A review by savvylit
Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley

dark emotional sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Nightcrawling is a heart-wrenching book about a young woman who is forced to grow up much too soon. Kiara's life is defined by losses of every kind. Her trauma stacks and stacks yet she never has a chance to process any of it. Because she has to be responsible. For herself. For her brother. For Trevor. For the needs of the awful johns she meets on the street. For other sex workers.

In Kiara, Mottley has created one of the most memorable and multi-dimensional characters in recent memory. Kiara is compassionate, creative, fierce, vulnerable, naive, and savvy. It's not often that readers gain such empathetic first-person insight into all the ways that a society fails young Black women. That in itself is an additional failure - the way the publishing industry rarely gives priority to voices such as Mottley's.

Kiara reminds readers that the only real thing that any of us are guaranteed is the few core people we love and who love us back. This is especially true for young Black women like Kiara, who know that most of the world outside has no interest in protecting them.
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