“Say Hello to My Little Friend,” by Jennine Capo Crucet, is one of those books that has a ton of great reviews on Goodreads, but I just didn’t get it. There were a lot of aspects that I thought were just kind of weird (and I’m usually all for weird writing!). Words like ‘groundbreaking’ and ‘fearless’ are being thrown around, but I’m afraid it just didn’t connect with me.

One of the main reasons I couldn’t truly dive into this is because pretty much the entire book is devoted to references from the movie, “Scarface” (hence the title). I’ve never seen the movie, but I didn’t think that would matter until I was a few chapters into the book and realized how much the movie would be discussed. “Say Hello” is centered around Ismael ‘Izzy’ Reyes, a 20-year-old living in Miami. He came over from Cuba with his mother when he was a little boy – his mother drowned, but he was rescued. If this book had just been about this storyline, I would have loved it. Instead, it’s about Izzy’s misguided quest to become the next Scarface.

Oh, and did I mention a good portion of the book is told from a killer whale’s perspective? I think that personification is really tough to pull off. It’s not so much that Crucet failed at it; it’s more that the sections told from the whale’s perspective felt like I was reading an entirely different book. The whale focuses on really deep themes, and then we switch back to Izzy’s POV, and there’s more of a humorous tone. The switch back and forth felt way too disjointed to me.

I also really didn’t love the ending. I think it could have worked for some readers because it is pretty shocking. But for me, I was left with an uncomfortable feeling and sort of an emptiness.

I’ve read Crucet’s non-fiction, and I really enjoy her writing style. It’s very fluid and descriptive. But there were times when I felt like paragraphs just went on and on. A pet peeve of mine is when writers list things that aren’t interesting to the reader (I don’t need to know every item on the shelf that the character sees, for example). I think this book could be a hit with some readers (especially the more imaginative ones), but for me, this was a miss.

2.5 stars

*Free ARC provided by Simon & Schuster in exchange for an honest review*