The Fugitive Grandma

When I first read the synopsis of the plot of Dmitri Ragano's The Fugitive Grandma, I was intrigued. Costs of medications are very expensive, especially if there is not a generic version of it on the market. In this book, a grandmother and grandson take off on a "Robin Hood" adventure of stealing medications from a local distributor and giving them to people in their community that do not have the financial means to pay for the medications that they desperately need. There are a few twists and turns in the book that help move the story along that make for an very entertaining time, but I did have a couple of issues with the book as a whole.

For me, this didn't seem like a polished draft of the story. It had many sentences that were incomplete that left passages a little choppy in feel. Also, and this is just a quirk of mine, it had over sixty chapters with each one being seven pages or less in length. By doing that, it made it feel a little rushed and sometimes not expanded enough, like some of the story was overlooked or missing. The view point within each chapter seemed to jump around sometimes, which made it a little hard to follow at times. I also felt that it was simply written, since there was not a vast complicated vocabulary used in it. This is not a bad thing, just an observation on my part. I tend to enjoy books that read a little more sophisticated and not like a young adult fiction, which is how I felt that this book read like.

However, aside from all of that, I think that it is worth taking the time to read. Stella, the grandmother, is a feisty lady who reminded me a little of my grandmother, which I liked. Her grandson Johnny is set on being a hero and is an all around good kid, which helps this to be a light hearted read instead of dark and heavy. This also creates a good balance between the characters, which also helped to get me invested in the storyline.

I'm not certain if this is a thriller/black comedy like it was pitched to me, but it did have some thrilling sequences in it that made me fear for the duo's safety and some humor that can only happen in crazy family situations. If you like upbeat detective novels, then this book is for you. If you enjoy something a little more dark and dangerous, then this book would probably not be for you. Overall it was very enjoyable and I will look forward to reading additional novels by Dmitri Ragano.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

I was given a copy of this book by the author via Bostick Communications; I was not paid to give my review of this book.