Clever writing, well-written cast of characters, but it didn't feel like there was much of a resolution at the end. Lots of interesting ideas, but I found the synopsis a bit misleading compared the the actual book.

Thank you to netgalley and Unbound for the release of this book for review!

Now, this is nothing on the publishing company or netgalley but I did not enjoy this book. Most books I have reviewed from Unbound I have truly enjoyed but this author was just not my best. I did not care for this story. I found myself very bored. I just don't think I went into this know completely what it was. I had entire other aspect of this book.

KEYNOTE: I will review this book again in the future to see if my thoughts and feeling have changed. I do show that it has some very high ratings so I do want to give this a try later on once I have let my mind rest and forget some of what I have read so I can give this another chance.

Thank you Netgalley and Unbound for an ARC of this book.

This novel had an enjoyable plot however I had difficulty liking the characters so overall this led to a lower rating.

Snappy, fun and full of fantastic Scottish slang. This read was audacious and vivid with a great art history angle that anyone can enjoy.

The plot (in a spoiler-free nutshell): Finn Garvie is serious about his art but struggling for inspiration and thinks that his work is crap, as he thinks pretty much everything in his life is. Which annoys Finn because he is better than everyone who seem to have it easier than him. Then he meets the girl who becomes his muse, Kassia, and Carvaggio, his idol, the Carvaggio, who Finn believes can help him unlock his gifts to the world. A cast of characters whose paths cross cross into a tangled web seemingly conspire against Finn and his important work, in a wickedly funny story.

The author: Helen Taylor, debut novelist with a background in medicine - which shines through towards the end of the book with a squeamishly vivid hospital scene.

It's a bit like...a dark Jonas Jonasson novel (if we forget about his third one for a moment)

You should read it if...you like seeing an author taking the piss out of someone who is up their own arse and can laugh without needing cues.

You shouldn't read it if...you feel you have to love and admire, or even like, a protagonist in order to enjoy a novel.

The best bit: Tuesday and Kassia, who manage to out-sass each other throughout the novel and are so fleshed out that they could easily each have a novel of their own about them.

Book hangover severity: I want to read Helen Taylor's next book yesterday.

Bonus points for...writing about drug addicts and prostitutes with compassion and minimum seediness, giving a rarely heard voice to people so often shit on by society.

Rating 5/5

Final thoughts: To quote Finn himself, this novel was 'unbelievable, incredible and all those other words that meant the same thing, and at the same time, completely, utterly and exactly as it should be.'

The Backstreets of Purgatory was published on 12th July 2018 by Unbound. Thank you to Helen Taylor, Unbound and NetGalley for the ARC

Shameless meets uncensored art history. Caravaggio IS the Scrooge of the Renaissance and holy surprise ending. This story was a ride of utter nonsense, art education (if you're an art geek like me who Googled the chapter headings/Caravaggio paintings) and waves of depression- My kind of wackadoo fiction! Some parts moved slow, but bouncing between characters in different chapters kept me on my toes as to whose life we were getting involved with next. Circumstantially, similar writing to 2 of my favorite authors - Arthur Nersesian and Chuck Palahniuk.

OK, this is maybe not your average run-of-the-mill novel for most folk. A wee bit sweary, a cast of characters including drug users and prostitutes, and a main protagonist who is, quite frankly, pretty hard to like. But maybe it’s just me – I actually quite enjoyed this debut novel set in the seedier parts of Glasgow.

Finn Garvie, a struggling artist, is facing an existential (or non-existential) crisis: his girlfriend is pregnant (although he doesn’t know), his life is a bit of a mess, he falls out with his best friend, his alcoholic neighbour ends up in hospital…. Yep, it’s all a bit raintown is Finn’s Glasgow. Up pops the figure of Caravaggio – Finn’s idol and muse – who enters into Finn’s life as part of his punishment in purgatory. A ghost? An apparition? The real deal? Whatever, the figure of Caravaggio is probably the best character in the book – foul-mouthed, larger than life and seriously moody. As Finn sets about a series of paintings inspired by Caravaggio’s own work, so his life takes a darker turn and starts to mirror that of the great artist. There are various subplots at work in the book, and some work better than others, but all of the characters are connected in some way as the story progresses.

This is not a perfect novel by any means. For me, it took too long to get going – some judicious editing would have made this a leaner, faster-paced book. Some of the plot lines became a little too coincidental and could easily have been pruned. And I felt the use of the ‘ghost’ of Caravaggio was a little too similar to A.L. Kennedy’s wonderful novel ‘So I Am Glad’ and its use of Cyrano de Bergerac. However, I did enjoy the book, despite these misgivings. For a novel produced basically by crowd-funding and the support of Unbound (is this the future of publishing?) it is a promising debut by Helen Taylor. There are laugh-out-loud moments, and once the action picks up it rattles along to a shocking conclusion (I won’t spoil it here). Raising questions about art and inspiration, about who we are and the importance of family, and including some wonderfully colourful swear words for you to try out yourself, I would recommend this book – just bear with it for the first 70 or so pages and it rewards you.

What a strange book... in a positive way. It starts off slowly and seems to be a clever but conventional romance about an immature man-child, then about halfway through it veers sharply and becomes something darker and more unpredictable, though still with humor. I think the story would have been more powerful if certain subplots had been pruned—much as I love the character of Tuesday, she really was incidental to the plot and deserves her own book—but even as it is, the book and the protagonist, Finn, stayed with me long after I'd finished reading it. I'll definitely read Taylor's next book.

Sorry, this book was not for me. Persevered for the first quarter, but it really needs a lot of structural re-jigging and major work on the characters. Yes, from the first sweary paragraph, the reader is coerced to take an instant and profound dislike to the main character: Finn, failing art student on a scholarship in Glasgow, lamenting his makeshift studio in a church hall, his lack of ideas despite his genius, his tutor not understanding him and his rebellion against his socially ambitious middle-class mother. Reader, take note: annoyingly typical snowflake generation brat! Likewise, all the characters to follow are drawn in fat Sharpie pen: chubby jovial tattoo parlour owner Rob, “edgy” ex-addict Tuesday, hum-drum family of Esme + Dermot with their sassy au-pair Kassia and likeable drunk/diabetic Maurice. I think I first gave up when Finn started to liken himself to the flawed genius artist Caravaggio...

2 stars--it was OK.

Things I liked: The writing was really snappy and quite often humorous. I adored the Scottish slang (most of it foul) and phrases. Caravaggio's character was amusing and very vivid. The connections all the characters had to each other was well done.

Things I didn't like: Overall, I found this book depressing. I disliked most of the characters, especially Finn--and the book spends most of its time with Finn. (To be fair, we're supposed to dislike Finn, so it's not the writing that's the problem. I just found it unpleasant and sad to read about him.)

I received this review copy from the publisher on NetGalley. Thanks for the opportunity to read and review; I appreciate it!

I loved the premise behind the book but I could not get into it. It dragged and seemed like it needed a better editor. A shame because it had promise.

I only read about a third of the book and couldn't get into it. It wasn't bad but just didn't draw me in and I have too many other books to read to spend time on a book I'm not enjoying. I'm not rating it anywhere else since I didn't finish it.

I loved the premise for this story, and it was executed really well, in a scatty, splish-splash, hectic kind of way, which matched the artistic tone of the tale. There was a whole element to Finn’s story which I didn’t love and found quite jarring throughout, but it all became clear in the final few pages of the book and I didn’t begrudge this story arc as much as I had done.