A review by mrsjhasbooks
Yummy: The Last Days of a Southside Shorty by G. Neri

5.0

G. Neri has successfully captured the thoughts of a community and a nation in the highly volatile 90s of Chicago's Southside. Yummy is a child deserving of our empathy and our anger. He is a forgotten child who found infamy as a result of his violent actions as he looked for a place to belong. The gang and gun violence that wreaked havoc in Chicago during the 90s is captured through Neri's storytelling that relies on first-hand accounts, news broadcasts, presidential addresses, and some fictionalized threads that help readers to see that victims of this violence, like Yummy, are beyond categorization. The issues that plagued Chicago's Southside (and still today), cannot be easily solved. The solutions to these issues will require time, money, and a significant investment in community infrastructures if we hope to see youth succeed. Yummy, unfortunately, became a poster child for this violence, and G. Neri has taken the time to help readers see that what Yummy experienced was deserving of our empathy and our anger and frustration. He was not just a victim but also a perpetrator of violence.

This one would be perfect to pair with many other texts..thinking about Always Running by Luis Rodriguez too...