my girlfriend is mad at me for reading this book.

A whole lot of sex and rape. This has been so far one of my favourite novels to read. I think this is due to my love for true crime, and psychology. My passion for true crime was satisfied through the exciting pursuit of the robbers by Silva. Additionally, the use of evidence in police investigation, like the bags being thrown from the getaway car and the guns used in the crime, in order to discover they were of military background. These hints of chase and detective work, made me feel like I was watching a Netflix documentary.

I was reading this book alongside my girlfriend who was reading her manga, and I have to admit, I felt incredibly awkward. There were so many moments of rape, sex, and in detailed description. These moments of brutality or beauty would come on with such surprise, so that I would exclaim out loud.

The relationships and backgrounds behind each character all throughout the book was so satisfying. There was not a single character left without a history, which made me so much more invested in each of their successes or downfalls. So between the bank teller, to the police officers first on scene, to each and every gang member, I felt invested in all of them. Gaucho Dorda was a victim to brutal circumstances. As a psychologist in training I found his psychological profile incredibly interesting. He is an individual who experienced a slew of trauma, between being raped by a homeless man, to being raped by nurses at a psychiatric facility (after killing the man who had beaten him, leaving him covered in scars). No wonder why he is so “psycho”, and in some way, his over sexualization is a sensible trauma response.

In the lecture it is discussed that the author created this piece of fiction by doing his own investigation. He pieced together the real life story by talking to people like judges, and reading police reports, to get an idea as to what happened. This made sense to me after hearing it, because I wrote down in my notes how I found it weird that the narrative perspective kept changing. It would changed from a perspective as if they were sitting in the car with the robbers, to only knowing what they were reading from a police file. I wonder if this is a mix between his fictitious story to the real life events that this story is based off of.

Discussion question: What was your favourite character and why? I feel like there was so much depth and detail to each and every character, so that you could really get a sense as to who each person was. My favourite was the Kid, and his relationship to Gaucho. I found it almost wholesome.

-Rhys