Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley

This is an outstanding piece of writing and flawlessly brings into focus some of the marginalised communities of Oakland, California.

Leila Mottley started writing this book at the age of seventeen, and although it doesn't reflect her personal experience, she lives in Oakland and clearly has an understanding of how some of her fellow citizens are forced to live.

The story is based on a real crime that Mottley first heard about when she was 14, and couldn't stop thinking about because it concerned a girl of a similar age. In 2016 she read horrifying reports of sexual abuse of a teenager by a network of police officers in Oakland. Mottley was struck by the way the media focused on the impact on the police force and their relationship with the community and not the girl. What about the girl? What about other girls like her whose story is never told? Questions like these planted the seed for this novel and the book made such an impact that it became one of Oprah's picks and a New York Times bestseller.

The life and living conditions of the characters in the book are so dangerous and fragile that it is no wonder that people grab hold of whatever life-lines come their way. Drugs and prostitution offer the promise of money and a chance to escape, but the emotional and physical price is so high that many will be lost just by trying to live another day. Vulnerable people like these are most at risk of abuse by persons in authority and the tragedy is that they are the same people that society is least likely to listen to.

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