The F*ck It List - John Niven

Delighted to be on the blog tour for this book today.

Description

You are dying. Who do you kill?

Set in a near-future America, an America that has borne two terms of Trump Presidency and is now in the first term of Donald’s daughter as president, Frank Brill, a retired small-town newspaper editor, lives in a world where the populist policies Trump is currently so keen to pursue have been a reality for some years and are getting even more extreme – an erosion of abortion rights, less and less gun control, xenophobic immigration policies.

Frank, a good man, has just been given a terminal diagnosis. Rather than compile a bucket list of all the things he’s ever wanted to do in his life, he instead has at the ready his ‘fuck-it list’. Because Frank has had to endure more than his fair share of personal misfortune. And he has the names of those who are to blame for the tragedies that have befallen him.

But eventually, as he becomes more accustomed to dishing out cold revenge and the stakes get higher and higher, and with a rogue county sheriff on his tail, there only remains one name left at the bottom of his fuck-it list.

Review

The book is set in 2026 in an imagined future that doesn't seem that far away. Ivanka Trump is now President of the USA and there are new laws. The Extreme Patriot Act gives the police wide ranging powers including detaining and using "illegals" as slave labour. 

Against this backdrop the main character of the book Frank Brill discovers he has a terminal cancer. He decides its time to settle some scores, and he already has a list of who they will be. Frank has had a hard life with his 3rd wife and son dying, which leads to him being reunited with his estranged daughter from his second marriage, only for her to die also.

 As Frank travels around America working his way through his list, rather than be appalled I actually was willing him on. Like a row of dominoes you started to see how each one affected the next. Frank has based his list on what he reflects as computations. Like the fork in the road, which one you take has a cause and an effect.

The book reminded me of the Michael Douglas film, Falling Down. I reference this not to detract from the book but to give an idea of the man Frank becomes. Although rather than being on the edge, Frank goes all the way over it. There is also a Cop, like in the film, that puts 2+2 together and is soon trailing Frank.

Towards the end of the book you suddenly realise where Frank is heading - who the last name on his list is. At this point the book becomes almost a farce with misconstrued actions and no one quite knowing what the hell is happening anymore.

I absolutely loved this book. I read it in two sittings, it would have been one but I started late at night and I couldn't keep my eyes open!

I just want to add that the book covers some subjects that people who are easily offended may rather not read. There is a lot of gun violence, a mass shooting description, child abuse and a graphic sex worker scene. There are homophobic, racist and anti-Semitic remarks made by the characters. At times it's very gritty and not in the least sanitised. None of this is gratuitous, but a part of life that goes on, even if we don't like it. 

I'm giving this book 5 out of 5 stars. The writing is just brilliant and makes me want to read everything else John Niven has written.

My thanks to random book tours for the blog tour invite and Netgalley for the ARC to review.

John Niven was born in Irvine, Ayrshire. He is the author of the novella Music from the Big Pink and the novels Kill Your Friends, The Amateurs, The Second Coming, Cold Hands, Straight White Male, The Sunshine Cruise Company, No Good Deed and Kill ‘Em All.