In IT'S LIKE CANDY, River and Starr are sisters who get a
bad break early in life. Their father leaves home when he
can no longer stomach his wife's infidelity, spurred by
her drug addiction. Having no father at home to love and
care for them, especially given their mother's continued
spiral downward, would be bad enough. But that's only the
beginning for these two young women.
Both women are sexually abused at their mother's
insistence to help pay for her addiction. As a result,
they both ultimately run away and turn to a life of crime,
including prostitution, holdups, and forced participation
in increasingly more violent crimes.
Yet both sisters hold on to the possibility that life has
more to offer them. River discovers this when she begins
to have feelings for one of her marks. Starr's lesson
follows a brutal beating that places her in the hospital.
But is it too late for these young women to turn their
lives around? They have not seen each other in five years
but their lives parallel one another. Even after the seed
of hope begins to bud, they find it difficult to turn away
from street life. They find their lives are not their
own, as each is indebted to the criminal enterprise—and
its leaders—that provides them with money, clothing, and
other means of survival. Will they find a way out before
it's too late?
Mr. Gray has penned an intriguing novel which draws the
reader in immediately and doesn't let go until the last
page is turned. Although street lit is not my preferred
genre, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Yes, it is
graphic, in terms of profanity, sex, and violence, but I
never found any of it to be gratuitous or overdone, as I,
if I am to be honest, wholly expected. The plot is so
well crafted, and the characters so well portrayed—no
matter how heinous they might be—that I had no choice but
to keep reading to find out what would become of River and
Starr. I don't mean that to be condescending in any way.
This book, although fiction, very much reminded me of
gritty memoirs I'd read as a teen that would be the
precursors to today's street lit, books like MANCHILD IN
THE PROMISED LAND by Claude McKay or THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
MALCOLM X by Alex Haley. Raw, gritty, and consuming.
IT'S LIKE CANDY was impossible to put down. I've added
Mr. Gray to my list of authors to watch.
Sisters River and Starr leave home in their early teens
after a lifetime of abuse from their drug-addicted mother.
Beautiful River joins a stick-up crew, but she doesnt know
that her crew has one secret even shes not in on. When she
falls in love with Eric, one of her victims, she wants out
of their dirty game. Starr is working for a pimp by the time
shes sixteen. After one of her dates assaults her in a motel
room, she meets a woman in the hospital who wants to help
her change her life. But Starr cant get out of the game so
easily.
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