Nightcrawling

I raced through this novel over the weekend in preparation for Leila Mottley's appearance at Inprint in Houston on Monday night.

It was a grueling read. Children and teens are left to fend for themselves by the grownups in their lives. Almost everyone makes poor choices in life that lead to jail time and fights and unemployment and exploitation and other awful outcomes.

But the poor choices are, sadly, made from a slate of possible choices, all of which are poor choices. People let each other down. People bail on others. People openly use other people. People physically hurt other people. The only word is grueling.

Still, I'm glad I read this, and I'd urge you to read it, too. Lots of people in our world are living awful lives, and we can't try to make things better unless we know about those lives. And I'd like to start with the children, like those in this book.