SHOW THEM YOU'RE GOOD

The ups and downs of male college-bound high school seniors during the 2016-2017 school year in Los Angeles.

In his first book, the much-praised The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace (2014), Hobbs, a Yale graduate, focused on a black male Yale graduate who was murdered after returning to his hometown of Newark. In the author’s second work of nonfiction, the clear hero is Carlos, an undocumented Mexican immigrant also headed to Yale. Here, however, the music is polyphonic: Hobbs follows nine young men of varied races and ethnicities—four main and five lesser figures—cutting back and forth among their splintered accounts of college applications, taking AP classes, playing video games, pursuing after-school activities, and despairing over the 2016 election. Two key players attended the Ánimo Pat Brown charter school: the academic star Carlos, who applied to both Ivy League colleges and for protection from deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program; and Tio, a student leader rightly worried that his grades, though high, would not get him into top California colleges. The two other linchpins of the story attended Beverly Hills High School: Owen knew he was well off, but his mother was bedridden with a chronic illness; Sam’s mother, who was born in China, grilled him about school in ways he found “maddening.” At times, the author’s jump-cuts among the nine voices make it difficult to keep the teenagers straight, particularly the too-numerous secondary figures, and the story lacks the strong, cohesive narrative of his earlier work. Nonetheless, Hobbs offers a rare group portrait of well-rounded, hardworking male teenagers focused on college and securing a bright future. It’s sure to cheer school librarians looking for true stories of male high school students known for something besides their athletic talents or troubles with the law.

A unique slice of male high school life with strong crossover appeal for YA readers.