A review by serendipitysbooks
Everywhere You Don't Belong by Gabriel Bump

challenging emotional reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

 Everywhere You Don’t Belong is a coming of age novel of a young Black man. It is set in Chicago’s South Side and clearly highlights the intersection and impact of poverty, gangs, drugs, police violence and an unstable home life. I mostly enjoyed this book except for the short choppy dialogue where seemingly every sentence ended with the speaker tag. I’ve been known to complain about the trend towards omitting speech marks etc. But I listened to this on audio and it was hard on the ears. “Two to three word sentence,” said person one, followed by “one or two word sentence,” said person two, followed by “another very short sentence,” said person one etc etc. Some of the tags could have been varied or omitted to no ill effect. I’m unsure if this would have been less annoying in print. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings