Bronxwood

Booth, Coe.   Bronxwood.   New York:  Push, 2011.

Audience:  High School, 15+

Genre:  Urban/Street Fiction

Topics of Focus:  Race, Class, Social System, Personal Choices, Drugs, Family Supports, Coming of Age

Red Flags:   Profanity, Sexuality, Violence

Continuing shortly after where Tyrell left off, Coe Booth’s Bronxwood allows the reader to walk in the sixteen-year-old narrator’s shoes once again.   This time around is no easier than the last.  
Now Tyrell must face his father’s recent release from prison and the subsequent competition for power and control as the male lead within the family.   Tyrell cannot forgive his father for his failures, yet he is still too young and inexperienced to assert the aggression required to usurp the role of head of the family.   Tyrell has failed in his own right.  Unable to care for his younger brother, Troy, he must settle for brief visits to him at his new foster family home.   Tyrell is also unable to commit to his feelings for three young women, but that doesn’t seem atypical for a sixteen-year-old boy.   Tyrell is just a boy.   He’s trying to find out who he is.   He wants to be a stronger person, a successful DJ, but he must survive his present day.   He makes bad choices.  He falls into drug dealing, casual sex, and the unfeeling urban world around him.   It looks pretty hopeless toward the book’s closure as the violence around Tyrell explodes, yet Booth does not leave her readers in total despair.   As Tyrell walks out of his place and away from his dysfunctional parents, hopefully for the last time, the reader walks right along with him, trusting that he is going in the right direction.   Booth’s open ending promises a continuation soon.   Readers will be demanding it.

Booth’s story is raw, gritty, and ugly.   She effectively captures the reality of the urban environment that allows little sunlight in to nurture those trapped within its walls.   Her characters aren’t victims, nor are they angels.   They are complex people in a complex world, trying their best to make choices with what they have around them.   For many, like Tyrell, that’s not much.   Readers will connect with the narrator’s struggles.   They will hope that he comes out in a good place in the end.   Booth’s prose is approachable and appealing to the reluctant reader.   It’s a fast, easy read.   

Annotation by Denise Aulik