Friend is a Gift You Give Yourself (Boyle) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
Comic crime capers are fun. Comic crime capers starring women are even more fun. William Boyle delivers some choice laughs and a terrific trio of felons in A Friend Is a Gift You Give Yourself …on a road trip that's so much fun you don't want it to end.
Marilyn Stasio - New York Times Book Review


[A] funny, gritty, touching narrative about the strength of three New York women caught in a world of abusive men, broken families, and mob violence. Friend is a rarity; a fresh novel about New York's underbelly. Crime fiction usually stays within the confines of the genre, but Boyle breaks away from those restrictions.
NPR

★ [An] addictive hardboiled crime novel…. Boyle skillfully mixes a classic Westlake/Leonard–style caper with the powerful tale of three women facing the ghosts of their pasts.
Publishers Weekly


This all sounds a little bit loopy, along the lines of Carl Hiaasen or Tim Dorsey, and there is indeed a surreal element to this caper. But there is also more than a little Thelma & Louise in Boyle’s terrific tale, which has some of the most stylish noir prose to grace the page in some time.
BookPage


★ The novel incorporates the snappy timing of both those films, and the Elmore Leonard–like cinematic prose begs for a film adaptation. Recommend this triumph of moral ambiguity to fans of black humor, including that of Carl Hiaasen and Dennis Lehane.
Booklist


[A] caper-inspired road story of quirky personalities on the run littered with gruesome deaths…. Deploying an inimitable tone that packs sardonic storytelling atop action and adventure…, Boyle's voice works even when it feels like it shouldn't. It's just the right kind of too much.
Kirkus Reviews