Victor has only just turned sixteen when his father takes him for a walk around the family owned ranch and explains to him that it’s now time for him to be a man. This doesn’t mean being macho or scoring with all the girls, but only to begin to know himself and what he is about, never shirking his responsibilities and always being true to himself, no matter the cost. Though Victor hears his father’s advice, it’s not until his later teens and early twenties that he comes to really understand what his father had been talking about on that fateful day. As a young boy, Victor struggles in the all-boy military academy he attends. Though he is an American citizen, his father and mother hail from Mexico, and it’s only by chance, hard work and a little luck that they have prospered in California, becoming very wealthy from owning businesses and ranches. But Victor is treated very roughly at school, both by the other cadets and his instructors. They repeatedly call him stupid and lazy and attribute the worst of the Mexican stereotypes to him. Victor’s self esteem takes a nose dive, and it’s particularly distressing because he also can’t read beyond a fourth grade level. As Victor tries to piece together a life among the people who wish to do him harm and his parents who are clueless as to what’s going on at school, he has some confusing experiences with girls, comes to question his Catholic religion, and struggles under the burden of self doubt and low self esteem. When he finally decides to move to Mexico to experience a different life and go to the new university, he becomes aware of himself in new and exciting ways, and comes to believe that life is not what he once thought it was. Still struggling to make sense of himself, Victor begins to truly come alive in Mexico and learns once and for all just what makes him tick and how to be the man his father counseled him to be so many years ago. Written with an inexpressible and curious lack of self consciousness, Crazy Loco Love is the story of the author’s journey from troubled boyhood to replete and confident manhood.

When I first began to read this book, I had the distinct feeling that it was written with a young audience in mind. The language and sentence structure seemed very basic and there was something quite strange about the exuberance of the writing. Victor loves exclamation points and capitals and he’s not at all sparing in their use. As I moved further and further into the story, I began to see that the writing was really a reflection of the inner mind of Victor, and that by nature, he is a man prone to over-excitability and, most of the time, a lot of hyperbole. Every person he met was the most beautiful, most successful, best liked, etc. It was hard to gauge the real qualities of the people in his story because they were all so very similar. The best people he had ever encountered, in fact, even though their actions and behavior said otherwise. The problem, I think, had to do with the fact that Victor didn’t have a lot of experience with the written word, which may have made his writing seem a bit juvenile and inexperienced. I can say it was filled with a lot of emotion, and though it was a little distracting, it was also very passionate.

A lot of this story felt like it could have been penned by an over-emotional teenager. There was no real measurement or restraint in the emotions that the author expresses. He seemed often to be on the tip of hysteria, and because of that, the book lost a lot of its emotional impact. I also got rather tired of hearing about his wonder over his sexual exploits and his pondering over his penis. I assume this was a big deal because he’s Catholic and that kind of thing is generally frowned upon within that religion; To me, it just felt a little seedy and too confessional for me to really be able to enjoy it. Sometimes the thoughts we have running through out heads are not the best thoughts upon which to center a book, and particularly a memoir. I got the feeling that Victor was a trifle naive and that a lot of what was happening to him was normal, but from looking at it from his perspective, it was somehow strange and hysteria producing.

I think my biggest problem were the sections when Victor begins grappling with God. He comes to some very strange conclusions about Him and has all of these weird ideas about the nature and substance of God. Though he doesn’t go to church and only prays when something bad happens to him, he has this whole dogma of his own figured out that was rather strange and discomfiting. I began to suspect during the latter half of the book that he may have some sort of mental illness, because his thinking and behavior was so erratic and convoluted. It seemed he wanted God to fit into a little box of his own making and he was very self-centered about all of this. He goes about correcting passages of the Bible and having arguments with God in the middle of the desert, and I, for one, was worried about him. Now I’m not one to question anyone’s belief system or castigate anyone for the ways in which they find spiritual comfort. It’s not my place to do that and I feel I need to be as accepting as I can of others and their beliefs. But Victor’s grappling with God came off as unbalanced and scary at times, and his thought processes about these things were very disorganized and self-aggrandizing. It was interesting to read but frightening to contemplate.

Thought there was a lot to be concerned about, there were some moments of pure brilliance and Victor’s life story was rather interesting to read about. I think I just had a disconnect with the execution and emotional outbursts that plagued what could have been a very cogent and lucid tale. I think its interesting to note that Victor has had two other fictional works published and that at least one other reviewer compared him to Steinbeck. I didn’t see that at all, but then again, this memoir could possibly be very different from his fictional offerings. Though this book was not to my tastes, there may be other readers out there who would enjoy reading about Victor and his very unusual life. A rather strange read. ( )

Victor Villasenor really likes exclamation points!!! And CAPITALIZATION!

I expected to like this memoir of a Mexican boy growing up in Southern California, feeling out of place, trying to find how he fits in the world. When it started off, I didn't care for the writing style, but thought that the story could overcome it. After about 100 pages, I gave up and skimmed through the rest of the book. I probably would have quit completely if I hadn't been given the book by the publisher.

Mr. Villasenor seems like a nice person and I really hate giving any negative reviews, but especially to people I think I would like if I met in person. Let me also say that I realize I am in the minority – quite a few people have loved this book. Still, I just didn't care for it.

The first part of the story sounded too preachy to me, the author's father explaining what it takes to be a man. And then Victor discovered girls. I read much more than I wanted to about his penis, his randiness, his constant angst. I wasn't crazy about the writing of castrations and slaughter either. But what really bothered me is that the author seemed to vacillate between excusing his behavior because he thought he was just a “stupid Mexican” (his words, not mine) and blaming everyone else for his behavior because they thought he was just a “stupid Mexican.” His behavior wasn't all that out of the ordinary for a teenager, it occasionally seemed to be much ado about nothing. The language and explicitness was a little rough for me, but the major problem is that I just didn't find the book to be an interesting read, and I was disappointed in it. ( )

I try really hard not to tear books apart; I know that each book is it's author's baby, and even when I point out the flaws, I point out the good as well.

I did not like this book ... at all. It was difficult for me to read, because it was frenetic, full of unnecessary capitalization, and exclamatory to the point of feeling prepubescent.

Victor is 16. His father, a self-made multimillionaire who immigrated to the United States from Mexico during the Mexican Revolution, was put in prison at 13 for stealing $6 worth of copper to help feed his starving family. His father walks him out on the ranch and lets him know that now he is going to have to figure out who he really is in order to be a man.

We then start riding this fast train that reeks of peyote-induced "profound thoughts". There are times when I just shook my head at the prose. I think this could have been a good book if it were written with just a trace of grown-up wisdom or wit.

Tongue-in-cheek (not really) Synopsis:

"Everyone, including the students and professors at my military academy, hate me because I'm just a stupid Mexican. And I hate them because they laughed at my beautiful turquoise truck and now I had it painted white and they still laughed and called it a milk truck. I'm going to go crazyloco and get a gun and shoot them all"

"I took a girl with big beautiful breasts to the dance and while I was defending her honor, she took up with one of my friends and now HE gets to touch her big beautiful breasts. The thought is making me go crazyloco"

"I didn't know I was supposed to masturbate after heavy rounds of petting.. thanks for the advice ... oh! that DOES feel good .. I think I'm going to SCREAM SCREAM SCREAM .. because I'm just crazyloco"

"God is my Father; I shall not sin.. and all of my sins and sinful thoughts are making me CRAZYLOCO"

And we go on pretty much like that; through going to two different colleges, finding out that Victor's cousin is homosexual AND apparently a pedophile, which makes Victor crazyloco with rage, more women (with big breasts and bushes) who make Victor crazyloco with lust, more insights from God, more 'profound' insights which make Victor crazyloco from FINALLY understanding , and ... I don't know .. if it weren't a review book, I wouldn't have gone past the first chapter.

THAT being said, the novel is apparently well-liked in some circles. The reviews are mixed on Amazon, with some in my camp and some in the "this is a wonderful book" camp, so maybe those will help you judge for yourself.

QUOTES:

Walking past the tall white cross with Jesus Christ and His Holy Mother Mary kneeling at the bottom of the cross, I looked up at Jesus and saw all the material gathered about his loins. I wondered why they'd used so much material if it wasn't to hide His erection. Having this thought, I got scared. What was wrong with me? Now I was thinking about God's Only Begotten Son's sex life, too. This proved that I was going bonkers. Sex and love had driven me crazyloco! There was just no getting around it. I had to castrate myself immediately, or next I'd probably start getting the hots for the Virgin Mary.

On if Adam wouldn't have blamed his wife on taken the blame for eating from the tree:

"Then God would've seen that Adam was a stand-up guy," my dad always added, "and He would've been proud of him and shook hands with him, saying, 'What are you drinking, Adam?' Adam would've said, 'Tequila from Los Altos de Jalisco' and God would've said, 'Hey, I've never had tequila. Let me try some.' And so God would have had a couple of good shots with Adam, and we'd all still be in the Garden, laughing and drinking tequila with God."

I really had expected to at least see some kind of concrete distinction between our two countries. Then I saw it clearly. Borders weren't natural. They were man-made. They really were, and so for us to have peace on earth, we had to stop looking at each other across our man-made borders and start looking skyward. Up into the huge vastness of the whole sky, then just like Moses and his thousands of people we, too, could lift up our hearts and souls beyond all our earthly fears and limiting thoughts and simply see ourselves as ONE FAMILIA OF HUMAN BEINGS REACHING FOR THE STARS!

Book Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars (the extra .5 is for the book it could have been)

(I received a copy of this title from the publisher to facilitate my review) ( )