Title: Promise Boys
Author: Nick Brooks
Genre: YA Thriller
Publisher: Pan MacMillan/ Macmillan Childrens' UK
Pages: 304
Release Date: 2 February 2023
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Hello fellow book lovers, I hope you've been having a great start to the year. Today I'm sharing my review for an upcoming (and unputdownable) YA thriller, Promise Boys by Nick Brooks that everyone needs to preorder, recommend and tell all your friends about ASAP!
Synopsis
The Urban Promise Prep School vows to turn boys into men. As students, J.B., Ramón, and Trey are forced to follow the prestigious "program's" strict rules. Extreme discipline, they’ve been told, is what it takes to be college bound, to avoid the fates of many men in their neighborhoods. This, the Principal Moore Method, supposedly saves lives.
But when Moore ends up murdered and the cops come sniffing around, the trio emerges as the case's prime suspects. With all three maintaining their innocence, they must band together to track down the real killer before they are arrested. But is the true culprit hiding among them?
Review
This was such an evocative and incredibly moving story that I found myself thoroughly and emotionally invested in!
It expertly uses multiple POVs (from main characters, secondary sources and even the media) to create an intrigue-filled, plot twisty murder mystery that highlights the systemic inequality in both the criminal justice and education systems towards boys of colour —and hopefully see readers reevaluate and spark conversations around the harmful effects these biases have in our society.
Our protagonists- J.B, Trey and Ramón, were all incredibly well written characters whose lives I became inextricably concerned for; and the multimedia aspects and interviews with students, teachers and local members of the wider community gave a richer and more realistic portrayal to how investigations like this actually work. With widespread media coverage and the age old rumour mill acting as judge & jury in the court of opinion, misleading narratives are spread long before a suspect can even plead their case.
I loved all three boys and really enjoyed getting to see their experiences in life, but seeing how the system was failing them (with soo many people in positions of authority giving up on them before the murder) was incredibly heartbreaking. The details into their home lives and the dreams they have for their futures was truly lovely to see and really brought each boy to life.
J.B is the quiet one that keeps his head down and works hard to earn that promise scholarship for university and make his mum proud. But the suffocating, prison-like conditions of the school make things much more challenging, his only light right now is Keyana—the smartest and prettiest girl in he know (and who he’s had a crush on forever) has finally agreed to date him.
Trey is the charismatic basketball star and a bit of a joker despite having such a tough uncle, who expects nothing but excellence from Trey on an off the court. But someone’s it’s a role that Trey finds too overwhelming to maintain.
And Ramón is a culinary wizard who unlike his beloved cousin Cesar—the leader of the Dioses del Humo gang (who’s been trying to recruit him), Ramón only dreams of starting his own restaurant who helps shoulder some of his grandmother’s financial burdens by selling pupusas at school.
I enjoyed the murder mystery/ sleuthing aspects and felt the ending was genuinely satisfying, in terms of finding answers —I just wish the investigation aspect was little longer as given how pacey the book was, it flew by soo quickly.
Nick Brooks’ film making skills were also very visible in the seamless transition between tenses and POVs, as well as in the visual descriptions—which were wonderfully,emotionally visceral—and I definitely hope to see this adapted on the big screen at some point in the future.
Overall, a moving and incredibly enjoyable YA thriller that you won’t forget any time soon—I definitely recommend to fans of Angie Thomas and Holly Jackson.
Also, a huge thank you to Macmillan Childrens Books for the physical proof.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
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