Zero Zero Zero
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15
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Average rating2
From the international bestselling auhor of Gomorrah, this searing exposé of dirty money and the drug trade reveals how they are at the heart of our lives, our economy, and our world. 'The most important book of the year ... Here it is, laid bare: cartel as corporation, corporation as cartel; cocaine as pure capitalism ... Saviano realises the brutal truth: that to understand narco-traffic is to understand the modern world ... it is revolutionary' Ed Vulliamy, Observer 'A dense, dazzling, dizzying narrative about the terrifying violence of the cocaine trade, but also the vast, unassailable reach of it' Rose George, Independent 'A tremendously gripping work of reportage' Ian Thomson, Evening Standard 'Italy's bravest investigative writer ... must-read nonfiction' GQ 'Impassioned, remarkable' Misha Glenny, Financial Times 'After reading Saviano, it becomes impossible to see Italy, and the global market, in the same way again' The New York Times
Reviews with the most likes.
I gotta say, boring and depressing are not a good combo. A lot of this book read like a Wikipedia article to me. Just long, winded descriptions of trafficker after trafficker and laundry lists of all the terrible things they did or witnessed. This is one of those books that tries to convince you that the world is a scary, awful place and we should all be cynical and wake up. Ugh. Not my kind of thing.
I will say it thankfully picked up a little toward the end with shorter, more focused chapters. I wanted to continue crawling to the end of this book because I thought I might learn something. I would say mission accomplished, I did learn a little, but I don't know if it was worth all 380-ish pages. There was one particularly violent sequence that I was I could unread too (had to do with pregnant women which is definitely a weakpoint for me).
The weirdest part of this book to me was that it was a fiction-nonfiction hybrid but BARELY. The fiction made up such a tiny part of the book that it felt out of place and unnecessary. Whenever it would switch over to first person I was just like “Who's speaking again??” Bizarre. Whelp. Onto the next one.
