Confidence by Raphael Frumkin is wildly entertaining and deeply disturbing. If you’re in a more sarcastic or sardonic mood one day, read it then. And then plan to read something fluffy afterward to cleanse yourself. Because you will feel tainted once you finish it, as if you’ve been complicit in a wave of crimes yourself.
It’s odd to read a book and completely dislike its main characters, vehemently, yet still, come to find yourself understanding them on a human level at times. But only sometimes. Frumkin does a phenomenal job developing the characters in Confidence. Reading about them is like watching a drunk driver swerving on the road before they crash– in that you’re furious at them for what they’re doing and their compulsions and extreme lack of care for others on the road, but you still just can’t look away and need to see them crash, hoping they’ve learned a lesson or two afterward, although you know in your gut they never will.
If it weren’t for the dark humor omnipresent in this book, it would be hard to read about Ezra’s trials and tribulations at all, especially since he’s such a deeply terrible human being. You want to believe that he does everything he does because of his love for Orson, or because he’s picked on for his looks– in fact, his character tries to convince readers of this, at times. But it’s not true. Ezra would do what he did, or something similar to what he did, regardless of Orson.
Also, it should be mentioned that the underlying social and cultural commentary in this novel regarding the corporate world and the one percent is deeply realistic, as its satirical elements go beyond the surface level when you really pay attention. And I’m still thinking about and considering the role Ezra’s blindness, both literal and figurative, plays throughout the novel…
I would recommend this novel to lit geeks, those who are sick of hearing about how great the one percent is, and those who have a dark sense of humor.
My Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars
For more information about this novel, see the summary of Confidence on Goodreads.
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