Title: Dodgers

Author: Bill Beverly

Publisher:  Crown

Pub. Date: 5 April, 2016

Genre: Gritty, Contemporary, Urban Fiction, Adventure, Coming-of-age

This book came out in April and it has been sitting on my shelf since before then because I wasn’t sure I was going to like it enough to add to the conversation about it. I did like it! Loved it, actually… and wish I would have read it earlier.

East is a fifteen year old in charge of keeping watch for a drug dealing gang until one day when everything goes wrong. He is smart though, smart enough to stay alive and take the job he is offered by the man in charge, even if it means driving cross country with a group of thugs that include Ty, the homicidal thirteen year old brother he has not seen for a long, long time.

The journey turned out to be a life-changer in more ways (some good, and some very, very, bad) than seem possible to a young man with newfound power, some guns, a mission to finish come hell or high water, and (now) limited prospects back in the neighborhood. It’s a big, big, world, and East has to grow into it.

I loved this book. The world East inhabits is gritty, the story of the people around him is powerful, clever, multi-layered, and heartbreaking. Beverly has a real talent for developing events, places, and human beings on the page that readers can truly feel.

A review copy was given by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.