{"id":695,"date":"2013-07-10T11:28:01","date_gmt":"2013-07-10T19:28:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/?p=695"},"modified":"2013-07-10T11:28:01","modified_gmt":"2013-07-10T19:28:01","slug":"review-the-kings-of-cool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/2013\/07\/10\/review-the-kings-of-cool\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: The Kings of Cool"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a>
\n The Kings of Cool<\/a> by Don Winslow<\/a>
\n My rating: 3 of 5 stars<\/a><\/p>\n

The Kings of Cool<\/i> is a fairly complicated read. Or should I say relatively. Not Anna Karenina<\/i> complicated, more like Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels<\/i> complicated. But you should be able to follow it, if you do few things.<\/p>\n

One is to read the sequel first. Read Savages<\/i> before you read The Kings of Cool<\/i>. The prequel does not stand on its own, which would be ironic, except that the prequel was written after the sequel. Which is why Kings<\/i> is subtitled \u201cPrequel to Savages.\u201d Should put \u201cprequel\u201d in quotes. Kings<\/i> is more of an extended flashback.<\/p>\n

(Good on Winslow if he had that back story in mind when he wrote Savages<\/i>. I\u2019d me even more impressed if he just took what he had and back-filled appropriately. But never mind that.)<\/p>\n

Another thing you\u2019re going to want to do is pay attention, but try not to guess what happens (even though you\u2019ve already read the sequel and know what happens). The Kings of Cool<\/i> does a balancing act between being another sex-drugs-violence thriller, and backstory\u2014like maybe what fan fiction would be if it were written by the original author. I said it\u2019s a complicated read, but that doesn\u2019t meant the plot is complicated\u2014I mean it is, but it\u2019s not the plot that makes things complicated. It\u2019s the balancing act.<\/p>\n

The Kings of Cool<\/i> answers a few incidental questions that you may have had from reading Savages, but then creates a few questions of its own. Another book in the works? Maybe. I think Winslow\u2019s good for it. Maybe a story that falls in between the events of Kings<\/i> and Savages<\/i>.<\/p>\n

(But that\u2019s speculation again. Never mind that too.) The other thing you need to do when readings Kings<\/i> is take yourself out of it. You\u2019re a Boomer, or a Gen Xer, or a (what do we call Gen-X\u2019es kids. I have no idea. I shall cynically coin: ) Bieberoh (ha, now they hate me). But the flashback characters are not the hippies you were, the 90s kids you were, the cell-phone junkies you are. You have to suspend that disbelief, and nevertheless tap into the angst and disillusionment that every generation feels when their rise to power is eclipsed by the realization that previous generation (or two) still has all the power.<\/p>\n

Cause California\u2019s a different planet and Laguna Beach is a different moon. You need to turn on, tune in, and sell out.<\/p>\n

View all my reviews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Kings of Cool by Don Winslow My rating: 3 of 5 stars The Kings of Cool is a fairly complicated read. Or should I say relatively. Not Anna Karenina complicated, more like Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels complicated. But you should be able to follow it, if you do few things. One is … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Review: The Kings of Cool”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p24y52-bd","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}