This one has been a surprisingly circulatable title. Despite not getting the volume of press I expected, it's had consistent appeal for browsing patrons

I don't know much about Las Vegas, so this was a compelling examination of a city I don't know very well (and haven't ever really had much interest in knowing, to be honest). The characters were well-written and I was intrigued by their stories.

Great look at Vegas. Very funny. I really enjoy Diofebi's writing and his clever insights into Vegas and gambling. It allowed me to live vicariously in that world (without losing my kids' college tuition!).

Netgalley provided me an e-galley in return for this review.

Las Vegas, with all its absurdity, its debauched glamour, its opportunism and hucksterism, is prime real estate for the setting of a novel. Like all tourists, it’s easy to be suckered in by the sheer ridiculousness of it all, which promises, if nothing else, to be damn entertaining. Paradise, Nevada makes good on this promise, offering up the perverse magic of this strange city whilst never letting you forget that it’s all just one big show.

Full review available at Bookbrowse

Published by Bloomsbury Publishing on April 6, 2021

Dario Diofebi develops the parallel stories of multiple characters in Paradise, Nevada. The stories connect and interweave. Las Vegas is their focal point.

The action centers around the Positano Luxury Resort and Casino. The resort is modeled upon the Italian surfside village of the same name, complete with a mountain and a beach.

The most interesting character in the ensemble is Ray Jackson. Ray is a math whiz who dropped out of Stanford and moved to Canada, where he could legally play online poker. Ray’s decision to drop out disappointed his father almost as much as his decision not to pursue the failing family business. After losing a poker competition to a computer, Ray decides to play high stakes in-person poker in Vegas. For Ray, success depends on understanding the ever-changing odds. He doesn’t believe in watching other players for tells. The other players are always watching Ray.

Also of interest is Tommaso Bernardini, who comes to Vegas after winning a poker tournament in Rome. Tom overstays his tourist visa to play low stakes poker in Vegas, hoping to accumulate wealth. Tom was bullied as a kid and has always felt like a weakling and a loser. The story will give him a chance to discover that there is more to weakness than the absence of physical strength.

Tom meets Trevor, a man who oozes strength and self-confidence. He is in many ways Tom’s opposite. They agree to share an apartment to minimize their expenses. Trevor makes money through his videoblog and happens to have chosen Vegas as one of the destinations he documents. Trevor and Tom take a road trip that harms their friendship while giving Trevor more fuel for his vlog.

Mary Ann is a pretty woman who craves to be seen. She finds a waitressing job at the Positano through her Aunt Karen and becomes involved in a labor movement to extort higher wages by damaging the Positano’s profits. She is swamped with guilt when she becomes the victim of a scheme to destroy more than profits.

Rounding out the cast are Al Wiles, wealthy owner of the Positano; Ben “Graywolf” Richards, a far-right provocateur; Trevor’s frat boy friend Patrick; Orson Peterson, a pessimistic Mormon; Orson’s optimistic sister Lindsay, who ponders Orson’s criticism that she would be “selling out” if she agrees to write Wiles’ biography; and a man sometimes known as Walter Simmons, a grifter who describes himself as “practically a Disney villain” while excusing his embrace of evil.

Doing justice to the free-wheeling plot would be impossible. Plot elements include the science of poker and the social engineering practiced by professionals who dupe amateurs into joining high stakes games; a scheme to extort Tom for immigration fraud; a plan to sabotage profits at the Positano as waitresses fight for better wages; and a plan to cause mayhem at the Positano while blaming organized labor, antifa, and social justice warriors for violent threats to capitalism. The plot has its ups and downs — Paradise, Nevada is an ambitious novel, and some the plot diversions could have been excised to make it tighter — but the novel’s strength lies in how the characters respond to adversity rather than the unlikely struggles they encounter.

Diofebi’s characters try on philosophies of life for size as they try to shape themselves. Ray concludes that humanity is “a multi-agent system, slowly refining itself over time and countless mistakes . . . a large neural network, connected by feelings, striving toward good.” In other words, in the long haul, enough humans behaving decently will overcome the harm caused by those who don’t, and humanity will finally achieve its utopian potential. But that won’t happen until long after we’re all dead, and it depends on the less decent not killing us all before that potential is realized. From the perspective of those who die during lulls in humanity’s incremental progress, humanity is a “parade of solipsistic monsters.”

Diofebi indulges in postmodernist storytelling by having a character, shortly after his death, comment unfavorably upon the novel’s plot. He suggests that humans need to stop focusing on stories of individuals (stories in which we see or imagine ourselves) “while the tide brews and finally sweeps us away.” He counters Ray’s philosophy by expanding the gambling maxim, “the house always wins,” to explain his belief that life is not a network striving toward good, but an “inextricable tangle of hierarchies of evil, and that within this tangle we are so powerless and meaningless, so ignorant and frail, that the house is to us every last thing outside our weak little selves.” History provides ample evidence to support each of the competing philosophies.

Other themes include: greed; empathy and its absence; the evolving and unpredictable nature of selfish and unselfish friendships (“the transactional marketplace of human relationships”); the qualities of winners and losers; the difference between what we want, what we need, and what we deserve; the nature of freedom (true freedom, Tom discovers, is “freedom from doubt”); and whether we learn from crises or merely survive them (or as pessimistic Lindsey suggests, learn the wrong lessons from them).

Paradise, Nevada gives the reader a lot to chew upon. While Diofebi’s reach for profundity sometimes exceeds his grasp, he is an intelligent author who blends comedy and absurdity with dramatic moments that ring true.

RECOMMENDED

I’m judging the L.A. Times 2020 and 2021 fiction contest. It’d be generous to call what I’m doing upon my first cursory glance—reading. I also don’t take this task lightly. As a fellow writer and lover of words and books, I took this position—in hopes of being a good literary citizen. My heart aches for all the writers who have a debut at this time. What I can share now is the thing that held my attention and got this book from the perspective pile into the read further pile.

“He’d figured his sty in Marin County ought to give him enough time to evaluate his options and derive the optimal living solution, but fourteen days of his parents, an incredibly old dog, and a fierce ping-pong opponent had ended up draining his computational stamina.” (4)

Paradise, Nevada feels determined to be a novel of ideas, and in this regard it swings hard for the fences. Treating Las Vegas as a microcosm for America at large is a smart idea, and it's one Dario Diofebi executes well. It's a city that lures people in promising an even playing field where anyone can strike it big no matter where they come from or who they are, a lie it has steadily maintained for nearly a century. The title of the book refers to the fact that what we commonly understand as Las Vegas is itself an illusion because most of the Vegas strip and the airport that services it are actually outside the city limits of Las Vegas in the unincorporated region of Paradise, Nevada. Diofebi is at his best when he is puncturing the image Las Vegas (and, through association, the American Dream) has built up. Unfortunately, Diofebi has a lot of ideas, and he stuffs all of them into this debut novel: the evolution of game theory in poker, labor rights in casinos, the commodification of women, immigration, the American Dream as a futile pursuit, the Mormon religion in a town billed as sinful, and more. It's a lot., and as the book progresses it becomes clear that these ideas are more important to Diofebi than the craft. For example, the characters aren't as important as the setting, so don't go in expecting a lot of deft character work. All this stuff Diofebi packs in proves to be too much. A significantly shorter novel with a much tighter focus would have been much better. Which is a shame, because when Diofebi makes a point it lands well. It just gets lost in the deluge of everything else going on.

Thank you to Netgalley, the author, and the publisher for providing me with a review copy of this novel. Even though the book started off a bit slow, I quickly became enthralled with the characters. The novel is very character driven with each member of the ensemble well developed. Each character brought something different and all felt very alive. Las Vegas, or at least the fictional Positano hotel and casino where much of it is set, almost functions as another character.

This was a fun read for me because while each character had a sort of stand alone journey, their actions directly or indirectly impacted each other in ways the characters oftentimes weren't aware of. It reminded me a bit of the film Magnolia, where thr audience wonders if/when/how the characters have anything to do with each other. Whether their paths are parallel or whether they intersect, the journey isn't complete without every single character acting as a piece of the puzzle.

The author did a great job depicting motivation, drive, desire, greed, fear, ego, insecurity, and even the trancelike feeling of going through the motions just trying to get through another day. These were some of the most engaging characters I've read.

The story got a little clunky/confusing right after the climax, but the plot points were made clear in time for a satisfying resolution. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a contemplative character driven story. It is, overall, the tale of a city that is what it is, the good and the bad, because of the people whose stories shape it.

Just not for me. It dragged and dragged. The footnotes drove me up a wall. If I want a non fiction book about poker, which I may, I would go read that.

This book was extremely hard to get into. And there wasn't a lot of compassion for the characters whose lifestyles verged on the "edge", which I thought was kind of the point right? That the personalities that inhabit Vegas are necessarily on the edge? I really did not like this book. What a great concept and a terrible execution. Will I like it if I read it another time? Or on paper, where the footnotes and charts display better? JK kidding I hate reading stuff on paper. Kindle forever! Man oh man oh I wish this had been better! The subtitle alone was a killer! THIS TOWN WASN'T BUILT ON WINNERS. What a great subtitle.

I really didn't like this book much, I though it was going to be something it was not,.
For it was really slow, and the characters all annoyed me a lot.
I also have no interest in poker even with the extra descriptions, and footnotes I found them irritating.
so wanted to love this, but DNFed it at 35%.

Thank you
for allowing me to try it out.

ARC provided by the publisher through NetGalley.
Final rating: 2.5

As a reluctant Las Vegas resident for the past 6+ years, I was eager to read a book that aimed to roll back the glam and neon of the city to reveal the reality of the people actually living in the city. What I got however, was a slow drag of a book that was let down by its punchy, misleading blurb.

So much of the novel was based upon Las Vegas fact, with names swapped out and true stories matter-of-factly tweaked. So much so that I was a bit freaked out by mentions of apartments located on lesser known Vegas streets I've lived on and names and backgrounds of certain characters disturbingly matching people I have met in real life. "Gifty" and its fictional founder Zach Romero takes the place of the real life Zappos and it's late founder Tony Hsieh. Al Wiles takes the place of what I can only assume is the now disgraced billionaire Steve Wynn. If Diofebi did anything exceptionally well, it was capturing the factual intricacies mingled with fiction of the sprawling city and those who had a hand in shaping it. At points however, pages read like laundry lists of as many Las Vegas places and people that could be mentioned on a page. It makes sense as it is a story being told of a city itself, but it became grating halfway through the book when not much had actually taken place.

Which brings me to the writing itself. At first I was enthralled by the characters and the idea of being so invisible in a place so universally known, something I myself experienced as a service worker in the city. However, my fascination quickly became annoyance at the endlessly meandering prose and attempts at Deeper Meaning. I truly tried to give it a chance, but the rating in my brain ticked down from 4 stars 25% of the way to 3 stars 50% of the way to 2.5 stars by the end. The motivations of the cast of characters were lost to me between the sloggy vocabulary and repetitive inner monologues. I love when a story has many seemingly unrelated characters who come together in unexpected ways by the end, but it didn't work for me in Paradise, Nevada. The hook in the book's blurb of a bomb detonating in a casino doesn't even happen until we've almost reached the end. In my opinion, the novel strove to be a brilliant piece of fiction ripping the truth out of the desert valley of Las Vegas, Nevada. It was trying so very hard to be something that it had the potential to be, but ultimately did not succeed in accomplishing. I'm glad that I read Paradise, Nevada, but I think I'll stick to movies like The Cooler and Leaving Las Vegas for my fix of melancholy Vegas-related media.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced copy of this novel. I've always loved books that capture the heart and soul of a city through the characters living in it (.i.e. Savannah, Ga. in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil). What makes Paradise, Nevada different is that it attempts to capture the heart and soul of a city that, at least on the surface, doesn't appear to have either.

Las Vegas, Nevada.

Sin City provides an exciting backdrop for many books and movies and there are no shortage of stories that rehash all of the obvious things that Vegas represents, but this book is refreshingly different. By peeling back layer after layer, Dario Diofebi draws us into a Las Vegas rarely seen, let alone explored in literature. Through the entangles lives of several "locals", this book exposes the backbone of what make Las Vegas run...the people who live and work there. As thrill-seeking tourists rush past, seeking their version of paradise, an entire world is hiding in plain site. A world that includes exploited casino workers, genius poker players, Mormons, young upstarts trying to be the next big thing, and delusional, radicalized right wingers. In short, this is a deep dive into a city that has only superficially been explored and captured in novels.

When all is finished, Paradise, Nevada is an imperfect but breathe-taking ride into the intertwined lives of five flawed, broken, desperate and caring people, struggling to find hope in a confusing world where the "happiness and fulfillment" that is packaged and sold to us rarely leads to the peace we are seeking. Especially in a place like Las Vegas, Nevada.

The blurb says this is a “furiously rowdy and ricocheting saga about
Poker, happiness, class and selflessness.” It is none of those things!
I struggled with this book. It was very slow moving. At 36% we were still getting character backgrounds and introductions. Nothing had actually happened yet, I almost gave up on it. I gave my self until 50%, if at 50% it hadn’t grabbed my attention or had plot movement I would move on. This book got lucky, there was finally some plot movement at 44%. I wouldn’t say it was great or even attention grabbing, but at least there was some movement.
Where is the bomb? This supposedly exciting event? It’s doesn’t happen until 86%.
The characters are depressing. The word “rowdy” to le indicates some fun plot points. The closet it came to that was when Mary Anne was telling Erica’s toddler his pretend breakfast smelled good.

I was unable to finish this book and thus will not be posting a full review on my blog. I immediately found the language clunky and stodgy to the point of nearly being unable to read and understand the book. I read over 200 books a year and have for at least ten years to I don not think the vocabulary is the issue -- it was the way in which certain words were used. Thank you for the opportunity and consideration to read and review this book.

Paradise, Nevada by Dario Diofebi is a superb and engrossing read which will keep you reading until the end. Well worth the read!

Things I liked about this novel: the imagery, the character development, the brilliant complexity of the story. Things I didn’t like: it was very long and parts felt drawn out. Anyone who is a fan of poker will love this book. I look forward to reading more from this author, (but only if it’s under 400 pages!)

I love this book it’s basically tells the story of one night through several characters’ perspectives. Sort of like a mini short stories that connect together in one complete narrative. I really enjoyed it and I highly recommend it. It’s convincing, honest and at times raw.