Member Reviews
Book Trade Professional 1097230
An interesting exploration of race and privilege - particularly in the American school and college system. Overall, this was a good read and I liked the different perspectives of each family who were all dealing with their own issues as well as their child's involvement in the brutal assault. However, my only one critique is that it could have been a tiny bit shorter to help the pace, but this did not affect the plot.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the chance to read this ARC.
Denise P, Media/Journalist
This book was wonderful. Gripping right from the beginning, it captures race relations in the US so well through the lens of high school football and how the violence on the field translates into violence off the field. But while this is a fairly standard view which equates athleticisms into oafs with brains in their biceps, our three main characters - Vikram, Diego and MJ - are actually quite nuanced. They are high achievers in school, and all fairly privileged by all accounts and not dickheads, they have a sense of social conscientiousness, familial obligations and are navigating the tricky ways of school, bullies and girls.
The humanity of Pandya's writing made me think he was female for a good 50% of the book. This is the highly compliment I could pay a male author. I thought it was a female author who'd just researched NFL a lot. Instead it was a guy hugely tuned in to the nuances of the male experience. On reflection, the women were slightly less well drawn than the men, but only just.
There were riveting twists and the cultural commentary was woven into the narrative with such mastery. A very nice modern take on "boys will be boys." I will be checking out other books by this author. A gem of a find. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC and to Marcy Dermansky for reviewing this on Goodreads and leading me here.
