Burn It All Down
-
-
4.5 • 4 Ratings
-
-
- $14.99
-
- $14.99
Publisher Description
Take the ride of a lifetime with this mother/son buddy comedy James Patterson praises as “audacious, addictive, highly entertaining.”
Eighteen-year-old aspiring comic Joey Rossi just found out his boyfriend has been cheating on him for the past ten months. But what did he expect? Joey was born with an addiction to toxic jerks—something he inherited from his lovably messy, wisecracking, Italian-American spitfire of a mom (and best friend): 34-year-old Gia Rossi.
When Gia’s latest non-relationship goes up in flames only a day later, the pair’s Bayonne, New Jersey apartment can barely contain their rage. In a misguided attempt at revenge, Joey and Gia inadvertently commit a series of crimes and flee the state, running to the only good man either of them has ever known—Gia’s ex, Marco. As they hide out from the law at Marco’s secluded lake house, Joey and Gia must confront all the bad habits and mistakes they’ve made that have led them to this moment—and find a way to take responsibility for what they’ve done.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
DiDomizio's breezy if exasperating debut follows an aspiring stand-up comic and his mother on their quest for vengeance against those who broke their hearts. Joey Rossi, 18, finds out his boyfriend, Luke, cheated on him, then his 34-year-old mother, Gia, gets dumped by her married boyfriend, Richard. Mother and son retaliate by vandalizing Luke's car and trashing Richard's house, setting a fire that accidentally burns it down. Suddenly, these "felons without a plan," as Joey terms them, hit the road and seek refuge at a lake house owned by Gia's ex-boyfriend Marco, in upstate New York. While Gia and Marco reconnect, Joey meets Will, a possible boyfriend. DiDomizio easily captures the strong bond between Gia and Joey, which often runs on trash talk to paper over their self-defeating behavior. And after Joey discovers a series of lies his mother told him, their co-dependency is laid bare ("Emotions aren't something Mom and I are capable of experiencing separately. They're always shared"). Unfortunately, some of the metaphors are lazy ("My brain crashes like an old desktop computer"), and an episode where Joey accidentally knocks down a horse-drawn wagon hanging in Will's lake house is overwrought ("The room explodes into a cacophony of gasps and screams"). This comic novel's characters may find catharsis, but the humor tends to wear thin for the reader.
