A review by chickpea
Nightcrawling, by Leila Mottley

dark emotional sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

a little disappointing based on all the hype. it's a great first effort for someone so young, but a lot of the characterization & details of the story just struck me as unrealistic and took me out of the story. obviously it's fiction, but as someone who lives a few blocks from the main character- it was glaringly obvious that the author, despite being from Oakland, didn't seem to have much intimate knowledge with the world she was writing about here. 

Spoiler

i wish the main character had been allowed to be more flawed & human. she would have been equally sympathetic if not more so without being a Mary Sue-esque innocent virgin who whoops! fell into sex work by accident. (also anyone from here knows Oakland has no strip clubs!) especially knowing the events of the novel are based around a real person, Celeste Guap. does her a disservice, and I hope she knew about the book before it was released.