Texts From Bennett Review

  Texts From Bennett by Mac Lethal

Synopsis

Hardworking Kansas City rapper Mac Lethal has a problem, and its name is Bennett. His wannabe gangsta cousin is seventeen, uses drugs and foul language, claims to be 13 percent black, and swears he speaks “da female language.” (Strangely that last one sort of seems true.)

But as different as they are, when Bennett and his mom lose their home, Mac’s got their backs. They’re family after all. Sure, it takes patience to live with the eternally smoked-out Bennett and the pill-popped Aunt Lily, but he can handle it.

You know who can’t? Mac’s very pretty, very WASPy, very uptight girlfriend. So as his once-peaceful household gets completely crazy, Mac learns that blood wanna-be-Crips are thicker than water, that his little cousin—flawed, irreverent, and basically a Saturday morning cartoon gone horribly wrong—has become his mentor, and that he really has no idea what’s up with girls.

Lisa's Review - 4 out of 5 stars

I discovered Texts From Bennett thanks to an email from Netgalley with some new releases, and I'm not even sure why I thought I would try get a copy of this as it is totally different from the kind of thing I would usually read, but it sounded quite a fun read and maybe after some serious reads lately I thought something light hearted was in order.

The first thing I will say about Texts From Bennett is it is not for the light hearted! If you don't like a lot of swear words, or racial references, this is not a book for you. Bennett is a 17 year old who is a wannabe gangsta, he uses tons of foul language, talks about sex a lot, and much to Mac's chagrin uses the 'n' word a lot. (The first time that word popped up, I was like, Ok, they went there... but honestly if you read the book right to the end, well. you'll see...!) So you have to have an open mind and not find these things offensive to read this book.

Texts From Bennett is just that, it is a book full of text messages from Bennett to Mac. There is a 'proper' book but a lot of it is laid out like a text message screen so we can see Bennetts texts exactly how they should be. At first I thought this was going to be quite annoying, but I found myself later in the book hoping the next page would be more of Bennetts texts as they were just brilliant. These text messages are full of 'text speech', now as far as I am concerned, 'I am pretty down wiv da kids' (yup, I reckon!) and I can decipher a lot of the unintelligible 'writing' teens and so on use nowadays, but there were a few times I had to back and reread some of Bennetts texts just to make sure I had it right.

The text messages from Bennett are brilliant. I have never laughed so much while reading a book ever before. And not just a little chuckle, full on belly laughs that had tears rolling down my face. More than once I had to explain to my husband what was so funny while he looked at me like I was a crazy person. And when I read bits out loud to him it had him laughing hysterically, too. So while I was reading this I decided to do a bit of research on Bennett and Mac Lethal, and Mac is a genuine rapper as he writes in his book, and swears that his cousin Bennett and his text messages are 100% genuine. To me, this makes this whole book and Bennetts messages even more hilarious.

The book isn't just a whole layout of text conversations, there is a whole story behind them, starting with Mac allowing his crazy cousin and his aunt to live with him and his then-girlfriend. There is a big series of events which lead to Bennett of all people helping Mac find the new love of his life (which research tells me is also real, thanks to Mac's Facebook page!) So there is a story behind the messages and the story is worth a read on its own, but the added texts make this book genius.

Links

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16130532-texts-from-bennett?ac=1

http://www.facebook.com/maclethal?fref=ts

Purchase Links

Texts from Bennett - Amazon UK

http://www.amazon.com/Texts-Bennett-Mac-Lethal/dp/1476706875/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1373288450&sr=8-1&keywords=texts+from+Bennett

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/texts-from-bennett-mac-lethal/1113741663?ean=9781476706870