Dinner Thieves by Sidney Moore!

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1995: Portsmouth, VA, is deemed The Heroin Capital of the East Coast by the Drug Enforcement Agency, at the same time the city ranks 5th in the nation for homicides. Local teenage residents Leak and his friends are doing all within their power to escape the world of poverty in which they've been born and raised. The quickest way for them to achieve financial security is by selling heroin in the housing projects; however, with the influx of drug dealers from out of town coming to share the wealth, their plan of dealing soon turns into one of stealing and killing forcing them to become Dinner Thieves, doing their best to keep other hustlers from eating, or earning a living. 

While Leak struggles with his personal demons and nurtures a budding relationship with his girlfriend, Djamilla, he and his friends are pulled into a drug conspiracy by The Diamond Mafia, a lethal drug crew from Miami. Further complicating matters is an aggressive investigation by the DEA resulting in the gruesome murder of a beloved member of Leak's crew. 

When the smoke clears, will Leak and his friends leave the street life behind and start anew, or will their pursuit of the American Dream ultimately cost them their freedom and lives...?

Synopsis from Goodreads!

In this novel the perspective is first person and jumps around from person to person. I actually enjoyed this perspective and it made the book come alive for me. It worked with the story and plot line, and it ensured the reader was kept up to date on certain things that you couldn't know if it was only one character's perspective.

The plot was certainly different and you certainly don't feel like these teenagers are all that bad even though usually in books they would be the type of people that were the antagonists. So it was a great new perspective on things and I enjoyed the different type of perspective. That was a change from other books.

The plot was certainly action packed and the writing sped up to represent this. The writing throughout had few errors and it was easy to follow the story with the writing that was going on. Occasionally the dialogue would take me a couple of minutes to get through because of the heavy Jamaican dialogue that some of the characters have but I was able to decipher it.

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Less Than Nothing by R.E. Blake

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"I’ve been living by my wits for the last four months, and I’ve learned that you never back down when you’re protecting what’s yours, or the world will take everything from you." -R.E. Blake, Less Than Nothing

Sage has been living on the streets for a little while now and she's learned a lot of lessons, but most importantly protect her spot, or else her street musician gig may be up. But then Derek invades her territory and she's frustrated. But when he offers her a deal that will make more money for her how can she refuse? And then when he asks her to go to New York, what else can she do? But secrets are hidden and they'll come into the light one way or another. Can Sage and Derek ride them out or will all their dreams be for nothing? Find the official description on Goodreads.

I found that the style of writing really drew readers in, grabbed their attention and held it. It was really easy to make connections with Sage at least, if only because of one personality trait or another. The narration was lively but it wasn't super peppy and it was amusing to boot. Sage's internal monologue could keep readers amused for days on end.

Then there were the difficult truths. Especially about different attitudes towards homelessness. Admittedly we don't really have any homeless(or none that I know of) in my small town. But I never really thought about how homelessness was perceived or how they were treated. So seeing through Sage's eyes and the different situations that both Sage and Derek find themselves in was wonderful, and attitude changing.

Then there's the fact that Sage could be wallowing in self-pity or working in other ways to help herself survive. But she doesn't. Or at least not often(for the self-pitying I mean). This made her a really good character to read because I don't know about you but people who go why me? And poor me all the time can be a bit annoying.

Now that I've chatted on about Sage, let's get on to Derek. I definitely was a fan of him in the beginning but started wavering towards the middle and now I'm not sure what to think. I'm definitely looking forward to the next book if only to see what happens and how Derek changes or doesn't.

I was very much shocked several times in this book, mostly towards the ends. There were a few twists that I did not see coming and I almost gasped when they were revealed.

Less than Nothing was a great read, one that I would be happy to read again. 

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