Exciting but no climax for me
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I read this book before retiring to bed over several nights. I found it hard to put down, yet each time I turned the page I thought the narrative might pick up, become more personal and lead me somewhere more satisfying. Is it me? Do I lack that bit of inside information that would help me digest and put more clarity to the situation? The information came at you wholesale, floods of it...names, places, so many names and places, complicated by my lack of knowledge of places and probably politics, background and pronunciation. So many killings...don't get me wrong, I loved it and recommend it ...yet it left me wanting just that little bit more explanation. All the while I was reading the book I was constantly nagged by the question...what was Saviano's perspective on all this whilst growing up? What was his point in writing this? Tell me more about yourself Roberto!!!!!!!!!!
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To appreciate this book you need to have an interest in Italian people.
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In order to appreciate this book and the courage of Roberto Saviano, you should have an interest in Italy and an understanding of the corrupt Italian political system, which allows for this "cancer" to grow in this beautiful Country... The people are powerless or scared to react. To say it is boring means that you have chosen the book for the wrong reason, we can only learn from courageous journalists as Roberto Saviano...
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An act of bravery
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Saviano's insight on this deadly subject made me wonder a few times about his personal relationship with the people he so openly denounces. This is a 28-year-old courageous man who has decided to put his life on the line to cast some light into the darkes area of Italy's social and political life. When I read the first chapter, I had the distinct feeling that what I had in my hands was a truly ground-breaking book. When I read about the links between organised crime and global trade, and to such a scale as well, I could understand why Italy is in the G8 in spite of his disastrous economy and almost irreversible ideological void. Who thinks that organised crime is a phenomenon contained within the Italian peninsula, must think again. Eye-opening and inspirational.
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Opening the Floodgates
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Roberto Saviano is a 28 year old man, who grew up in Secondigliano, a rundown of 10,000 inhabitants on the fringe of Naples, of which 2468 residents are incarcerated for mafia and camorra related activities and the rest have simply been abandoned to their fate. It is also the trading centre through which about 80% of Europe's cocaine is filtered through, packaged, distributed, marketed, cut, and sold on. This is an unpalatable reality few outside of Italy understand, care about or are able to believe. And this little book has opened a floodgates, no less for the Italians who have always known the extent of the Camorra's corruption on all levels of italian and international society, but who, out of fear, or inability to get close, have not been able to speak about it in this much detail. Roberto's life has been largely destroyed by the writing of this book. He has had to change identity, separate from his family and lives under 24 hour police escort. But for those who live here, in the shadow of mafia, surrounded by the stink of corruption, of Naples' uncollected rubbish, of silent witnesses and a society still living in a dark middle age marked with bloodshed and hopelessness this book has opened a floodgates which may hope may finally lift the cover on a tragedy that affects not only the entire country, but all of Europe, and the world.
Please read this. The Camorra is not a Scorcese movie, the mafia is not some antiquated clichè. We live with it, and our country is slowly dying because of it. This is not a work of fiction, sadly.
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The worst book i have read in years.
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I thought this was a very long winded and boring book that seemed to go nowhere. It is only the second book i have been totally disgusted with in all my years of reading. Simply terrible.
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