#PennedPossibilities 958 — What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel?

It's a little something from 2000. This book taught me so much about *my* life, friendship, life in general, stereotypes and racism, Spanish Harlem, and what it means to be a morally gray character who does bad things for very good reasons.

Please, buy this book and read it, I beg of you. It will be on your list of favorites afterward. You will, cry, enjoy it, hate parts of it, and it will leave you with emotions and thoughts long after it's finished. I read this one as an older teenager and it changed me. Ernesto Quiñonez is such an amazing author. Libraries aren't even allowed to carry this book in schools anymore. (For the obvious reasons. I'm sick to my stomach.)

Quick blurb: The word is out in Spanish Harlem: Willy Bodega is king. Need college tuition for your daughter? Start-up funds for your fruit stand? Bodega can help. He gives everyone a leg up, in exchange only for loyalty--and a steady income from the drugs he pushes. Bodega turns to Chino, a smart, promising young man, for a favor. Chino is drawn to Bodega's street-smart idealism, but soon finds himself over his head, navigating an underworld of switchblade tempers, turncoat morality, and murder.

#WritingCommunity #WritersOfMastodon #BodegaDreams #ErnestoQuinone