More Like Wrestling by Danyel Smith

This is a richly detailed and wonderful book about two sisters coming up rough in Oakland during the explosion of the crack trade. The jacket copy all refers to the fact that the sisters live alone from the time they're in junior high, but that's not the most compelling part of the story. The real heart of the novel is the makeshift family the girls fashion for themselves and how their generation's plague, crack, plays out within the group. The narrative switches back and forth between the two sisters, which worked really well for me. Besides the two narrators, Paige and Pinch, the other main character in the book is Oakland, a city that all the characters and the author obviously love. The language is swingy, which isn't a very good word to describe a book but nonetheless the one that keeps coming to mind. Swingy in a good way; rhythmic.

Comments

[Bree]

Your description makes this book sound better than the first 30 pages I read of it led me to believe. Maybe I will give it another shot. Although, I think what you call "swingy", I call annoying and distracting.