I really liked the book. I think the author did a good job with maintaining my interest. It helped a lot that this book is a coming-of-age novel, a genre that I really love reading since I am still a young man. I can relate to the characters’ pains and plights because the emotions portrayed here are universal and we have all shared and experienced the same emotions at least one time in our lives. It made me think about myself as an individual, questioning whether I should be who I am or be what others expect of me.
I like books that challenge my way of thinking about the world. I love it when I can sympathize to the characters and feel as if I am part of the story, the same way I felt the angst and existential crisis while I was reading “Catcher in the Rye.” I like books that are raw and honest and are not afraid to be daring and true. I can certainly feel that this book may be a little autobiographical because of the way Kevon Brown wrote this. It is written in a stream-of-consciousness style, which reminded me somehow of The Portrait of An Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce. He seems to have experienced a lot of the characters’ emotions himself so that is why he had written such an effective read.
This book is not perfect. Some minor editing and proofreading issues can be found here and there but I do not think it is really bothersome. I ignored that aspect because I want to look beyond those issues and just focus on what the book is all about. For me, what is important is that the author found the courage and will to write this kind of book. Some better proofreading and editing might be very useful in the future but I can certainly forgive him because the way he wrote this book is good enough for me to overlook those mistakes I would rather not dwell on. Rather, I focused on the entire message of the novel. It is something that adults and teens especially should read. Teens would learn a lot from what the characters experienced and they may see a reflection of themselves in the whole book. Adults, especially the parents, would also be educated as well. It can be an eye opener to the whole truth of our society nowadays. I had a nice time spending some of my hours reading this book because it affected me emotionally which is what I want books to do to me.
