Book Review: The Time Has Come by Will Leitch

The biggest stand-out in this book is that it was clear the author was very familiar with the Atlanta area. The book is set in Athens (GA, not Greece), and since I've never been there I don't know how realistic it is, but the one chapter that took place in Atlanta name-dropped Empire State South, Ponce City Market, and the New West Side. In a later chapter a character decides to order Grindhouse (Grindhouse!), which totally made my day! There were also things that may or may not be true (sounds true, but didn't bother to look them up) about how decades ago Georgia would allow doctors to perform "involuntary castration", usually on black and/or mentally challenged young adults, and that neighborhood pharmacists would help the state determine who should receive that treatment - that's what leads into the plot...such as it is.

The main positive of this book is the characterization. That's a good thing, since the first two thirds of the book is just introducing characters. Despite having multiple characters to remember, they were all so fleshed out and full of life that even I could remember who was who (most of the time). This was definitely the highlight of the book.

You spend about two thirds of the book getting to know the characters, then the last third seeing how their stories come together in an incident in a pharmacy, and...it really drops. The strong characterization that was built up in the first two thirds of the book didn't really have much impact on the final story - you could have released that final third as a stand-alone short story and there wouldn't be much drop-off for the reader. The other thing being, the final incident is very anticlimactic and seems to hinge on a deus ex machina. There's a bit of a parallel in the epilogue - the crowd at a concert coming together to help someone struggling, then minutes later resuming dancing and thrashing - but it really doesn't quite work.

Loved this book for the characters - and the Atlanta references - but really wish something more could have been done with them. Can only give out six out of ten Grindhouse hot dogs!