My Book of Life by Angel, Martine Leavitt
Margaret Ferguson Books, Farrar Straus Giroux, September 2012
Reviewed from ARC

A four star book from an author whose last book netted an NBA finalist nod?

Yes please!

But just to put it right out there — Leavitt’s latest is nothing like Keturah and Lord Death, with its mythopoeic elements and historical/fantastical setting. My Book of Life by Angel is a gritty free verse tale of a teen prostitute looking for a way out. It’s Ellen Hopkins with a dash of Paradise Lost; Angel’s closet literary sister is probably Alice, from Elizabeth Scott’s utterly harrowing Living Dead Girl.

So what do you get when you mix literary concepts with street grit?

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