mark_lm's review
5.0
A tight Clockers-like story about a ghetto teenager who gets a chance to take a trip and try to escape his physical and moral confinement. It might be flawless.
uwaeish's review
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
maggiebooks's review
3.0
I was really enjoying this book on its first 100 pages, but then I started to get so distracted that I couldn’t give it the attention it needed. Because of that, I have to give it 3 stars, however I know that If I was paying enough attention, I would have enjoyed it a lot more.
kyleofbooks's review against another edition
3.0
I would like to thank the publisher for providing me this copy of Dodgers. I am beyond grateful.
From the beginning, I quickly came to the conclusion (is that an oxymoron, that sentence? Whatever.) that this would be a somewhat decent read. The premise was interesting enough, the writing was sound (but dull), and I had the urge to read something more true-to-life. Gradually, however, the novel dissolved into tedium. Once our MC, East, starts the journey to Wisoncsin from LA with this fellow gang members to murder a judge, the book lost me. It became a chore to read, quite honestly, and I wasn't all that invested anymore in the outcome.
East's character arc is hard to accept and specifically pin down. He basically plateaued from beginning to end. Truly, I was bored for a majority of this book. I felt nothing when things started to go South, and with the climax peaking too soon, interest waned along with it. I thought maybe I would feel more for the characters, and their lives are somewhat grounded in reality for impoverished young gang members, but as a 'coming-of-age' I noted no major changes to character.
I was initially going to keep this a 2 or 2.5 star read, but I bumped it up to 3 when East. That made me perk up a bit. Really, something so small changed the eventual outcome of my review-- though, probably because I was straining for something (anything) positive to really say about this from the 3/4 mark on.
From the beginning, I quickly came to the conclusion (is that an oxymoron, that sentence? Whatever.) that this would be a somewhat decent read. The premise was interesting enough, the writing was sound (but dull), and I had the urge to read something more true-to-life. Gradually, however, the novel dissolved into tedium. Once our MC, East, starts the journey to Wisoncsin from LA with this fellow gang members to murder a judge, the book lost me. It became a chore to read, quite honestly, and I wasn't all that invested anymore in the outcome.
East's character arc is hard to accept and specifically pin down. He basically plateaued from beginning to end. Truly, I was bored for a majority of this book. I felt nothing when things started to go South, and with the climax peaking too soon, interest waned along with it. I thought maybe I would feel more for the characters, and their lives are somewhat grounded in reality for impoverished young gang members, but as a 'coming-of-age' I noted no major changes to character.
I was initially going to keep this a 2 or 2.5 star read, but I bumped it up to 3 when East
Spoiler
rescued a stray dog at the endjenniferw88's review
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
pagesandsounds's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
The first interesting point about Dodgers by Bill Beverly is its genre classification. It is often classed as crime fiction, some have called it a coming-of-age novel, while some have gone as far as classifying it under travel fiction. I am not convinced that it has enough crime to be crime fiction and it is no coming-of-age when the main protagonist is already living an adult life before he is even fifteen. The genre classification is largely irrelevant because Dodgers is a well-told and enjoyable work of fiction.
Told in the third-person narrative, Dodgers is the story of 15-year-old East, a foot soldier in an LA drug cartel. He supervises the kids who act as lookouts for a drug house. East is as measured and introspective as the prose of Bill Beverly is economical and concise. The premise of the story is that despite East’s best effort, the drug house he guards gets busted suddenly by the police. In the process of that raid, a young girl is shot dead and that death weighs East’s mind for the rest of the book. After the raid, and despite his culpability for the bust, his boss Fin sends East and three other teenagers (including East’s 13-year-old brother, TY) across the country to Wisconsin to murder a judge who is a witness in a case about to come to trial.
A road journey of four teenagers who can barely stand each other is where most of the action takes place. The vivid description of the countryside as East and his crew drive across the country while trying to be as inconspicuous as possible is a treat for adventure lovers. All through the journey, East remains contemplative, introspective and measured both in his speech, thoughts and actions. He struggles to understand what drives his brother TY, who is the designated hitman of the group. TY is a feral, trigger-happy 13-year-old who is everything his brother is not. As might be expected, the trip does not go as planned but through its derailment, East attempts to find redemption and begins to rebuild his life. East is a very interesting character who at the very end manages to disappoint all readers who had been rooting for his redemption.
Good read. Recommended.
http://pagesandsounds.com/2021/02/5-dodgers/
http://pagesandsounds.com/2021/02/5-dodgers/
craigkingsman's review against another edition
4.0
This is not a book about a baseball team. It's a coming-of-age story disguised as a crime story. Four boys from a drug gang in Los Angeles are sent cross country to Wisconsin to do a job for their boss. They are given Dodgers t-shirts, hence the title.
The relationship between each boy drives the story. The most interesting is between the main character, East, and his younger brother who he hasn't seen in years. Tension between them threatens to derail their mission.
Will they complete it? Will they get back to L.A. at the end? Will everyone live through it? You'll ask yourself these questions and more as you read it.
The book is very well written. It seems as if the author really knew how a drug gang operates. Perhaps he did interview someone from a gang.
If you haven't read Dodgers, get it today. A great read.
The relationship between each boy drives the story. The most interesting is between the main character, East, and his younger brother who he hasn't seen in years. Tension between them threatens to derail their mission.
Will they complete it? Will they get back to L.A. at the end? Will everyone live through it? You'll ask yourself these questions and more as you read it.
The book is very well written. It seems as if the author really knew how a drug gang operates. Perhaps he did interview someone from a gang.
If you haven't read Dodgers, get it today. A great read.
whimsicallymeghan's review against another edition
3.0
At only fifteen, East has spent a lot of time on the streets of L.A. and when his uncle gets arrested he feels the need to step up and be a man for him. This entails getting in a van with three other guys to go and kill the key witness all the way in Wisconsin. This was a good novel; the plot was good and engaging, although it may not be everyone’s favourite read. There were moments during the plot where the reader lost interest and things progressed slowly. The writing was definitely on the darker side, but the dialogue between the characters was raw and real, which made it compelling for the reader. The characters were shaped and created with precision and they were interesting to read; they really gave the plot life and watching East find himself on this journey was fascinating. Overall, this was story with good, compelling characters.
meganpareja's review against another edition
4.0
So Bill Beverly was my professor at Trinity University for a lit class about Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright, and James Baldwin. I hope he never reads this, because I’m going to confess that I only read one of the three titles assigned for the course all the way through that semester. Or maybe I do hope he reads this, because I can say without hesitation that the one that I did read all the way through, Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin (also by far the shortest of the three. Sigh.) is one of the best books I have ever read. And when I finally did get around to rereading and finishing Native Son by Richard Wright, it, too, became one of the best books I’ve ever read. I’ll let you guess how I felt about Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, when I finally read that, too. These are three of the most important and insightful books about race (and, in the case of Giovanni’s Room, sexual identity), that I have ever encountered. Plus, they’re haunting, and gorgeous.
Haunting and gorgeous are two words I would also use to describe Dodgers. It’s a difficult book to classify. On the one hand, I’ve heard a lot of readers call it a crime novel. It is, kind of. It’s also been pegged as a coming-of-age story, which is also sort of true.
The novel tells of East, a fifteen-year-old boy who works as a lookout at a drug house in Los Angeles. He’s been doing it a while, and he’s good at it, because he is focused, responsible, and doesn’t mess around like other boys his age. When a police raid goes tragically awry, East accepts responsibility for the mess, even though it wasn’t his fault, personally. Instead of punishment, or demotion within the drug network, he is tasked with traveling across the country with a motley group of peers -- including his younger brother -- to murder a witness in an upcoming trial against the network’s kingpin. East agrees to this without hesitation.
It seems like the story will be about whether or not East will actually follow through with committing the murder of an innocent man. But it’s not about that. It’s about the journey through a strange and foreign stretch of midwestern America, all new to East, who has never before left Los Angeles. And while East seems always to have his head about him, the others in his group are not so reliable, and have different ideas about how things should be done. And so trouble arises as personalities clash, and mild chaos ensues a couple of times.
And the question of will he or won’t he, regarding the murder, is eventually answered. And then it’s answered some more, in quite an unexpected twist, and then there’s still about half of the book left for us to keep following East’s story. This is the part of the novel I found to be the most interesting -- when East has forged out on his own.
I do not know much (anything) about what it’s like to be a black teenage boy in America. I don’t know how faithful to the black experience this book might be, since Beverly is white. But both East’s fear and his apathy (though those aren’t the only two things driving him, by a longshot) rang true to me as I read this. He was a character I wanted to know more about, even while I felt that there were parts of him that were unknowable, even to East.
I didn’t fly through this novel. There were some sequences and conversations that I struggled to understand, but then there’s a big cultural divide between me and some of the central characters. I took my time, enjoying the writing even at times when what was happening in the story didn’t grab my attention. I hope Mr. Beverly can forgive me for my laziness as a student back when I knew him. But this book, I had no trouble finishing at all.
Haunting and gorgeous are two words I would also use to describe Dodgers. It’s a difficult book to classify. On the one hand, I’ve heard a lot of readers call it a crime novel. It is, kind of. It’s also been pegged as a coming-of-age story, which is also sort of true.
The novel tells of East, a fifteen-year-old boy who works as a lookout at a drug house in Los Angeles. He’s been doing it a while, and he’s good at it, because he is focused, responsible, and doesn’t mess around like other boys his age. When a police raid goes tragically awry, East accepts responsibility for the mess, even though it wasn’t his fault, personally. Instead of punishment, or demotion within the drug network, he is tasked with traveling across the country with a motley group of peers -- including his younger brother -- to murder a witness in an upcoming trial against the network’s kingpin. East agrees to this without hesitation.
It seems like the story will be about whether or not East will actually follow through with committing the murder of an innocent man. But it’s not about that. It’s about the journey through a strange and foreign stretch of midwestern America, all new to East, who has never before left Los Angeles. And while East seems always to have his head about him, the others in his group are not so reliable, and have different ideas about how things should be done. And so trouble arises as personalities clash, and mild chaos ensues a couple of times.
And the question of will he or won’t he, regarding the murder, is eventually answered. And then it’s answered some more, in quite an unexpected twist, and then there’s still about half of the book left for us to keep following East’s story. This is the part of the novel I found to be the most interesting -- when East has forged out on his own.
I do not know much (anything) about what it’s like to be a black teenage boy in America. I don’t know how faithful to the black experience this book might be, since Beverly is white. But both East’s fear and his apathy (though those aren’t the only two things driving him, by a longshot) rang true to me as I read this. He was a character I wanted to know more about, even while I felt that there were parts of him that were unknowable, even to East.
I didn’t fly through this novel. There were some sequences and conversations that I struggled to understand, but then there’s a big cultural divide between me and some of the central characters. I took my time, enjoying the writing even at times when what was happening in the story didn’t grab my attention. I hope Mr. Beverly can forgive me for my laziness as a student back when I knew him. But this book, I had no trouble finishing at all.