Book Review: Team Seven by Marcus Burke
Team Seven: A Novel by Marcus Burke
Publisher: Anchor
Release Date: November 4, 2014
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Just south of Boston in Milton, Massachusetts, Andre Battel is growing away from his Jamaican family, discovering genuine prowess on the basketball court, and eventually falling into dealing drugs for the local street gang, Team Seven. But when Andre and his crew fall behind on payments, dire and violent consequences await. Around Andre swirls a cast of characters and voices: Ruby, a hardworking medical secretary; Nina, his older sister; Eddy, his mostly-not-there father; and Reggie and Smoke, the kingpins of competing drug crews. As these individual lives clash and come together, the novel weaves an intricate and unflinching portrait of a black family, a black community, and one young man poised between youthful innocence and ambiguous experience.
Team Seven is a young adult novel recommend for grades nine and up.This book got off to a slow start. For the first fourth or so, I wondered what the plot was supposed to be. It wasn’t bad, just disjointed. One reason was that the narrative switched somewhat awkwardly between several characters. After the first part, the story was told mostly from Andre’s point of view and the pace quickened.
The author grew up in the same area of Boston where Andre and his family lived so I’m assuming that his portrayal of Andre’s life is realistic. His story is about how easy it is for a good kid to make bad choices when in certain environments. I liked Andre and kept rooting for him to do the right things. He rarely listened to me though! If you pick up Team Seven, make sure you hang in there past the first bit – it will be worth it.
(I received a complementary copy of this book for review.)
