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Published Aug 2016
400 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
In an endless cycle of street violence and retribution, is there any escape? A powerful verse novel by e.E. Charlton-Trujillo.
We wasn't up to nothin'
new really.
Me and Jimmy, Catch and Yo-Yo.
We just comin' down the street keepin' cool.
We was good at stayin' low
Especially around the Wooden Spoon.
Guys hang around there, they got teeth on 'em
Sharper than broken glass.
Words that slit ya'from chin to belly. And that's just their words.
Fifteen-year-old Theo isn't looking for trouble, but when he and his friends witness a brutal attack on Ricky-Ricky, an innocent boy who doesn't know better than to walk right up to the most vicious gang leader around, he's in trouble for real. And in this neighborhood, everything is at stake. In a poignant, unflinching novel of survival told largely in street dialect, e.E. Charlton-Trujillo enters the lives of teenagers coming of age in the face of spiraling violence among gangs, by police, and at home.
"Starred Review. Charlton-Trujillo gives voice to the unheard in this heartbreaking and powerful modern American story of friendship, family, loss, injustice, and courage. " - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. Graceful, trenchant, moving, and utterly necessary." - Booklist
"Starred Review. Direct and raw." - Kirkus
"e.E. Charlton-Trujillo's When We Was Fierce is a powerhouse of a book, rhythmic, immediate, and eye-opening. Charlton-Trujillo creates a distinct dialect and melody to tell a story of violence, belonging, pain, and redemption. I hung on every word. This is some of the bravest and best writing I've laid eyes on in years." - A. S. King, author of the Michael L. Printz Award Honor Book Please Ignore Vera Dietz
"If we can agree that the finest story-making erupts from impassioned empathy and a willingness to bend the rules of language, then we must agree that e.E. Charlton-Trujillo ranks among our very finest story makers. This is a lyric manifest that commands us to hear so that we might have a chance at being healed." - Beth Kephart, National Book Award Finalist
This information about When We Was Fierce was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
e.E. Charlton-Trujillo is the author of Fat Angie, winner of the 2014 Stonewall Book Award. In a starred review, Publishers Weekly called it a hard-hitting novel "that swings between incredibly painful low moments and hard-won victories." Kirkus Reviews praised the book for its "entrancingly eccentric prose." e.E. Charlton-Trujillo lives in California.
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