Why did I love this book?
One of the best and most underappreciated works of contemporary speculative fiction by one of its finest living stylists, this book dares to riff on The Diary of Anne Frank and manages to pull it off with a first-person narration by a 12-year-old girl in New York City recounting her everyday life as the nation is coming apart in civil conflict and unrest.
The rapidly maturing innocence of the point of view dials up the intensity of the story—making it feel more real—while at the same time giving it a uniquely accessible charisma powered by emotional connection more than the cyberpunk eyeball kicks that charged Womack’s other amazing novels.
1 author picked Random Acts of Senseless Violence as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
With his vivid, stylized prose, cyberpunk intensity, and seemingly limitless imagination, Jack Womack has been compared to both William Gibson and Kurt Vonnegut. Random Acts of Senseless Violence, Womack's fifth novel, is a thrilling, hysterical, and eerily disturbing piece of work.
Lola Hart is an ordinary twelve-year-old girl. She comes from a comfortable family, attends an exclusive private school, loves her friends Lori and Katherine, teases her sister Boob. But in the increasingly troubled city where she lives (a near-future Manhattan) she is a dying breed. Riots, fire, TB outbreaks, roaming gangs, and civil unrest threaten her way of life,…