Stories to reconnect you to people, in the best way. Pointed, complex, honest. ( )

4.5. Just really well written short stories, each written from the first person perspective of a different resident of a single New York City apartment building where new owners are trying to evict people behind on rent. The writing is well done in terms of giving a genuinely very different voice to each person - the weakest one is written in the form of a letter by a kid who's bad at writing but it's still alright. You get in their head and really feel for them.

For most of the stories there's a pretty similar theme - the daily struggle to survive, trying to get joy where you can find it, the attempts to get somewhere slightly better and the inevitability that a single bad moment will screw up all your plans. The stories are almost all pretty downbeat in that sense but they're not depressing exactly (well, mostly - there's one with a total downer ending). Even at the end when your plans have failed it's like, fuck it, tomorrow is another day.

Obviously I dunno how *realistic* what's depicted here is but the author is great at really showing all the details and small moments that really make it feel real. It made sense at the end when I read that he's a public school teacher - the schools scenes are very well detailed in ways that are recognisable. Overall just a really great book. ( )

This book opened my eyes in many ways. The characters, the voices, the situations, the motives . . . For those of us who have never faced eviction or discrimination, please read. We need to start changing the conversation. ( )

Fantastic collection! My favorites were Rent Manual and Ms. Dallas.

A great premise of a book: people's reactions to the gentrification of Harlem. This book contained 8 inter-connected stories about people that lived in a slum apartment building in Harlem. I didn't find the stories very connected. It was a difficult read for me with the use of black dialect, hip-hop lyrics, and frequent use of the N word. I had to interpret as I read; which irritated me. Guess this book was just too cool for me. 223 pages ( )