Green by Sam Graham-Felson

Publisher: Random House

Publication Date: January 2, 2018

David Greenfeld, a Jewish white kid is a minority in his public school. His home life is just as chaotic as his relationship with his peers at “King”. His parents are Harvard attended hippy people, educated but living in the projects as part of their not living in the corporate life they grew up in. I

enjoyed getting to know Dave and his friend “Mar” however, the slang Dave used felt forced, like other kids his age, school was hard for him, he didn’t fit in, he was stranger than the other kids and it didn’t help that he was trying to hard to be like the other kids. Maybe the slang was his attempt at fitting in or it was Graham-Felsen’s over use of it that didn’t feel natural to me, it might even be both.

I give Graham-Felsen props for writing a coming of age book that address race, religion and social class and doing it with Dave’s wacky Monster style. I’m not sure the female persuasion will go for this book, however my boys would have, Too bad I ran out of time and didn’t get to finish the book. I’ll have to visit the library.

I receive this book from Penguin’s First to Read in lieu for my honest opinion.

*This book is not G, so if your tween or teen hasn’t read something like Catcher in the Rye, like any other coming of age story there is language, teen discovery sex questioning and harsh race views, the book wouldn’t be appropriate if they can’t handle that kind off subjects.

I give this book, 3 stars.