Review by Ebby Brown -- The Juicy Fruit Man by LaMar Going

[Ebby Brown]

[Following is a volunteer review of "The Juicy Fruit Man" by LaMar Going.]

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4 out of 4 stars

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The Juicy Fruit Man by LaMar Going is a story of Declan Noakes, a Vietnam veteran ranger who leaves his employment to go back to Amtrak and deal with his inner demons which took away his peace. Declan withdraws from most of his friends and finds comfort in smoking weed, which leads to the start of his business of selling potent marijuana from Thailand, famously known as juicy fruit on the streets of America; this turns out to be very lucrative and attract false friends such as Ben Fisher and officers from Chicago PD with ill intentions toward the business. Declan and Rachel has to outsmart their rivals in order to save their business and protect their family as well.

The author introduces the story with Declan’s past, working as a veteran ranger in Vietnam where his pain and struggles with the inner demons and ghosts began, forcing him to make poor choices and leave his permanent employment. He discovers Thai sticks which temporarily keep his inner demons away, giving him peace of mind after smoking and also makes him earn money as he starts distributing it in small portions around Amtrak with his cousin Rachel managing the business. Declan’s poor choices of trusting old friends like Ben Fisher who had bad intentions toward their business, put their lives, family and business at risk that they have to fight despite Rachel losing her innocence. In this story LaMar Going discourages rush decisions that in the end might affect many people, for instance, the business deal that Declan strike with Fisher despite Rachel warning him not to proceed with the deal. What if Declan did not decide to go to Vietnam? What if he did not trust Ben Fisher? What if Griff did not hide the entire potent marijuana?

What I liked most in this story is that even though Declan made mistakes that almost brought them harm, he still loved his cousin Rachel and tried his best to keep her family safe, for instance, he held his meetings with Fisher at the hotel and did not disclose Rachel’s place where he stayed. What I did not like about this book was that there were a few instances of foreign words without translations although this did not interfere with my reading.

The writing style of LaMar Going is really good because the words used are easy to understand, the plot of the story is well-written and brought more understanding of the story, for example, the story starts with Declan’s past before going to Vietnam, then his time while in Vietnam and how he went back to Amtrak; this made the story easy to follow. The use of descriptive words such as, ‘ He closed his eyes and wiggled his shoulders, letting tension flow down and out the tips of his toes’ made me picture the scenarios in my mind as if it’s a movie and the action kept me glued to the story from start to end. The author used italic format to distinguish the characters’ thoughts from real events in the story.

I really enjoyed reading the book and could relate to Declan’s struggles with inner demons and ghosts which led to his poor decision making in the story. Anyone can be Declan because of the different demons and monsters we could be facing in form of false friends, poor decisions, loss of family, insecurities, just to mention a few. This book does not interfere with the religion of any reader because it does not favor neither sides of religion.

There were several instances of borderline vulgar words which blended with the story and did not interfere with my reading. I rate The Juicy Fruit Man by LaMar Going 4 out of 4 stars because this book was well-edited and had a flow. I recommend this book to readers struggling with challenges that are affecting their normal lifestyles or changing their behaviors, because from this book just like Declan they can learn how to deal with it and even prevent further possible damages. I do not recommend this book for children because of murder scenes in the story.

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The Juicy Fruit Man
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[Sou Hi]

Thanks for reviewing. Drug indulgence is never a good choice. Once you're involved with it, it's hard to escape.