What I enjoyed about this novel was not the overabundance of killing, or the “Superhero” abilities of the protagonist, or the cycle of vengeance. Evan Smoak, involved in all of the above, was also learning to live with other people. He rescued a young teenage girl. At first he had no idea what to do with her and kept trying to find a safe place to dump her. But with time he learned to appreciate her, and they developed a relationship like father/daughter or mentor/student. Sometimes she was the teacher and he learned from her.

I enjoyed the underlying story about the growing friendship and about Evan trying to connect with a mother and son who lived in his building. But there was far too much violence, and the bad guys were just bad guys.