I was excited to see Oprah pick this for her book club, because I do think it deserves to get the spotlight. It's absolutely astounding to be that Mottley was in her teens when she wrote this - it's incredibly nuanced, deep, and moving.

A few years ago, in Oakland, CA, several police officers were indicted after reports came out that they had been involved in a sexual exploitation ring involving an underage girl. This novel is centered around this girl and what her experience might have been like. Mottley created her very own authentic character in Kiara - a young woman who is fighting to survive, no matter how high the odds are stacked against her. There are lots of triggering and downright haunting scenes in this book (revolving around the abuse and other areas of her life too, where she is forced to prove her worth as a young black girl). I was moved to tears several times while reading this because the story feels so heart-wrenching and real.

Above all, I was most drawn to Mottley's writing style. You can tell she is a poet with the way she turns even the most gruesome sentences into beautiful phrases. Mottley is so damn talented and the world is lucky to have been treated to her brilliance.

Wow. I had a bit of a tough time getting into this book, may have reread the first chapter three times, but once I was in, I was in. The setting and events are (fortunately) so far removed from my own experience that I just really had to adjust and reset to being a fly on the wall of Kiara’s dark Oakland existence. The story is so sad and awful yet with Kiara being on he brink of eighteen her naïveté despite it all was believable. I loved that she always found a reason to be hopeful and wanted to think the best of others even when they’d given her no reason to do so. I loved her compassion for Trevor and her friendship with Ale. The author did a fantastic job bringing to life Kiara’s relationships with her family and others. The glimpses into her fears and rationalizations seemed so real.
The fact that this is based on true events in Oakland with its PD is disturbing to say the least. As a 19 year old author’s debut this story is well crafted and shows that Mottley understands how to manipulate the reader’s emotions with her words. Down to the last paragraphs I was emotional in so many different ways: anger, sadness, despair, relief, exuberance, freedom. I felt it all.

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for the opportunity to read this tragic tale.

There were parts of this book I loved and others I struggled with. The story never completely grabbed my attention, however I thought the characters were all very interesting and well developed.

wow. just wow.

This book left me absolutely speechless. Heartbreaking, dark and mesmerizing, this is a debut not to be missed! I cannot believe the author wrote this at 17 because it has an incredible maturity and inspiration that is rare in a lot of current books. I will be thinking about this one for a long time to come.

Nightcrawling is a heart wrenching debut. At times I couldn't turn the pages fast enough and other times I slowly turned them holding my breath at what will come next. It was an emotional read when I tried to put myself in Kiara's shoes.

Kiara is 17 and is taking on a whole lot of responsibility when those closest to her have not. She finds herself alone to pick up the increasing rent after her father has passed away, mother is in prison, and brother Marcus is also in prison on drug charges. Without a high school education, job opportunities are nonexistent. She turns to the streets for cash. It's a dangerous choice, but her desperate need leaves her without options. The money turns out to be good with a regular customer. The stakes are greater than she could have ever imagined when she's caught up with the side of the law that doesn't have the best intentions, her welfare in mind, and the abuse power.

Kiara finds herself defending her actions against a system that's there to protect her. It's a sad reminder of the reality we live with.

Thank you to this talented author, Leila Mottley, NetGalley, and Knopf Doubleday for the arc.

Kiara, an 18 year old living in Oakland, is faced with hard decisions/challenges - trying to keep the apartment she and her brother live in, how to earn money for food, and protecting a young neighbor.. Through a good deal of this book I thought this book was just so bleak. Kiara has no support system and no one to turn to and she hits the streets and gets into a horrid situation involving unethical, immoral policemen.. The writing is so descriptive and captures the atmosphere of the situations so vividly, that I found myself becoming anxious for our main character. But there were snippets of joy that she found and created and the love shared between some of the characters was heart touching. I am astounded that this is a debut novel started when the author was 17.

Thank you to Knopf Publishing and Netgalley for the ARC of this ebook to read and review.

Thanks to Netgalley for an ARC of this book, in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Kiara is 17 year old - her father is dead, her mother is in prison, and she's been living in a broken down apartment with her 21 year old brother Marcus for the last 4 years. Her brother has decided that he's going to be a music star like their uncle, who abandoned them when her mother went to jail. Unfortunately Marcus has decided that he won't get a job, leaving it to Kiara to figure out a way to pay the rent, get food, etc. To complicate things even more, her next door neighbor has basically abandoned Trevor, her 9 year old son, and Kiara has assumed responsibility for him.

So, she's a 17 year old high school dropout, and despite relentlessly attempting to get hired, nothing seems to work. She winds up going to a bar where one of Marcus's former girlfriends works, and while she can't help by giving Kiara a job, she does give her free drinks. When Kiara walks out of the bar, drunk, a man who had been watching her, came up and steered her off to a secluded spot, had sex with her and paid her $200. She didn't fight, and decided that this might be the answer to her financial problems. So, she begins nightcrawling on the strees, to get enough money to support herself, Marcus and Trevor. Things go from bad to worse, when the police decided that she's a perfect target for them, sometimes paying her for her services, sometimes not.

The book sounds depressing, and it is - can't sugarcoat that. Not even so much that she's working as a prostitute, but that most people don't even think that it's any big deal, including Kiara. There's this feeling she has that it's up to her to support her older brother and the little boy from next door, and that this isn't such an awful way of doing it. She now and then tries to say something to Marcus and get him to help, but it doesn't go anywhere - she should do whatever it takes to let him "follow his dream." And, it appears that Marcus is okay with letting his younger sister support him by prostitution.

The sad thing is that there's nobody protecting her - not her brother, not her mother, not her uncle, not the authorities. Even the lawyer who was brought in, supposedly to protect her, seems to have lost interest in her by the end. And we see the same thing with Trevor, the little boy from next door - his mother just abandons him.

At the same time this is depressing, it's well written, and you do feel that you're getting some insight into what this is like. It's amazing that the author was able to write this book as such a young age, and I'm terribly impressed.

This is such a strong debut novel. The writing at times very poetic. While sad and heavy I couldn’t put this down. I had to know what happened to Kiara. To think the author began writing this at 17 years old, wow! The fact that it’s based on true stories connecting Oakland PD to sex trafficking makes it a powerful and timely novel. 5 stars!

Don’t know her name yet? You will.

I knew nothing about this author when I requested the arc of her debut novel, only that the summary gripped me and I wanted to read it. I started last week hoping to have it done by her pub day 6/7 to shout celebratory congrats from the rooftop, but work got in the way, and then Oprah beat me to the punch. Yes, the Queen of book magic announced this book 5 days ago for her pick of the month.

This gritty and raw look at life on the streets in Oakland after a family is torn apart, had siblings Marcus and Kiara struggling to survive any way they could, living in an apartment alone, “at the same walls that we’ve lived in since both Marcus and I were born, since our parents found each other and thought they were creating a miracle of a family before we spiraled into a disaster. Into kin more dead and caged than free.” Desperate to feed themselves and pay the rent, that meant pushing drugs and prostitution, but when corrupt police officers became involved in sex trafficking, the stakes became higher than they could have ever imagined.

One might ponder how individuals end up making the choices that lead them into such lives of despair, but “sometimes we all do what we gotta do for the people we gotta do it for.”

Leila’s prose is astounding, so it’s easily understood how she was named the 2018 Oakland youth poet laureate. She began writing the story at 17, an age most of us hadn’t even written our college essay, and had it published and chosen by Oprah at 19. Utterly remarkable.

Mottley peels back the film covering so many of our eyes to reveal what it means to be a black girl who is vulnerable, unseen, and unprotected, and with page turning drama, “reflects the fear and danger that comes with black womanhood and the adultification of black girls.” She writes that often the stories of black women and queer and trans individuals are not represented in the stories we read about, and in Kiara we find a young girl who is determined to survive and find joy in her life despite the odds.

While the seed of the story is based on a 2015 story in which Oakland police participated in the sexual exploitation of women and covered it up, it’s a story that could ring true in many cities across the world today and one that will stay with you long after the last sentence is read.

I’m going to begin with the debut author of 𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐂𝐑𝐀𝗪𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆, Leila Mottley, because she is incredibly impressive. Her writing in this book was gritty, real, darkly beautiful, and has already left me wanting more from her. Mottley, at only 19, already has an impressive list of accomplishments. She was named Oakland Youth Poet Laureate at only 16, she founded an Oakland Public Library art workshop program that links incarcerated youth with their peers on the outside, she began this book at only 17, and she attends to Smith College.⁣
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𝘕𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘤𝘳𝘢𝘸𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 was, in fact, written by a teenager, and its main character, Kiara, is also a teenager. As a young teen living in Oakland, Mottley was acutely aware of the sexual abuse scandal that rocked the Oakland Police Department in 2015, and the germ of a story began. 𝘕𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘤𝘳𝘢𝘸𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 tells the difficult story of Kiara, 17, Black, queer, poor, parentless, without a high school diploma, and desperate. As too often happens, Kiara sees no other way to make money, but to turn to the streets. There she soon becomes the plaything of police officers. That’s all you get. This book is not an easy read. It shows the dark underbelly of life and at times made me uncomfortable, but Kiara, oh how she got to me. She’s a character I won’t soon forget: strong, loyal, responsible, vulnerable, and so, so resilient. She is an incredibly dynamic character written by an incredibly dynamic new voice. I'm already eagerly awaiting her next book! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫⁣
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Many thanks to @aaknopf for a beautiful finished copy of #Nightcrawling.

Nightcrawling is a deeply unsettling and very important read inspired by real life events that took place in California in 2015. Several Oakland police officers were fired for sexually exploiting a teenager. The fact that this was written by a 19 year old is amazing. The story is violent, raw, and at times I needed to put it down, but it's also an incredible read. I can't wait to see what Leila Mottley does next.

Thank you NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for this ARC.

Special thanks to Knopf Doubleday and NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for my own opinion..

Wow I cannot believe this young author's age. What a great book. Although fictional this book is based off an actual case. Kia, a young black girl barely surviving in Oakland with her brother, ther est of the family in jail, disappeared, or murdered, is facing eviction. Rent doubles. Her brother Marcus has dreams of being a rapper. There is a little boy living In the next apartment, abandoned by his mother and she feels so bad hardly being able to take of herself, she needs to do something to make money and keep them alive and for the little boy next door especially, fed.

She goes into the streets at night which are scary enough looking for a way to make money. This story I had to put down several times, knowing that this stuff happens every day. She meets a drunken stranger and this turns into a job she thought she'd never do-nightcrawling. Sex trafficking, violence, just horrible and raw. Its almost unbelievable who's behind it, but like I said this mostly really happened.

Later, Kia breaks open a massive scandal with the Oakland Police.

I really thought this young author has a spectacular way of writing. Some might not like the way the chapters were written, but I thought it was original and liked it. What a sad, heartbreaking book of things you can't imagine that really do happen.

I hope this author Leila Motley writes more because I surely did like this book!

Leila Mottley has taken a story that blazed on local news several years ago, and with an amazing flash of brilliance, turned it into this incredible novel. There are several layers of Oakland, but Mottley has Ki, her main character, doing what she can and using what she has to survive on the East side. As I live in Oakland, I feel it's important to read of the city through the eyes of Ms. Mottley and of Tommy Orange as well in order to fully realize this place. Astonishingly, Ms. Mottley has just had her 20th birthday, wrote this in her late teens. The debut of a truly original artist.

Kiara is struggling to keep herself and her brother Marcus with a roof over their heads. After both have dropped out of high school, and their parents dead or in prison, the two siblings are trying to make it on their own. Not only that, but Kiara took in the young boy from next door after his mother disappeared. A misunderstanding one night leads Kiara to a job she can do, and be well paid for. Nightcrawling. When her name is included in a suicide note however, she is suddenly the main witness in the police department scandal.

First of all….read the authors note! Leila started writing this book at 17 years old! I barely wrote papers for school at 17! Also heads up, this book will make you furious, and sad, but mostly furious because we know the shit happens. It is not an easy read by any means, but I feel like it’s a really important read. This is what a lot of young teens face. A decision to be able to care for their family members or not. At the end of the day, people do what they have to in order to survive against the systems that are constantly working against them. The writing was fantastic and I still cannot believe Mottley started this book at just 17 years old.

A poignant and devastating novel infused with tiny rays of light throughout the vast darkness. The situations the characters find themselves in are harsh, the decisions they make are desperate and the outcomes are usually bleak. A child trying to take care of everyone because no one ever really took care of her as she realizes at every turn that the world will chew you up and spit you out. The few moments of found joy suffused sparsely in this story might just give us enough hope to endure the depressing rest.

What an incredibly powerful debut. Leila Mottley has an extraordinary future ahead of her. It felt clear where this was headed, but I don’t regret strapping in for the ride. In the future I think Mottley’s writing could benefit from more showing, less telling. But so so so glad to have read this. 4.25 stars. Thank you to Leila Mottley, the publisher, and NetGalley for the free review copy in exchange for my honest review.

Nightcrawling has the best first line of a novel, ever. If that’s not enough to get you to pick it up, it also is just genuinely one of the best novels to release in 2022. IT IS SO GOOD. (If you don’t believe me, believe Oprah, who chose it for her book club.)

This book was so consuming. A fictional retelling of events that took place just a few years ago, it is nearly the most human you’ll find words on a page. I found knots in my throat plenty. And at times, the intensity—the good and bad—led me to set it down before I was again able to continue taking it in to the degree it deserved. AND THE WRITING; it is so honest, every facet in the way you hope your own brain can process your own life. You’ll find me still on the floor somewhere.

I can’t wait to see what Mottley puts out next.

I went into this book with 0 expectations because but for TJR's new book, my Netgalley reads have left something to be desired.

However, I was pleasantly surprised by this read. The author did an exceptional job of telling the story of a young, black girl, struggling to survive in Oakland, who turns to the streets in order to take care of her brother and her neighbor's 10 year old son.

Sexual abuse ✔️
Trafficking ✔️
Prostitution ✔️
Physical Abuse ✔️
LGBTQIA+ ✔️

This story touches on a lot of heavy and important subjects, and is told from a voice that felt raw and real.

This book doesn't have typical chapters, so this may bother some, but it didn't bother me.

Thank you @netgalley and @knopfdoubleday for the ARC of this book.

I have only seen raving reviews for this one and it's been on my TBR since I first heard about it a year ago, so I was really excited to dive in. Unfortunately, I just could not connect to the story or get sucked into reading it. I have DNF but I could be convinced to give it a go again in the future.

🎁 Thank you @netgalley @Knopfdoubleday for this #gifted copy of #nightcrawling !! Available now!

Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley

🥩 Raw
💦 Emotional
🎭 Drama
✊🏼 Social Issues

This book was a raw powerhouse.

A young woman turns to prostitution when her world starts collapsing around her causing an upheaval in not only her family but in her community as well.

📝 This story is written like a friend is talking to you telling you something important. The style is so unique and just worked.

🥩 The first word that came to mind while reading this book was raw. There’s so much vulnerability it almost felt like a memoir.

💦 My emotions were all over the place while reading. I definitely empathized with the characters and felt connected to them.

🎭 There is a lot of drama in this one, ranging widely from familial drama to friendship drama. It all felt appropriate in the context of the story.

✊🏼 Many social issues take center stage in this novel and really wrap around the characters lives.

💜 I absolutely loved the style and craft that went into this novel.

If you like stories that feel real and make a statement then this would be a good pick for you!