The Repossession Mambo

Here there be spoilers. Ye be warned.

The entire time I was reading this book my brain was creating a "Compare And Contrast: Repo! The Genetic Opera" checklist.
Repo! is my second favorite movie. This whole Repo Opera Versus Repo Mambo thing has gotten people all riled up and I decided, in a show of good will, I'd read the book.
The good news is the plot devices are the same but the plots themselves are completely different. The Repossession Mambo is mostly about the narrator's ex-wives and his time in the army. It was a good read, but now that it's over I realize the plot was so thin I could see through it.
At least it kept me entertained. As I've said, that's really all I want out of my movies. Sure, this was a book, but it's all I want out of my books, too.
I did have some problems, though, the main one being that I am a Repo! girl and, much as I wanted to believe Eric Garcia didn't rip off Zdunich and Smith, there were enough similarities that made me roll my eyes and mutter things under my breath.
Q, for instance.
Repo! The Genetic Opera has Zydrate, a highly addictive anesthetic in glowing blue liquid form.
The Repossession Mambo has Q, a highly addictive anti-rejection drug in sparkly red powder form.
That's the laziest attempt at pretending you didn't steal an idea that I have ever seen. Just describing something as the physical opposite of what you stole doesn't make it less stolen.
Not that Garcia did steal anything. I have no proof. I have suspicions that I was hoping would be diminished by reading this book. They weren't. Not really. Actually, I think I was more willing to give the guy the benefit of the doubt before I read the book than I am now.
Anyway, my biggest problem with the book actually had nothing to do with Repo Opera Versus Repo Mambo. It had to do with the ending of the book. And I can't figure out how to express my displeasure with it without giving away the ending. Which I'm going to do.
So, if you don't want to know how it ends, stop reading now.

In the second to last chapter, Unnamed Narrator decides that he's going to turn himself in for the sake of his girlfriend, Bonnie (who is also on the run because she's made mostly of artificial organs). He makes a deal with his best friend, who will take Narrator's heart and, in exchange, have Bonnie taken off the 100 Most Wanted list.
The reason Narrator decides to do this is because his entire life people have been sacrificing things for him and he never sacrificed anything for anybody, and it's about time he did.
Great. Awesome. Dude learns a lesson. Hero's journey and all that. I like that ending.
The last chapter describes how Bonnie had a surgeon friend of hers put her (Bonnie's) heart, the only natural organ she had left, in Unnamed Narrator and replaced it with his artificial one, thus making him a no-longer-wanted man.
Thus undoing the moral of the story.
It was a completely stupid ending. I wanted the damn Narrator to die.

End of line.
-Sally