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Letting the streets have you is like planning your own funeral. I wanted the streetlight brights, the money in the morning, not the back alleys. Not the sirens. But, here we are. Streets always find you in the daylight, when you least expect them to. Night crawling up to me when the sun’s out.

I initially had no plans on reading Nightcrawling. Actually when I saw the title I thought this was some kind of horror story that I wasn’t in the mood for during this trillion degree heatwave that never ends. But then . . . .



Yeah I still drink that Kool Aid hardcore. And thanks to the best library in ‘Merica, I was able to get my hands on a copy pretty dang quick. If you haven’t read an Oprah selection before, it should be noted . . . .



I mean The Queen of All Things takes misery to a whollllllllllle notha level. Nightcrawling is no exception and you’ll feel like you’re taking a skillet to the face pretty much the entire time you read about 17-year old Kiara as she tries to fend for herself and the young neighbor boy whose crackhead momma has disappeared for the umpteenth time, but doesn’t seem to have any intention of returning this go around. Per the title, Kiara’s only option as far as she can see it being underage and with no high school diploma is to begin “nightcrawling�� in order avoid eviction. Her own momma is in jail, her brother is living in a fantasy world where he’ll follow in their uncle’s footsteps and become a famous rapper, and said uncle ditched the kids as soon as he made it in the music industry and their momma did what she did. Desperate times call for desperate measures and all that. The blurb gives away even more info, but I went into this blind and the story went in a direction I wasn’t aware was coming and boy oh boy was it a page turner. While typically not a blurb reader, I went against my other norm of not reading the author note and was amazed (but sadly not surprised) this fictional story was inspired by a true event. Even more surprising was that the author was only 17 years old herself when she began writing this. Kids, man, they are amazing.

This one obviously isn’t for the weak and no judgment for those who look for joy in their fiction rather than despair. For the rest of you, just remember when you feel real sad . . . .