I learned a lot about whales, something about Scarface, and thoroughly enjoyed this darkly humorous novel.
Well plotted, witty, a bit slow at times.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Published 5th March 2024. The opening chapter of this novel really got to me and left me wondering what I was going to be experiencing as I was reading. The opening chapter is the voice of Lolita, an orca who has spent many, many years in the Seaquarium in Miami and it is the story of how she got there. And throughout the novel we keep hearing her voice - which I loved. Anyway, the story itself revolves around Izzy, who was brought up by his Tia after coming to Miami from Cuba on a raft aged seven. He wanted to be a Pitbull impersonator but after getting legal warnings, he decided to model himself on the Al Pacino character, Tony Montana, from the movie Scarface - a film I've never scene but that didn't affect my reading of the novel. In the film, apparently Tony has a tiger but after a visit to the Seaquarium, Izzy seems to form a connection to Lolita, who invades his thought, and goes in a direction that I never expected. Izzy also wants to find out more about his passage to Miami as he thinks this could be a lucrative market to get into and starts asking questions about his journey and his mother to the wrong people. In fact what with Lolita's voice telling her stories, and Izzy's search for the truth about his journey on the raft, you do get taken to some pretty dark places and as for the ending - well. I enjoyed the descriptions of Miami and particularly, I loved Lolita. As for Izzy, I followed him on his quest to become Tony Montana and his almost coming-of-age as he realised through his questions that maybe the story that he had been told about his journey was not in fact the true one, and as he realised that maybe what he thought was important actually wasn't. I followed him and ended up in a place that I just didn't think I would ever end up in. A book that led me into some very surprising places.

Scarface meets Moby Dick you say? Now that is a headline and a half

I admit I haven't seen either of these movies and I think its a better book if you;ve seen Scarface at least as most of the references revolve around that. Still, a good book without my insider knowledge/

Rough raw and very unique

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for a digital ARC in exchange for a review.

This is a very competently written book, but unfortunately it was just not for me. While I found the premise initially interesting, as well as the decision to split the narrative between Izzy and Lolita, it just didn’t connect with me. I can definitely see this finding an audience, however, and I’ll still remain open to other works by the same author in the future.

Say Hello To My Little Friend is a novel about a twenty-year old Cuban man in Miami who decides to try and become Tony Montana, but who comes up against his own past, the city, and an orca. Izzy has just had a cease and desist stopping his burgeoning career as a Pitbull impersonator, so he pivots his dreams towards Scarface, planning out his steps to be Tony Montana. He finds a sidekick—his Manolo, Rudy—and someone who could be his Michelle Pfieffer love interest, but he also finds Lolita, the famed captive orca in Miami Seaquarium, and Izzy's mind becomes obsessed with her, as does the water of Miami. As Izzy hunts down what happens to get him from Cuba to Miami as a boy, all of his plans start to seem more tragic than triumphant.

As I love the film Scarface, I was immediately drawn to this book, but actually, it goes a lot further than that, combining Scarface, Moby Dick, and the city of Miami itself into a damp, darkly comic novel. The narrative voice is playful, sometimes taking things seriously and sometimes not (there's a part that recreates the success montage in Scarface but for the much lesser "success" of Izzy), and it casts a wry eye over everything, whilst still having a tense narrative as Izzy tries to uncover his own past (and makes a lot of missteps along the way). The plot centred around Lolita, the captive orca, is a wonderful example of bringing in an animal's perspective in a novel, and makes this book more than a story of a failed gangster.

Combining a sea creature, dodgy aspirations, and Cuban life in Miami, Say Hello To My Little Friend is a distinctive book, fun yet bittersweet, about the tragedy of a young man without the past or future he hopes for. It's a literary crime film and a free the orcas documentary and a magical tour of Miami all in one.