I really enjoyed this book. It was fresh, fascinating and fun! I just ordered the next 4 books in the series. Highly Recommend!
I found this book hard to follow and I just couldn't connect with the characters.
I put it down after 100 pages
I put it down after 100 pages
From the very first pages of Joe Ide's debut novel IQ, I was in inner-city Los Angeles. From my safe fly-on-the-wall perspective, I found Isaiah's neighborhood to be alien, fascinating, and uncomfortable-- and I didn't want to stop reading. I witnessed this young man's transformation from a scared, grieving boy in the traumatic 2005 aftermath of his brother's death to a private investigator for the disenfranchised in 2013.
One of his clients paid him with a rooster Isaiah names Alejandro, and he gets along better with the chicken than he does with most people, including Dodson, who worms his way into Isaiah's apartment and his business. One of the strengths of this book is that we never really know whether Dodson is just another drug dealer or an actual good guy.
Ide's story kept my interest from first page to last, but what gave it an emotional depth was Isaiah's fight to uphold the teachings of his beloved older brother, Marcus. How many children in inner-city America are taught what Marcus tries to instill in Isaiah:
"You could make a difference, Isaiah. A big difference. I'm talking about raising people up, easing their suffering, bringing some justice to the world. Money don't enter into it, you understand what I'm telling you? God didn't give you a gift so you could be a hedge fund manager."
What makes IQ real is the fact that Isaiah doesn't always measure up to Marcus's expectations. I was only a couple of chapters in when I began hoping that we'd hear from Isaiah Quintabe again. When I closed the book after reading the last page, I felt the exact same way. Joe Ide has created something special.
One of his clients paid him with a rooster Isaiah names Alejandro, and he gets along better with the chicken than he does with most people, including Dodson, who worms his way into Isaiah's apartment and his business. One of the strengths of this book is that we never really know whether Dodson is just another drug dealer or an actual good guy.
Ide's story kept my interest from first page to last, but what gave it an emotional depth was Isaiah's fight to uphold the teachings of his beloved older brother, Marcus. How many children in inner-city America are taught what Marcus tries to instill in Isaiah:
"You could make a difference, Isaiah. A big difference. I'm talking about raising people up, easing their suffering, bringing some justice to the world. Money don't enter into it, you understand what I'm telling you? God didn't give you a gift so you could be a hedge fund manager."
What makes IQ real is the fact that Isaiah doesn't always measure up to Marcus's expectations. I was only a couple of chapters in when I began hoping that we'd hear from Isaiah Quintabe again. When I closed the book after reading the last page, I felt the exact same way. Joe Ide has created something special.
