White Lines

White Lines

Tracey Brown

At first, when this book kept coming up “recommended" on amazon.com, I rolled my eyes and tried to make it go away. I was thinking that it was just your average “street fiction”, ( for my views on street-lit, check read here or the last paragrpah here) but the five star reviews on Amazon piqued my interest so I gave in and ordered it. And am glad that it kept coming up and that I finally wore down and ordered it.

White Lines is the story of Born and Jada, their loves and their struggles on the streets of New York. Teenaged Jada, runs away from home and falls into the drug world while teenaged Born watches his father, a well –known hustler make his life from the drug trade. Born follows in his father’s footsteps and sets out to become the biggest hustler NYC has ever seen. Meanwhile, Jada cleans up and meets born and what happens next is a love story for the ages. All love stories don’t have to be Nicholas Sparks or Nora Roberts ( i.e. traditional) and obviously this one isn’t, but it is one of the truest love stories that I’ve ever read. The story begins in the late 80’s and follows Born and Jada on their paths together and apart, in what is one of the best books of 2007 ( yes, I know it is only February).

Ms. Brown doesn’t sugar coat things, not does she glorify them either ( hallelujah). She tells it like it is, with heart and clarity. The writing is clear and concise and the story is beautiful in the same way that life is. Of course it is not only a love story. In a sense it is still probably classified as “street lit” and there is no shortage of the raw and gritty scenes, however it is so well done- well written, with excellent characters and also very well edited.

I finished this book in a record 2 days, which isn’t an easy feat- this book is thick at 512 pages (paperback), but worth every single page. I then passed it on to my sister who read it in a record 3 days (she’s in HS taking 4 AP courses) - so that itself should extol ( :) ) how much I enjoyed this book.