I Lost My Nose...In A Good Book

Wall Street West by Cristina Guarneri

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


I received an ARC of Wall Street West by Dr. Cristina Guarneri from NetGalley in return for an honest review. The copy I received was nearly unreadable, but I did read it, and I believe I understood enough of what story there was to review it.


The subtitle of this book is The Journey Of A Mayor. Dr. Guarneri says the story was inspired by real events. I requested this book from NetGalley because the synopsis claimed it was about Wall Street and New York, two subjects about which I enjoy reading. In fact, there was very little about Wall Street or the city of New York. There was no clear focus in the book, but parts of it had to do with a man named Harper who saw himself as a Superman. He ran for Mayor of the borough Wall Street West, and he gave campaign speeches before during and after the election. He pointed out time after time after time that after 9/11 he felt it was his duty to enlist in the armed services, so he joined the Marines and went to Iraq. He won numerous awards and never hesitated to point out that he went on heroic missions. He said he believed it was his duty to give back to the disadvantaged people of his borough, so he involved himself in all kinds of charitable events. He ran a marathon, swam the two mile width of a river, scaled a skyscraper, and entered burning buildings with firefighters in training events. The first 3 he did back-to-back. The only thing he did not do was leap across a tall building in a single bound.


The story was all over the place from meetings in a diner leading to charges of corruption against a woman named Marcy who was never explained in any amount of detail and seemed to have little or nothing to do with the whole case, to Harper's deep thoughts about how he needed to hone his firefighting skills. There were murders but no mystery surrounding who did it, and the circumstances were silly. There was some train ride that made no sense at all, and when one of the characters on this junket believed his life was in danger he went for a long walk, at night, alone. The result of that was not only silly, it was unbelievable.


I don't do spoilers, but I have to say that the last third of the book has a sequence of events so bizarre it defies description. I believe the author wanted to squeeze as many events from the news into her story as possible to make it relevant. The problem is, she didn't concern herself with whether all of those items as she describes them make any sense. Along with the very poor book structure very little makes sense in Wall Street West


I usually close my reviews with a suggestion for who I believe would enjoy the book. I can't think of anyone who could possibly enjoy this one unless it were used for a class on how NOT to write a book.



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