Bookverdict.com

Gr 9 Up–A 16-year-old caught up in a life of drugs and prostitution finds the strength to protect a younger girl in this lyrical novel in verse. Angel describes how her pimp, Call, lured her from her family with promises and “candy,” the drug her body craves even as she tries to resist it, and onto street corners in Vancouver, where she struggles to earn enough money to please him. Angel worries about a friend who has disappeared–there are rumors of a serial k...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

When women begin disappearing from the streets of Vancouver, Serena urges Angel to use her skill with language to write their stories, to give voice to the many vulnerable young prostitutes working the city’s rough Downtown Eastside. Soon after, Serena goes missing, and Angel, bereft and afraid, begins writing her “book of life.” A harrowing memoir in dramatic free verse, sixteen-year-old Angel’s story tells of an almost accidental yet inevitable slip into drugs, prostitu...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

A moving and eye-opening verse novel. The story’s memorable heroine, Angel, gives voice to an often voiceless group, young women coerced into prostitution. Martine Leavitt uses symbolic names for some characters (e.g. Angel, Widow, and Preacher) and incorporates quotes and narrative resonances from John Milton’s Paradise Lost. In doing so, she lends an inspiring sense of epic grandeur to Angel’s struggle. The spare beauty of Angel’s p...Log In or Sign Up to Read More