FREAKS & REVELATIONS

Tattooed, abused, racist, shaven-headed Doug smokes, drinks and travels with a pack of thuggish, troublemaking punks in Los Angeles. Kicked out of his religious mother’s home for being gay, Jason lives on his own on the streets of San Francisco, earning his wages on street corners and befriending a pack of fellow teen male prostitutes. Chapter titles grimly count down to the two boys’ inevitable and no doubt violent meeting. Hurwin’s latest may sound like the perfect, gritty survival story that reluctant readers would love to sink their teeth into, but her motherly tone doesn’t match either plotline or the voices of its characters, especially early on, in the emotionally tenderized descriptions of Doug’s abuse by his father (“I hate that she says that word. It make me think that we’re still not safe”). If readers can get past the schmaltz, they will find some genuine instances of street-smart edginess. Before they know it, the brutal climax—which should come as no surprise—is upon them. A sappy and cautionary denouement follows. A yawner of a story based on true events. (Fiction. YA)