Customer Reviews

Edgewater Angels: A Novel

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I read this book because the author is a friend of a friend, etc. In such cases I usually expect to be impressed, inspired to write my own stuff, heartened to know a published young writer with lots of potential. But to my surprise, I was immediately sucked into this book. The language is fresh and exciting, the characters and conflicts extremely believeable, but most importantly, the author has some great stories to tell. I have passed the book along to several friends who are now anxiously sucked in as I was a week ago. And I find myself running words together and inventing new ones in both writing and speech (in the style of the author, certainly not on account of a drinking problem). My only criticisms are that the prose is clunky in a few places (like, two times, so who cares?) and I was left at the end wanting a little more resolution, perhaps more a sense of how the many anecdotes hang together as a book. Neither is a major issue, though, and I expect any kinks in the author's execution to be long-since worked out by the time I get my paws on his next novel. I am looking forward to it.

It starts off good then gets even more engrossing as you get to know Toomer better. I couldn't put it down and can't wait to meet the author at the local bookstore and coffee shop in San Pedro when he visits in November to find out how much is based on fact. The style is such that you really feel like Toomer is actually writing the story. The slang that he uses and problems that he comes up against are so real. It was sad to turn the page and get to the end.

I was very excited to read Edgewater Angels because I enjoy reading fiction novels that relate to kids my age. I was also excited because the story took place in Pedro. I recommend Edgewater Angels to all high school students because it will give them a chance to see how hard life was growing up in Pedro. Before I read this book, I really didn't care about what happens or goes on in Pedro. I just thought half of it was a very wealthy neighborhood where I attended school. Edgewater Angels made me see how hard life can be as a child growing up in a bad neighborhood. And it made me realize that my life compared to Sonny's isn't that hard. I now appreciate my surroundings more because now I see how it is to not have them.

Edgewater Angels appealed to me through the real context life's hardships. Moving ahead into the book I felt that I actually knew Toomer and who he was going to become. Growing up in Wilmington, the sister city of San Pedro, both towns are similar within the history and culture of the people of the port. Attending school in San Pedro all my life, I consider it a second home. To finally experience such neighborhoods of the city placed a new outlook and respect for the underprivileged communities. I began to understand the daily struggle of a boy who accepted his place in society. The novel reveals how a poverty stricken child grows up to be a man. Even though he has experienced a world of violence and difficult situations, a collection of truths are exposed. Meallet illustrates the veracity in life from a-not-so-perfect family, childhood friends, and the birth of a child. The short stories are written as if you were almost experiencing it with him. The dialect and use of slang made me want to read it more aside from proper grammar books. Reading this book has given me a reality check in the suburb surroundings of San Pedro. Overall, Edgewater Angels is a real story and a one of a kind novel.

You will learn from this book while you love it; a must read. Meallet's perspective as a kid who made it out of the projects on men and violence and growing up a boy in America is a vital read for all, especially parents who have sons. A perfect book for book groups.

I happen to read a chapter of this book in an brochure from Doubleday and decided to test my interest in novels about minorities and gangs (I'm intially from small town midwest). Wow, what a blast of truth and a fresh new realization about everday life in south central Los Angeles. Toomer, narrator and main character, lives a life and experiences things everyday that most people could never deal with. I never expected a book that deals with all the bad things about inner city life to focus on the little bits of happiness and joy that its inhabitants find and turn those bits into something much bigger and more meaningful. I laughed, cried, and did not want the book to end.

a tale about boys for a new era-- true, funny, gripping

It is hard to believe that a child can go through so many dramas at such a young age. Sunny Toomer witnessed a tremendous amount of violence that no one should have to experience. I never knew San Pedro had that much violence. Even though some of the stories in the book were disturbing, like the one where Angel and Yancey cut the hitchhikers finger off, the book was still really good. He had an interesting life. My favorite story was the last story when Sunny helped deliever the baby. I felt that the birth of the child was a great way to end the novel.

I am all for the coming of age book like catcher in the rye and the perks of being a wallflower, but this book is something else. It does not give you a central character to root for during the book. The main character, sunny, conciously makes horrid decisions throughout the book and screws his own life up. The nly character that you really do root for, and become emotionally attached to, is Monet, and his ambitons are cut short by gang violence. If the author had given sunny some of these aspiring feelings, the story would have been much more involving for the reader. All of his i could stand, though. The main thing that keeps this in a totally different genre as catcher in the rye is that sunny has a limited amount, if any, personal evolution. He starts off as an immature elementary student, and ends up as an immature adolescent who has a fair amount of blood on his hands. All in all, this story is a good one for locals, lke cyself, only because of the familiar places. If you have a stomach for violence, gore, and needless murder, read this book.

Living in San Pedro,I would love to recommend this book to any and all fellow San Pedrians it deserves a perfect 5. Sandro Meallet captures all aspects of "rough times" living in the projects.Wethere its money, fatherless children, or run ins with " roller boys" this book as it all.