Original Language: Español
Year of publication: 2025
Valoración: Okay (especially for unconditional excess literature)
Vice Compare three short novels by Sergio Lozano Mateos. All are narrated in the first person with a direct and colloquial style (sometimes even soez), soaks them the same black humor and revolve around addicts and drugs. Let’s analyze them one by one:
In “Wine and Rosas Pandemia”, Tuco, a photographer, loses the project in which he was working because the hard drive is broken. To top it off, it runs out of grass at the beginning of confinement by the coronavirus.
This short novel successfully squeezes its limited premise and includes many sperm, delusional or adrenalinic scenes (and some that are the three things at the same time, such as those in which the protagonist is with the outdated Piti).
In “Feedback”, Angel, forty -five, an intermediate position of a pharmaceutical company addicted to sex, alcohol and coca, struggle to maintain its employment before a new management and reconcile its denoring train of life with their family, lovers and friends.
This short novel abounds in criticism of those executives who do not give a stick to the water, abuse their power and are so selfish that they feel no empathy for others. It houses a couple of brilliant moments, which make us forget for a moment that the protagonist is slag and moved to his pathetic existence.
In “New moon of August”, the events rushed a night when an urban, who has gone to spend a few days to the countryside, sneaks with his drunk friends and drugged to the neighbor’s garden.
Unlike its predecessors, this short novel does not have an indisputable protagonist. In fact, although it is also narrated in the first person, the chapters alternate the voices of the three main characters. It also presents a lysergic scene (unfortunately, the only one in the entire volume), that of the rabbit.
Of the short novels that compiles Vice I liked their rhythm (agile and intense) and the development looms of their protagonist contradictory (who usually end the same as they started, although they are convinced that it is not so).
Instead, I think they do not completely take advantage of the possibilities of fiction and language when it comes to capturing excesses (especially those that have to do with sex addiction, alcohol intake or recreational drug abuse).
To this we must add something else that, in my opinion, last Vice: Given the similarities in the form and background of the texts that compile, the volume becomes something heavy to read (especially run).
Ah, the image of the cover of Vice It seems not at all attractive. It is evident that it is generated with artificial intelligence, and therefore suffers from the aesthetic disagreement that characterizes the illustrations out of this technology.
Source: https://unlibroaldia.blogspot.com/2025/08/sergio-lozano-mateos-vicio.html
