Sinner's Paradise

Rating:
Summary: Triumphantly Raw
Review: I haven't read a compeling book like this in years! It is beautifully scripted, with so many complicated twists and turns that you cannot put the book down. The story is raw and it not only rubs you, it grates you in ways that you didn't know you even liked. Its a look at the person that is within us all and the complications that have brought us to be. This book challenges the senses on every page with its knarled and tangled story of love, hate, compassion, obsession and in the end peace and healing. Its biggest triumph is staying true to its roughness and realistic in its story.

Rating:
Summary: Triumphantly Raw
Review: I haven't read a compeling book like this in years! It is beautifully scripted, with so many complicated twists and turns that you cannot put the book down. The story is raw and it not only rubs you, it grates you in ways that you didn't know you even liked. Its a look at the person that is within us all and the complications that have brought us to be. This book challenges the senses on every page with its knarled and tangled story of love, hate, compassion, obsession and in the end peace and healing. Its biggest triumph is staying true to its roughness and realistic in its story.

Rating:
Summary: Disturbing and Real
Review: I read this book in two sittings. Would have finished it in one, but I had to go to work. The characters are real and the dialogue/discriptions ring true. Lots of novelists use San Francisco as a backdrop, but few get it down this well. A great first novel.

Rating:
Summary: Superb!!
Review: Lettieri writes with grace and authority. I couldn't put it down!
Sinner's Paradise is a profound, disturbing and beautifully crafted novel. Powerfully sensual yet brittle and real, transports us to the seamier side of the psyche. Enjoy the ride; it's a wild one!

Rating:
Summary: An entertaining fall from grace
Review: This is the best bad book I couldn't put down.
Like most first novels, S.P. reads like the author assigned every detail of his own life to his protagonist. And this down to the most agonizing piece of minutia. We need to believe in the power of Lettieri's imagination, not whether he accurately remembered the color of his fax machine and what it sounded like at 4pm. The writing tends to be melodramatic and awkward in spots, giving away too much of the author's emotional history. Subtlety, sir, mystery, suspense, brave soldier! Hold back, and that which seeps through will be all the more powerful.
This said, the book was compelling enough to read in a couple sittings. There was just something about it, an unexplicable charm. And some of the sentences are quite good.