“Kiara and her brother, Marcus, are scraping by in an East Oakland apartment complex optimistically called the Regal-Hi. Both have dropped out of high school, their family fractured by death and prison. But while Marcus clings to his dream of rap stardom, Kiara hunts for work to pay their rent–which has more than doubled–and to keep the nine-year-old boy next door, abandoned by his mother, safe and fed.
One night, what begins as a drunken misunderstanding with a stranger turns into the job Kiara never imagined wanting but now desperately needs: nightcrawling. Her world breaks open even further when her name surfaces in an investigation that exposes her as a key witness in a massive scandal within the Oakland Police Department.”
Kiara is a character that you can root for. She is finally realizing that she has to stand up for herself after years of trying to help others around her, that she herself is also important. Even if she is coming to terms with this, she is still constantly trying to be of help to those that she loves. How can you not want what is right for her? Marcus, her older brother, has been the caregiver for Kiara since the abandonment of their parents, but he too, is wanting to do something for himself after all these years. The two siblings go about it in totally different ways. Kiara is a realist and Marcus is a dreamer. If you are someone who loves to read about familial dynamics, this is a book for you.
The atmosphere is gritty, that of a truly American city. It depicts the life that so many Americans are living, a reality that many people don’t even want to think about. The setting is East Oakland, California, where so many people are just trying to get by every day, to survive.
The writing was the first thing that stood out to me as I flipped through and read the first few pages of the novel. It features beautiful prose that is full of metaphors and vivid scenes. Some chapters read like poetry, even through truly brutal scenes. However, after the first third of the story, the momentum did start to fall back, and scenes began to get repetitive. It was not enough of a hindrance to my reading experience, but it’s worth mentioning and something that I can see the author improving on as her literary career takes off.
This is truly a story of survival in the modern sense of the word: doing whatever it takes to keep a roof over your head and food in your belly. It’s a rough read that will make your jaw drop and make you need to take a breather every so often. Then, you have to realize there are likely hundreds of thousands of people living this story every day. It is a lot to take in, in less than 300 pages. Other themes included are finding yourself, the modern iteration of the American dream, police misconduct, and poverty. I love that in the author’s note, Leila Mottley, mentions hearing stories similar to Kiara’s in the news but she wanted to create “a world beyond the headline, and for readers to have access to this world”. Such a powerful way of showing what is truly happening beyond what the media portrays, and that everyone has a story and reasoning for why they did something that you might find as shameful. Please know the full story before making a judgment of a person.
Kiara is a character that you can root for. If you are someone who loves to read about familial dynamics, this is a book for you. The atmosphere is gritty, that of a truly American city.The setting is East Oakland, California, where so many people are just trying to get by every day, to survive. The writing was the first thing that stood out to me as I flipped through and read the first few pages of the novel. t was not enough of a hindrance to my reading experience, but it’s worth mentioning and something that I can see the author improving on as her literary career takes off. This is truly a story of survival in the modern sense of the word: doing whatever it takes to keep a roof over your head and food in your belly. Please know the full story before making a judgment of a person. A new favorite book for me.
5 out 5 stars.
Izzy Reads 