I honestly enjoyed this book so much more than I expected to. Far outside my usual genre, I found the action surprisingly gripping, and the third person omniscient style narrative was really fun for me to read as it would shift back and forth between very different characters POVs. There were a few spots where the writing could have used an edit, but by and large I felt solidly in the story. I liked how the characters were written; they weren't necessarily likeable or making decisions that I would, but they felt only slightly caricatured past reality, and I liked how we got to watch their relationships and perspectives develop over the book in a way that did seem honest and earnest and incomplete. It's a violent book, it tackles themes of homophobia and racism and class and grief in a very overt unsubtle way that fully spells it out for the reader, but I didn't much mind it as it felt like it made sense for the characters. The book also managed a solid balance with humor to cut the tension, and poignant emotional moments to round out the action. This will sound so strange, but it weirdly almost hit a note similar to a slice of life story for me, just with this particular slice existing at the polar opposite end of the spectrum from quiet and meditative and wholesome and warming.

An absolutely stunning sequel that I managed to enjoy even more than A Psalm for the Wild-Built. This book served almost as a mirror to the last, now exploring return after departure, which wasn't just structurally satisfying but fit so naturally into the theme of natural cycles explored in the series. Just again a really beautiful and gentle exploration of how we fit into the world and what choices are ours to make as we evolve. In many ways it felt like a meditation, which I absolutely love. At a technical level I also just could not stop being impressed by Chambers and how well and creatively she depicted Mosscap seeing the human world for the first time, and how she folded in so much legitimately funny humor to achieve a perfect balance with the philosophical. Absolute comfort read I could actually imagine myself returning to (which I don't say often).

I really, really didn’t think I would like this book - and yet, here we are!

The characters are, for the most part, reprehensible, bigoted, aggressive, hot headed, dislikable, and generally unpleasant. They really screwed up in raising their respective gay sons and it’s too late to fix anything, so they go on a revenge mission that is - ADMITTEDLY FOR BOTH OF THEM - not what their sons would have wanted and also kind of pointless. Let me be clear: at no point does the book ever endorse their mission or say that it’s in the interest of the sons. Ike even explicitly says at one point that it’s a lie when he says it’s “for” his son.

Okay. If you are sensitive to reading a lot of pretty harsh language/slurs, scenes with the most disgusting kinds of homophobia and misogyny, quite a lot of racism, etc, you definitely shouldn’t read this. The book is full of it (a lot of it comes from the villains, but the MCs do it a fair amount too).

If you don’t like graphic depictions of violence and gore, you definitely shouldn’t read this, as there’s a lot of that, too. It reads like an action movie, and it has a Tarentino level of violence and gore.

So if you’ve gotten past those things, and you can also handle MCs that are really unlikable - and IMO are not ever meant to be likable or truly redeemable - then consider this book!

The writing overall worked for me, but it had big ups and downs. Cosby uses a ton of similes and very descriptive writing that can get overwrought at times, but really works other times. The tone veers into preachy occasionally, but it moves on pretty quickly. I found it very readable but sometimes something really threw me off or took me out of it. I’ll say, though, that the writing is overall of a higher quality than what is easily forgiven in fantasy or, in particular, romantasy.

I do kind of feel like I’m looking into bizarro land when reading some of the reviews. I never felt at all that the book portrays the MCs as heroes or endorses what they’re doing, or even suggests that they’re redeemable as characters. Do they change and overcome their prejudices? A bit, but not much. They recognize that, and so do we (IMO).

This is a book about violence begetting violence, hate begetting hate, and what happens when people within those cycles get pushed into unfamiliar situations and apply their backgrounds in violence and hate to that new situation. It’s about how guilt and rage affect people like that; it’s not about how violent, hateful people are redeemed or how they can make amends. That doesn’t happen.

It’s a classic “depiction does not equal endorsement” situation, especially as regards the main characters. The MCs feel very real and complex, with a toxic blend of rage, guilt, patriarchy, bigotry, difficult backgrounds and differing loyalties, and those are the things that drive the story. Is it uncomfortable to read? Absolutely, but I also found it pretty compelling.

I see some people disliking this book because of what the actual villains do, for example killing one of their own to prevent him from living with a disability in the future. Well, they’re villains - and not complex ones at that. This may be one of the bigger failings in the book: although the MCs feel real, the villains overall do not. We don’t get much of their backgrounds or inner thoughts, and they never show much humanity in the way the MCs do. Their motivations are either simply selfish or because they like being powerful, or both, and that’s really it.

As I said, I found the book very readable, and I was pretty hooked by the story. I really enjoyed the read overall as it’s very outside of what I normally read, but I’m glad I did!

S.A. Cosby’s Razorblade Tears is a deft, tense, and violent tale of revenge of two ex-con fathers, one Black, one white, who “reach across the aisle” and overcome their own homophobia in order to avenge the senseless deaths of their two sons. This is a fun read if you like vigilante justice or revenge-thrillers – its style and pacing feel very cinematic. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was written with the idea of being eventually optioned into a movie or HBO short series, and I mean that in a complimentary way.

The question that immediately came to mind when I started reading this: Who gets to be Clint Eastwood? Who gets to have a righteous rampage? When I first saw Boondock Saints, I just thought it was stylish and badass. I didn’t stop to think about the whiteness of the story it told, or to whom it expresses its rage and sympathies.

Vigilante justice in this form is as much of a romantic fantasy as any book aimed at readers who want to be swept off their feet by faerie princes. They’re fantasies of being in control, in being uncomplicatedly right and justified, and gaining an outcome society has taught the reader they want. Razorblade Tears adds a touch of social consciousness to this fantasy that it might not have been as obligated to (by reader/publisher expectation) if it only followed its white protagonist. It offers humanity to the bigoted protagonists in a way that did not pull its punches on their flaws. “Men would rather [x] than go to therapy” is a meme for a reason. Razorblade Tears doesn’t ask many complicated questions, and there is an almost palpable frustration in how easy the questions it does asked ought to be answered. Seeing Ike and Buddy Lee change and grow, even if it was too little, too late, (yes, I made that “I love my dead, gay son” joke when I first read the synopsis too) is also, in my opinion, a function of fantasy. It shouldn’t be that hard for them. But the jarring reality is that it is.

In the world of Razorblade Tears, it isn’t too late to go after the bigots and power structures that takes people’s sons from them too soon. In the world of Razorblade Tears, an explosion of completely justified rage has the potential to lead to something better. This is not a book about solutions or deeply thoughtful discourse. This is a book about rage and catharsis. I felt the same way when I first saw Boondock Saints. At the time, I thought seeing that movie really changed my life, but I’m too old to really be swayed by the “rule of cool” these days. Change probably won’t come as quickly and violently. But damn, it’s nice to imagine it could.