When we meet Randy Love he is on a break from university and living with his father in England. A Business major, Randy is naturally interested in minimising inputs and maximising returns in life. Primarily, he is concerned with how to make the most money and bed the most women with the least amount of effort. In his search for employment and a place to live, this self-serving approach gets Randy into plenty of sticky situations, but nothing his good looks and charm can’t rescue him from. The only problem is, constantly running away from his responsibilities eventually proves effortful in itself and Randy begins to wonder if there might be a smarter way to get what he wants out of life.

Hedonism is a popular theme in literature and several of the early twentieth century’s most interesting stories explore its limits through characters like Dorian Gray, Jake Barnes and Jay Gatsby. These types of characters often come from troubled times, and so the reader understands their preoccupation with drinking and sleeping around in the context of the pain of having grown up in deprivation or experienced the horrors of war. One of the most intriguing questions posed by these so-called Age of Excess novels was: What is the price to pay for living a life of self-indulgence? Western society looks dramatically different now than it did in those times, in terms of both quality of life and social mores. Today, it is wholly acceptable for adult children to live with their parents, binge drink and engage in casual sex, and yet the dynamics that link effort to achievement and delayed gratification to reward remain unchanged, making the question no less relevant today.

Early on in this book we learn the extent of Randy’s self-interest, which he demonstrates repeatedly through the choices he makes. Carter was ambitious and brave to build this type of character, because getting buy-in from readers on an unlikable character is a huge challenge. Unfortunately, there is too little insight into Randy’s emotional state outside of his own narcissism to bring the reader onside. Randy does not appear to experience emotions like love, fear and self-doubt, leaving us with a potential sociopath whose naivety cannot redeem him. The basis for an exploration of the role of Randy’s upbringing in his dysfunction is there but goes underutilised. Eventually it becomes obvious the only path left for Randy is the harsh but entertaining lesson of karmic retribution, but he encounters nothing like it and we are left confused as to the story’s fundamental purpose.

Several things make it difficult to fit this book into a genre. The story does not follow a traditional arc but appears as a series of stand-alone anecdotes designed to amuse, with no foreshadowing or chapter conclusions linking chapters together. The plot lacks dramatic force and a visceral climax. The language is pared back and often conversational, and early in the story the narrator refers to themselves but we never find out who they are. Despite this, the writing style and use of language is skilful, and occasional pop culture references are entertaining.

I give Randy Love… at your service 2 out of 4 stars. Carter is a talented writer with imagination and a flair for dialogue, and this subject matter does not do it justice. There are grammatical errors in this book and it does not appear to have been professionally edited. Due to the difficulty in classifying this book, I am not sure to whom I would recommend it.

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Randy Love...at your service
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