Review: Sutphin Boulevard (Five Boroughs #1) by Santino Hassell

My rating:

Rail this motherfucker while I jerk off on you.

The first Santino Hassell book I ever read was Fast Connection and I binge read the ass out of the Cyberlove series after that. Then I picked up this one as part of the MMRG TBR Knockout Challenge, and binge read the ass out of Five Bouroughs. What I'm saying is - Mr Hassell is clearly my jam.

His writing style is gritty, the language is dirty, the sex is off the chain filthy, and the characters are raw, real and a little bit faulty.

You're cute, but phenomenally dense.

How the major issue in the story plays out. When I picked up this book, I didn't know exactly what I was expecting - but I wasn't expecting this kind of depth. It was awesome!

2 things.

1: Mikey was a bit of a dick. Nunzio was a way better friend to him, than he was to Nunzio. Off the top of my head, I'm remembering 2 times that he bailed on Nunzio when they had big plans. As in - trip to Italy plans. That sucks. And he pushed Nunzio away a lot. In my heart -and, ok, I know it's not a true story but it still hurts dammit - I feel that Nunzio deserved better. Having said that, I wouldn't want to ever see them with anyone else.

2: What happens if you don't speak any Spanish? There are quite a few lines in this story where characters are speaking Spanish, and not a lot of context to help with a vague translation.

Empieza con la mierda (Bring on this shit)

No soy tu hijito (I'm not your son)

Tu suerte cambiara. Tienes a tu familia. (Your luck will change. You have your family)

Tu madre estaria avergonzada. (Your mother would be ashamed)

That's a lot, and if you can't understand what the characters are saying I feel like you'd be missing out on some decent convo.

Amazing storytelling, exciting pace and even though Mikey wasn't my fave - I loved all Mr Hassell's characters hard. His character development is some kind of amazing.