Debut novelist Griffin tries to capture life on the streets of New York but fails to deliver actual grit. Smart-but-fat Ray and stupid-but-sexy Jose live in squat luxury (cable, Playstation, no adults) and commit petty crimes in northern Manhattan and the Bronx without ever treading on anyone else's turf. Friendship and romance with a sassy Washington Heights girl, stints in juvie, attempts to go straight and various criminal escapades feel flat and the lack of any back story for the boys strips emotional resonance from their escapades. And it's all so easy: They get caught only for petty things rather than the crimes that would have real consequences, and even after six months locked up the only squatters in their squat are dead junkies. This smoothed-out and glamorized vision of life on the streets, chronicled in dated, sometimes forced slang tempered by purple prose ("puked a downpour of summer hail"), may appeal to suburban readers, but city-savvy teens will laugh at the fantasy. (Fiction. 14 & up)
Best friends Ray and Jose are not your typical teenagers. They've escaped foster care and juvenile detention centers to live on their own together in an abandoned stationhouse in New York City's Ten Mile River Park. Ray and Jose are as close as brothers. But then they meet Trini, the smart, beautiful, and confident girl from their local barber shop, and they both fall for her immediately. As tension creeps into their relationship, Ray must struggle to find an identity separate from Jose and try to envision a future for himself beyond Jose and Ten Mile River.
"Griffin has a particular gift for dialogue that not only sounds authentic but also serves to define characters whom he knows inside and out. His is clearly a talent to watch." - Booklist, review of Ten Mile River
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"Griffin has a particular gift for dialogue that not only sounds authentic but also serves to define characters whom he knows inside and out. His is clearly a talent to watch." - Booklist, review of Ten Mile River
Ten Mile River
Best friends Ray and Jose are not your typical teenagers. They've escaped foster care and juvenile detention centers to live on their own together in an abandoned stationhouse in New York City's Ten Mile River Park. Ray and Jose are as close as brothers. But then they meet Trini, the smart, beautiful, and confident girl from their local barber shop, and they both fall for her immediately. As tension creeps into their relationship, Ray must struggle to find an identity separate from Jose and try to envision a future for himself beyond Jose and Ten Mile River.
"Griffin has a particular gift for dialogue that not only sounds authentic but also serves to define characters whom he knows inside and out. His is clearly a talent to watch." - Booklist, review of Ten Mile River
"Griffin has a particular gift for dialogue that not only sounds authentic but also serves to define characters whom he knows inside and out. His is clearly a talent to watch." - Booklist, review of Ten Mile River
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Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940169094626 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Penguin Random House |
| Publication date: | 01/22/2019 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
| Age Range: | 10 - 13 Years |
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