I started this but just wasn't feeling it. There was nothing inherently wrong with it I just wasn't feeling it at the time, however having been really excited about this book beforehand I would like to try again sometime.

Definitely one of the most ridiculously over the top books I've read in ages. But Jack Price is by far one of the most interesting characters I've read this year.
Not only is he funny but he makes for an interesting narrator.
I do hope there's a sequel in the works.

Totally recommend this book.

" ... I guess everyone's the morally conflicted hero of their own narrative am I right? .."

Jack Price is a cocaine dealer, targetted by an international syndicate of killers - the Seven Demons - and Jack's out for revenge - that's "... the price you pay ...".

The story is sassy, descriptive, mouthy, fast paced, punchy. Jack Price is a thoroughly despicable character - self- involved, egotistical, sociopathic, infallable, sardonic; creative and enterprising. There are just too many good one-liners in this story, to many LOl moments (I literally had tears in my eyes) that you just have to read this.

Not everyone is going to appreciate Truhen eloquent use of language or his lack to traditional punctuation (I myself have lamented this of other writers) - yet it works here - and works really well.

" ... coffee is the judge of a person .." - I love coffee, Jack loves coffee - Truhen nails it!

The Price You Pay has a great premise - a sort of Assassination Bureau/Kill Bill situation where our hero has to identify and kill a succession of would-be assassins before they get him. And the narrative voice is fantastic - offhand slang, Alfie-style asides to the reader and really quirky grammar - because fashion.

And for the first 10% of the book, I thought this was bound to be a book of the year. Up there with The Sellout or Joshua Ferris. But the style started to strangle the plot. Quirky narration and unannounced shifts in time and space make it pretty much impossible to follow what is going on, who is who and why they are doing anything at any given moment - and that's assuming you can even tell what they are doing. I guess we are supposed to get a sense of drugs, ADHD or chaos - but the trouble is that gets quite same quite quickly. It is just not enough to sustain the reader's attention. I limped through the first half in ever shortening reading bursts and finally owned up to myself that I was skimming the words and not gaining the meaning. It was with a sense of great relief that I set the book aside.

Sorry Aidan, not for me.