Review: If I Grow Up by Todd Strasser

DeShawn lives on the Frederick Douglass Project, a run-down estate, dominated by drugs and gang violence, in the wrong part of New York. Dropping out of school and joining a gang is the norm and every kid knows someone who’s died. Gunshots ring out on a regular basis. DeShawn is smart  enough to know that he should stay in school and keep away from the gangs but while his friends have drug money to buy what they want, DeShawn’s family can barely afford food for the month. How can he stick to his principles when his family is hungry?

This is a gritty, no-holds barred depiction of life in the worst sort of neighbourhood in New York, where the amount of bling on your body and the number babies you have sired are the marks of achievement for teenage boys, and having a baby is the one and only future for teenage girls. In the middle of all this are DeShawn and his girl friend Tanisha. He comes from one gang’s territory. She comes from another.  But this is no simple Romeo and Juliet remake. Faced with watching his sister feed her twin babies sugar water because she can’t afford formula, DeShawn makes a decision. When his love is threatened too, he makes another, thus ensuring both his current and future families are secure. I won’t reveal the nature of his choices as that would be to spoil the book, but I will say that the results are as exciting for the reader as they are life-changing for DeShawn.

Todd Strasser pulls no punches and this is not a book for the squeamish.  It contains violence, drugs, and teenage pregnancy, although without, it should be said, any explicit scenes. The language is largely street, too and English audiences might need the odd translation (gangbanger, for example, seems to mean simply ‘gang member’ but it gave this reader a few raised eyebrows before she realised that). It moves fast, with short paragraphs and an easy style and can thus be read quickly, which makes it perfectly adapted as a discussion text for any lessons dealing with ethics or morals, although, the teacher might want to advise readers to omit reading the heavily sermonising final chapter so that they can reach their own conclusions.

Originally written for writeaway.org.uk

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