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A review by kimbofo
Young God by Katherine Faw Morris
5.0
Some books leave a strange but memorable aftertaste on your reading palette, and Katherine Faw Morris’s debut novel Young God certainly does that. This may be a thin volume, but it brims with menace and sparkles with shameless in-your-face shocks, one after the other. It’s a story that gets under the skin and leaves an indelible mark. And they’re the kinds of stories I like best.
The story goes something like this… When her mother dies, Nikki, a sassy, street-smart 13-year-old, moves in with her father to avoid social security putting her in care. Her father, Coy Hawkins, lives in a trailer in the woods with his 15-year-old girlfriend, Angel, whom he pimps out.
Coy was once the biggest coke dealer in the county, but he now seems to use drugs rather than sell them, a fact that shocks Nikki when she presents him with a bag of 500 “Roxies” — the opiate Roxicodone — which she stole from her mother’s boyfriend, Wesley.
Somewhere along the line Nikki understands that if she’s to avoid being pimped out, she must make a living elsewhere, and so she turns to the local drug trade, where she begins selling “black tar” heroin for one dollar a milligram. It is, needless to say, a rather sordid and dangerous business, but Nikki seems unaware of the consequences.
Living in this messy world, where life is cheap and teenage girls are merely sexual objects for older men to play with, Nikki holds her own, but it’s not a life that offers any kind of hope or fulfilment.
To read the rest of my review, please visit my blog.
The story goes something like this… When her mother dies, Nikki, a sassy, street-smart 13-year-old, moves in with her father to avoid social security putting her in care. Her father, Coy Hawkins, lives in a trailer in the woods with his 15-year-old girlfriend, Angel, whom he pimps out.
Coy was once the biggest coke dealer in the county, but he now seems to use drugs rather than sell them, a fact that shocks Nikki when she presents him with a bag of 500 “Roxies” — the opiate Roxicodone — which she stole from her mother’s boyfriend, Wesley.
She expected him to sell them first. Call somebody. However that works. Nikki didn’t snort any. Angel’s nodding on the couch. Coy Hawkins is slumped in a reclining chair. Nikki stands at its foot, completely alert.
Somewhere along the line Nikki understands that if she’s to avoid being pimped out, she must make a living elsewhere, and so she turns to the local drug trade, where she begins selling “black tar” heroin for one dollar a milligram. It is, needless to say, a rather sordid and dangerous business, but Nikki seems unaware of the consequences.
Living in this messy world, where life is cheap and teenage girls are merely sexual objects for older men to play with, Nikki holds her own, but it’s not a life that offers any kind of hope or fulfilment.
To read the rest of my review, please visit my blog.