Book Review: Suzy Spitfire and the Snake Eyes of Venus by Joe Canzano

Overall opinion: Fast paced, intriguing crime SciFi with a strong female protagonist and a futuristic worldbuilding. Five stars.

Disclaimer: This book review was NOT sponsored.

Title: Suzy Spitfire and the Snake Eyes of Venus
Author: Joe Canzano
Publisher: Happy Joe Control
Publication date: March 15, 2020
Genres: Science Fiction
Series: Suzy Spitfire
Goodreads: link
Book Depository: link
Lia’s Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Book Blurb

When outlaw Suzy Spitfire flies to Venus in search of a vicious serial killer, she’s looking for the road to redemption–but instead, she quickly becomes involved in a gang war, a revolution, and a desperate attempt to protect a young girl from a violent fate.

My Suzy Spitfire and the Snake Eyes of Venus Book Review

Reading Suzy Spitfire and The Snake Eyes of Venus, I thought the book was fast-paced but in a good way. Actually, it was really engaging!

The story follows the adventures of Suzy “Spitfire” Castillo, a woman with a past of crimes who seeks redemption and, for a number of reasons, decides to fly to Venus to arrest a serial killer and rapist.

But her new endeavor also leads her to deal with a Venus-based criminal cult called The Snake Eyes and a young girl named Kiara who’s trying to escape… quite a lot of things, actually.

Meanwhile, Earth sends two cops after her, and other characters come into play with their machinations…

Overall, this is an action packed book that also contains great acts of humanity. In a world of guns and shootings, kindness still has a place. I loved that.

Also, the SciFi setting is fascinating with its hover cars, flying cities, “allcom” (communication) devices and clothes/hair that change color. The author certainly has imagination!

Main characters:

• Suzy “Spitfire” Castillo, the outlaw and badass who leads the story
• Kiara, a 14 year old with a past of prostitution and a violent-when-high-on-alcohol boyfriend
• Ricardo, Suzy’s love interest and companion of her “adventures”
• Other interesting characters, like Danielle and her husband, Burt Stone and Tala, who are given some depth in the book

Themes of the narration:

• The hard path to redemption when coming from organized criminal groups
• The fact that abuse on women (or anyone) doesn’t pay
• Even violent people of dubious morality can have redeeming qualities
• Family is what you create from ties of love and affection more than anything

The only “Nay” factors for me were the fact that all bad guys were men (I would have appreciated a little more diversity) and that I would have liked a little more physical descriptions of Suzy and other characters, but the result was good even with the essential descriptions the author provided.

Overall, it was a good read.

Trigger Warnings: violence, shooting, strong language, bloody scenes, mention of rape, physical and emotional abuse, trauma, prostitution of minors

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Suzy Spitfire and the Snake Eyes of Venus by Joe Canzano @happyjoecanzano is a fast-paced, action-packed #SciFi that I read recently and that, overall, left a good impression on me. A review for this book is also on my blog. #bookstagram #booklover #bookaddicted #bookworm #booktography #bibliophage #lovetoreadbooks #readaholic #readerforlife #bookstagramit #favouritebooks #readinggoals #readingtime

A post shared by Lia Mara Dospetti (@liabooklover) on Oct 8, 2020 at 10:41am PDT

Conclusion to My Suzy Spitfire and the Snake Eyes of Venus Book Review & Personal Comments

I discovered Suzy Spitfire while browsing a list of titles, and Suzy immediately caught my attention.

Why? Well, because it was SciFi and because I wanted to broaden my reading horizons in the genre.

It turned out an interesting read, although the amount of violence in it didn’t exactly go well with my being a Highly Sensitive Person. I endured it because there were so many moments of humanity and tenderness in the book – those kept me going – but I felt mildly sick when it came to the strong scenes.

In fact, if I ever read this book again, I’ll have to be sure I can handle it. It sucks to be emotionally fragile, but if I don’t respect myself, who will? I owe it to myself to read this again (because I probably will) when I feel ready.

Now, for the sweet scenes, I loved how the relationship between Suzy and Kiara grew from strangers/enemies to almost mother and daughter and, finally, sisters. It gave a whole new light to the story, and the story of a woman who goes even too easy with guns.

I also appreciated the (hard) path to redemption of some characters, including that of Kiara’s ex-boyfriend. And I appreciated how the real bad guy in the story wasn’t killed but given to justice.

Overall, I enjoyed Suzy Spitfire and the Snake Eyes of Venus. It was a good SciFi, with a good worldbuilding, although it lacked huge descriptions of it. This is probably something I appreciated a lot, as it’s harder to show than tell in this case. I think there was a good balance between what was shown and what was told.

Reading & Watching Recommendations

The movie Goonies and the Star Wars saga make for good adventures that are both action-packed and fast-paced, and may be good watches together with the reading of Canzano’s book.

For a highly creative worldbuilding, I also recommend reading J.W. Golan’s epic fantasy Storm’s Herald and its sequel, Storm’s Clouds.

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