From School Library Journal
Grade 7 Up–Contemporary Medellín, Colombia, is the setting for this unsettling and largely uncompromising portrayal of the life and death of Sonny, a small 13-year-old boy lost in pursuit of machismo. A grade-school dropout whose life has been twisted by poverty, he watches enviously as his menacing best friend, Alberto, lives large after being recruited by
El Fantasma, a drug lord, for what become almost routine assassinations. Sonny's first hit, like Alberto's, is of a bound and gagged victim who is already being tortured, and is critiqued thusly: "You're enthusiastic. I like that in my
sicarios. Maybe you were a little generous with the bullets, but the sucker had it coming." Sonny's life had previously been about "music, money, Jesus Christ, and soccer," but by the end of the book, he is caught in his own inevitable death spiral. The climax reveals unexpected depth and resonance from the ironic title. The taut story line subtly illustrates the many levels of personal, social, and political costs of the shocking violence created and perpetuated by the largely U.S.-driven international drug trade. At times the narrative sounds as if it were translated into an odd, if colloquial, English, and it occasionally drags a bit, but on the whole, the book will interest and educate readers about a world they might know nothing of otherwise. While references to smoking grass, drinking, and the violence itself might seem to limit this title to mature teen readers, the presentation makes this awful world accessible to younger readers, as well.
–Joel Shoemaker, Southeast Junior High School, Iowa City, IA
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Gr. 9-12. From the first scene of a boy preparing to do murder, Whyman's novel is a taut, terrifying portrayal of children growing up without protection, love, or hope in a country shattered by drugs. In Medellin, Colombia, 12-year-old Sonny lives in poverty with his ineffectual mother and vicious uncle. He finds refuge with his best friend, Alberto, dreaming of soccer and escape. Then Alberto appears with a gun; he's become one of the ubiquitous child assassins, hired to kill by local drug lords. Sonny envies the power and money that his friend's gun brings. When the violence in his own home escalates and Alberto goes missing, Sonny, too, chooses to become a killer. Alternating between Sonny's voice and an omniscient narrator, the language is as rough and grim as the story (local children speculate that Alberto earns his money by "sucking dick"), and the gore and violence are graphic. Although scenes don't always connect smoothly, the disjointedness echoes the story's nightmare quality, and readers will feel haunted by Sonny's bleak choices, the brutality, and the heartbreaking conclusion.
Gillian EngbergCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
