Leila Mottley did an excellent job writing this book. She did justice to the stories of women and girls who have similar experiences as Kiara. The humanization of prostitutes and victims of sexual exploitation is so vital in writing. I can see this book being read in classrooms in the future for not only its story but also its literary value.

I was so quickly deeply engaged with this story and invested in the lives of Kiara and her family. I like that it humanizes her without victimizing her and minimizing her story to the awful things that happened to her. Her joy is a major part of this book even if it has to be caught between pages.

Stories like this are important to remind us of the human impact of the disgusting things police departments do and cover-up. It may be a fictional account, but it represents the reality of many. I think that women who have experienced this would feel justice in the way Mottley told this story.

I am so glad that I read this and encourage everyone else to do so. This book is deeply revealing without disrespecting the humanity and autonomy of women who experience the dangers of sex work.

I was excited about this because it seemed up my alley. I had difficult getting into it and gave up about 20% through. It felt too slow going for me, but I want to give it another try at a later date, especially because it’s received such rave reviews!

"Letting the streets have you is like planning your funeral."

Kiara is seventeen, poor, black, and parentless (one dead, one institutionalized) in Oakland, California. Life's cards have stacked against her. Through an unexpected chain of events, Kiara ends up working as a prostitute--nightcrawling. Her goal is to keep a roof over her and her brother's head and food in their bellies. Her brother, Marcus, who she loves boundlessly and without condition, isn't pulling his weight. He's the older one, but convinced he can make it as a rapper. He spends his days recording and trying to make it big, which mostly means he spends money instead of makes it. Marcus looks away from what Kiara is doing to help them survive; it's easier that way.

There is so much pain in this story: dead parents, neglectful parents, parents that have failed their children in the deepest of ways. Sexual assault. Abuse. Misogyny. Racism. Police brutality. Human trafficking. The list goes on, ad infinitum. And it is beautiful and filled with so much love: between Kiara and Marcus; Kiara and Trevor, her neglected 12-year-old neighbor with a crack-addict mother; Kiara and Ale, her best friend and lover.

It took me a couple of chapters to find the groove. The writing is a bit melodic with a twinge of street. Once I caught the groove, I was hooked, even as I was deeply sad. Reading about what happened with Kiara's mother literally made me feel ill; I gasped aloud as I read along and watched the tragedy unfold. This book is powerful, and it's so hard to swallow that it's based loosely on real-world events. It is also absolutely incredible and shocking to know it was written by a 17-year-old: where do these depths come from? What has she experienced to write these horrors? And where on earth did she learn to write like this? Kudos to Leila Mottley, surely a force to be reckoned with. Highly recommend.

Thank you for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review!

"Nobody believes in God 'cause they got proof, only 'cause they know there's not any proof to say they're wrong."

I chose to read “Nightcrawling”, a debut by Leila Mottley, because I lived in Oakland as a little girl in a tough neighborhood.
I spent several years living off High Street (in our cockroach gray house)….
near the funeral homes …
My father, grandparents, and other relatives are all buried in the Jewish funeral home in Oakland.

There are many sides to Oakland.
Bad rap Oakland -and great city Oakland.

Leila Mottley, shows us the ugly side of ‘Bad Rap’ Oakland.
…..the crime, the ghetto neighborhoods, the poverty, and the struggles to survive to stay alive.

When I lived near High Street, I remember walking door to door - [at age 5] - alone - selling camp fire mints …
‘needing’ to sell the ‘most’ chocolate mints in my campfire (Bluebirds) troupe because only one girl got to go to overnight camp ‘free’.
If I didn’t win that contest, I wouldn’t have been able to attend.
My mother had a low paying job at Montgomery Wards, and was financially struggling after my dad died. She was also grieving.
I spent hours a day each weekend walking door-to-door selling those mints along High Street … a very unsafe thing to do for a five year old girl.
I won that contest, and went to overnight camp.

Today — I hate knowing that Oakland still gets a ‘Bad Rap’ reputation— because many of us know it’s a beautiful city!!
However,
it was important that I visit this story — I had already known much of the horrid history - history that must not be forgotten - and crimes that should never be allowed to go unpunished.

I was pulling for greatness from this 17-year-old author even before I started reading her book. I didn’t need to—
as Mottley held her own - with no help from me.
I’m so inspired by her. She wrote a story that needed to be told…
Her writing had emotional fire— tells a story that feels like cockroaches are crawling all over our skin.

Clearly, this is not a sunny-rosey-posey novel….
but it’s passionately written -powerfully affecting- spirited with purpose!

“Downtown Oakland has a whole lot of bars clubs, and holes where people find themselves wasted and dancing at 2 am in the morning”.
“There’s a strip club tucked underneath a yoga studio on the corner, its metal door painted a sparkling black. I can hear the faint sounds of music and even though it’s only five or so in the evening, they’ve got the door propped open. I walk into a room dimly lit by those lightbulbs that look sort of light candles, and a few lone people are propped on the stools or sitting at the circular tables, lurking in the darkest patches of the place, the poles looming large in the center, one woman aerial and another bored”.

Kiara didn’t have a resume, and she didn’t know if she wanted a job stripping… but she was desperate. She used to think the only thing one got from turning eighteen (she was still only seventeen the day she walked into that bar)….was the right to vote.
Ha…. apparently there were other benefits.

For real….
In 2005, a major scandal broke out in the news involving a teenager- a sex worker at the time- in Oakland who was sexually exploited by more than a dozen police officers.
The officers were suspended but no criminal charges were brought against them.

This story tells of the heartbreaking and devastated violence done one young girl — inspired by one case that entered the media — but there were dozens of other cases of sex workers and young women who experience violence at the hands of police and did not have their stories told.

Leila Mottley —
—at age only seventeen— she knew what it felt like to be a young black girl, vulnerable, unprotected, and unseen. When she was growing up, she was often told she had to shield her brother, her dad, and all the black men around her —
—shield their safety, their bodies, and their dreams. But what she learned was that her own safety, body and dreams, was secondary.

In this novel, Kiara was a fictional character but she was a reflection of the types of violence that black and brown women faced regularly.
In 2010, a study found that police sexual violence was the second most reported instance of police misconduct and disproportionately impacts women of color.

With Leila Mottley’s piercing prose, I am reminded that
safety, justice, joy, and love is a birthright!!