3 out of 4 stars
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Joe Pagan is mature for his young age; his thinking processes different from that of the usual fifteen-year-old kid. His behavior is unlikely, mature and practical; he does not believe in dreams and only depends on his abilities. He does not like fighting, but thugs fear him when he is at it, for he is trained in the Martial Arts that he learned from a deceased friend. His mother might be a heroin addict, selling anything to get her fix, but that did not change his love for her, so he could not fathom his Uncle Frank's repudiation of his own sister. When his mom overdoses on heroin and dies in her bed, his father Joseph whom he sees for the first time, comes and Joe's life takes on a 180-degree turn. With a new identity as Joe Velez, he is whisked away to a Caribbean island called Sacred Port to train at The Academy which disguises as an elite learning institution. He came back to his hometown as Alabaster Joe, a ruthless contract killer.
Alabaster Joe by Maximino Vega accounts Joe's coming of age in a world where peace and quiet is nonexistent, where danger is a just icing on the cake and where only the fearless survives: the brutal, savage world of assassins.
The author's ability to make the reader visualize and enjoy the action in the novel is very apparent. The action scenes were suspenseful and creative, and I could not help imagining this novel as a movie. What I also liked about the novel was the rainbow of different characters: the main and the supporting ones. No two individuals were similar in terms of behavior and attitude. They presented real people forced against their will because of circumstances beyond their control; people who are innately bad and who turned bad because of difficult circumstances. There are people who use their power to manipulate and take advantage of unfortunate persons. If I were to choose a character which I disliked the most; it would be Frank, hands down. Regardless of his sister's mistakes, she was family, and I could not comprehend his animosity even after she died. He was unforgiving and self-righteous.
I had many questions during the early part of the book, and just like any other suspense novel, I was hoping to be enlightened as I carried on. The part that Joseph put his own son in a perilous situation was an uncommon sign of a father's love, whatever the motive was. Saying 'I love you, son' was premature, more so when it was a first-time meeting; this part came off lame. How the trainees of The Academy were chosen was unclear. Were they forced as Joe was? What were their background; do they have the similar situation that Joe had? These were the questions that plagued me while reading the book and were left unanswered. Also, The Academy was disguising as a school for the rich, but no parts of the novel depicted or described the usual school scenes while there was a different training underground.
Apparently, proofreading and grammar check were unutilized. There were many missing punctuations, predominantly commas and hyphens. Words like 'home cooked meal' and 'fourteen floor' building should have been hyphenated: 'home cooked meal' even occurred thrice. On page 72, 'kids' should have been 'kid's'; 'your' was used instead of 'you are' on page 169. There were incorrect punctuation marks: in the last sentence on page 22, quotation marks were placed where there should have none, and a period was placed between 'Miss Gallagher' on page 154. On page 148, there were two sentences that a comma should have been placed in between them instead of a period. Common nouns like television and police were capitalized. There was one word spelled incorrectly: Paula instead of Paola. Moreover, the name Al was mentioned early in the book but was introduced improperly, only to find out several paragraphs later that it was merely referring to Al's Pizza.
Vega’s book has a good plot, a set of interesting characters, a fluid story flow, and has many twists which readers will enjoy. However, it was marred unfortunately by ubiquitous grammatical errors that were present from the get-go and pervasive throughout the book. This prevented me from rating it higher than the 3 out of 4 stars that I give to this novel.
Maximino Vega's Alabaster Joe presents the sensitive topic of heroin addiction and trafficking, and the brutal, savage and graphic violence of the underworld requires a mature reader; thus, this suspenseful novel is unsuited for the very young people.
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Alabaster Joe
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