3,5 starsI have a hard time rating this book because I honestly have no idea if I liked it or not. I’m not saying I don’t know if it was good because it was. A little too cryptic or rushed at times maybe, but good.Sean’s life is sordid and pathetic. The only relationship he’s got is a mirage, he and his girlfriend Cristina are no more than each others’ ball and chain and yet, her name is a painful leitmotiv, a fragile and illusory anchor. A drug addict’s journey on the streets follows a foreseeable and stomach-churning pattern : from bad to worse and from worse to ”there’s no me left”. I grinded my teeth from page 1 to the end, the only moments of reprieve being provided by the eroticism between Sean and “Angel”. Hints of self discovery and trust to help enduring ugliness, humiliation and the loss of self. It was painful and I’m left with the unfulfilled need to make sense of parts of the story’s and character’s development even if I understand that Cruce de Caminos is a prequel and that it was probably the authors’ intent.It affected me but I miss something (a band-aid for my heart?) that the sequel will hopefully provide.
