A review by karteabooks
Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley

4.0

 

This was book number 3 for me  from the Booker longlist, as I was on a ‘let’s read the Booker list’ vibe at the time, and so far, this is definitely my favourite. 

I know that lots of reviewers are unsure about this book, be it the genre and issues that are written about, or that the author is the youngest Booker entry this year, she was just 17 when she wrote this. But each reader and reviewer are entitled to their opinion, and I completely understand, but for me this is another book this year that has left me dumb founded and unusually without words to describe this book. 

Leila Mottley began writing this story when she was 17 years old. When she was a young teenager in Oakland, there was a 2015 court case in which the Oakland Police Department was accused of sexually exploiting a teenager and then covering it up. Mottley, in her author’s notes, states that Kiara is pure fiction, Kiara’s life is nonfiction. Mottley shows how it begins, how the victims have little or no choices. She used the research she completed on the 2015 court case along with numerous, lesser known, cases for this story. 

After a debut like this, I can’t wait to read more from this author. Yes, this is a tough read as it is full of raw honesty and is both shocking and heart-breaking at the same time. It deals head on with the mouth-to-mouth existence that so many people must endure on a daily basis. Sadly, it also reveals the corruption of the justice system and how people do this for their own gain without any morals or thought for others. I enjoyed the ending as it gave us an inkling that there could be hope, after all.