Razorblade Tears

Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby

Rating: 4.5/5 Stars

Synopsis:

A Black father. A white father. Two murdered sons. A quest for vengeance.

Ike Randolph has been out of jail for fifteen years, with not so much as a speeding ticket in all that time. But a Black man with cops at the door knows to be afraid.

The last thing he expects to hear is that his son Isiah has been murdered, along with Isiah’s white husband, Derek. Ike had never fully accepted his son but is devastated by his loss.

Derek’s father Buddy Lee was almost as ashamed of Derek for being gay as Derek was ashamed his father was a criminal. Buddy Lee still has contacts in the underworld, though, and he wants to know who killed his boy.

Ike and Buddy Lee, two ex-cons with little else in common other than a criminal past and a love for their dead sons, band together in their desperate desire for revenge. In their quest to do better for their sons in death than they did in life, hardened men Ike and Buddy Lee will confront their own prejudices about their sons and each other, as they rain down vengeance upon those who hurt their boys.

My Review:

Spoiler-free of course.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect with this book when I chose it for my BOTM pick in July. I thought it sounded interesting and that I would probably like it but I didn’t think I would like it as much as I did. It really surprised me.

The writing is what I noticed first. It’s written so well and I absolutely loved it. It’s crazy how much the author was able to accomplish for a relatively short book and I never felt like it was rushed or poorly done. I really thought it was consistent all the way through and executed beautifully. 

This book has a lot of violence in it which I liked to read and like I said it was written very well. It helped keep the book interesting and kept me wanting to know what happened to the characters. Speaking of characters I really liked the characters in this book. The contrast of the characters as well as what makes them so similar helped bring things full circle in my mind. I think the author did a good job with the characters and how you, the reader, watched them change throughout the novel while also still being who they are.

This book had quite a few twists that I wasn’t expecting and man did it hit hard. Completely blindsided me. I know others probably figured out who killed their sons but I wasn’t trying to figure it out haha I was just going with the story and completely shocked with who was in charge of the murders. It all made everything come full circle and I loved that. 

Something I didn’t like about the book is that at times I felt like it was trying a little too hard to be “woke”. Most of the time it was written well enough to all flow and work with whatever was happening at that time, but sometimes it felt like it was trying too hard. Obviously this book does have some political bias in it which is very clear throughout if you read this book. I’m not a huge fan of that because I really don’t like politics or anything that people typically argue about. I do think this book brings up good/tough topics. 

Overall I would definitely recommend this book. It’s very interesting and despite the violence I think it’s a really good read. I wouldn’t mind reading more of his books in the future. Also, I heard that this book is gonna be made into a movie so I’ll definitely be watching that haha. 

---

I hope everyone has a good day! Happy reading!

Advertisement