I started this book feeling one way about the title character, Brooklyn. By the end my mind was completely changed. Brooklyn is named after the borough in which she was born. However, she grows up in a sheltered Staten Island family. She makes a lot of choices to rebel against her family and leads an estranged life from them.

The author starts the novel off with the presumed murder of Brooklyn. As the novel progresses, Tracy Brown presents a well crafted and thrilling story of what the title character endures. The novel takes place during the late 1990s and early 2000s. The descriptions of the places and people put the reader in that era.

Readers who enjoy contemporary fiction and thrillers will enjoy this book.

RIP to Tracy Brown, she was a masterful writer!!

This book was an amazing rollercoaster and a cautionary life tale!! Brooklyn, the FMC was an outgoing child who had her innocence snatched away too soon, and was easily catapulted into an existence of heartless betrayal. She starts off as a typical teenager, believing she understands the world outside of the coocoon of her sheltered home life and wanting badly yo escape. Sadly, the world comes at her fast with lessons that she refuses to learn, and in the end must face the consequences for her actions.

I enjoyed this story from start to finished and was completely engrossed in the development of the characters. I made so many highlights to keep up with the twists in the story and the evolution of the FMC. The issues tackled in the book were handled so realistically and I'm happy the author chose to dig and face the heavier topics head on.

Thank you netgalley and St. Martin's Press for the e-arc of this fantastic read! I'm sure I'll be re-reading this one again in the future.

This story starts off with death. Throughout the story, we determine whether the ends really justified the means.

Betrayed by her mother at a pivotal moment in her life, Brooklyn no longer has faith in those around her. Her selfishness knows no bounds.

The way she betrayed her brother was cruel.

I try to like Brooklyn but then her spitefulness shows up. She is unable to handle any form of rejection.

The topics of this story are heavy. Lots of trigger warnings should be applied.

So much happened in such a short time. The way Brooklyn lived her life, the trail of potential killers is long.

3.5 stars raised to 4 stars.
This story begins at the end. After struggling with her attacker in Clove Lake Park on February 9, 2003, her body is found. Detective Ramos and Detective Lee wonder what happened to this girl. This is Brooklyn’s story. Her father is the pastor of Promised Land Church. Her mother is concerned how everything looks to the church community. Brooklyn has a brother Amir who has his own problems. They have a younger sister Hope. I loved Tracy Brown’s last book, HOLD YOU DOWN, which was a 5 star read for me. After the start of BROOKLYN, I could not read fast enough for the first 40% of the book. After an event happens that forces Brooklyn to leave New York, the book slowed down for me and I had difficulty staying focused. I found myself rereading sections. I do think this is an important story to be told. After finishing, I read a bio for Tracy Brown and am deeply saddened to see she passed away. So very sad. My thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for an ARC of this book. The opinions in this review are my own.

I absolutely adore the way Tracy Brown beautifully weaves together her stories and characters. Each of her books leaves a lasting impression and leaves you deep in thought, almost as if you could walk out the door and encounter these people in real life. However, my only qualm with this particular story is that the ending felt somewhat rushed. Nevertheless, I highly recommend giving this novel a chance and it would make for a fascinating topic of discussion in any book club setting.

I just finished Brooklyn by Tracy Brown and here are my musings.

Brooklyn lives a repressed life. Devoutly religious parents stifle her so much that she dreams of the day she can escape. She finds some reprieve after bumping into her best friend's cousin. A hustler and much older than her. They start a secret relationship and he pays her to run drugs for him. Her best friend calls her and tells her that her cousin plans to get married. To someone else. Anger pulses through her and she confronts him. This is when her life spirals.

She ends up fleeing her family, stealing from their church and getting into the game for herself. When she meets Hassan and they start a relationship. Running drugs and making plans but things don’t go as planned for Brooklyn .

Have you ever started a book and not had a clue what it is about because the title gives away nothing? That was me on this book. I went in totally blind and it did not disappoint me!

Brooklyn wanted a life free from constraint. She hated watching her parents live their hypocritical lives. I started off liking Brooklyn but towards the end of the book… I didn’t like her anymore. She was selfish and cruel. She reminded me of her mother. She was the same.

I don’t know much about the subject of drug trade but it seemed like the author knew what they were talking about. It felt real and I enjoyed the hustle. It was well paced and I was hooked right in. The ending was great, I wasn’t expecting it. I was blown away to be honest.

I don’t read many thriller dramas but this one has me thirsting for more.

4 stars!

Thank you to @netgalley and @stmartinspress for my gifted copy

#brooklyn #blackhistorymonth #bookstagrammers #bookworm #bookcommunity #booklover #booknerd #booksofinstagram #bookmerch #booktography #toberead #bookblog #smp #smpinfluencer

Brooklyn by Tracy Brown had me hooked from the prologue, desperate to find out who and why someone wanted to kill the main character. By the end of the book, I understood...Brooklyn James is not a likeable protaganist, not in the least. She has her reasons, but most of the problems she encounters are of her own making, and she is not afraid to leave people she loves behind if it serves her purpose.

At times heartbreakingly painful, the events in the novel start out bad, and continue down the path of destruction throughout. This could be considered a cautionary tale, the story of how a person gets drawn into the underbelly of society, or how a self-centered, manipulative woman is destroyed. It is well-written, and like a train-wreck, I could not look away and quit reading. This is absolutely not a book for those who are looking for happy endings...for most of the characters, actually.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and Netgalley for the digital copy of Brooklyn by Tracy Brown. The opinions in this review are my own.

I usually love unlikable protagonists but in the case of 𝗕𝗥𝗢𝗢𝗞𝗟𝗬𝗡, the titular main character was not for me.

A pastor's daughter in Staten Island who falls out with her family and uses the hustle she learned from her father to survive on the streets, Brooklyn's story is dramatic and colorful but I never understood her motivation. She made bad decision after bad decision and her actions often felt unjustified. The other characters were really one dimensional which didn't help and I found it hard to keep track of how much time elapsed. There is a mystery element as well but the payoff at the end felt rushed.

I was shocked to learn that the author passed away shortly after submitting the manuscript for this book. I enjoyed Brown's previous novel, 𝘏𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘋𝘰𝘸𝘯, and even though I wasn't a fan of this one, it has a lot of 5-star reviews on Goodreads so it could just be me. She was a talented writer and I plan to read more of her backlist.

Thanks to St. Martin's for the copy to review.

I absolutely loved this book I had to purchase a hard copy.. The way the story unfolded I couldn't put the book down.
The book was definitely worth the wait.


Love Tracy Brown work

The description of Tracy Brown’s Brooklyn caught my interest and, even though it wasn’t presented in quite the way I’d been expecting, I found the novel thoroughly engaging, the character of Brooklyn frustrating in the best and worst ways, and the final conclusion to be everything that was promised. Even though there were few true surprises along the way (not in terms of the main character’s actions, at least), the novel manages to keep things moving and the reader invested, giving a fresh take on a story that is all too familiar. While I was expecting there to be much more of a whodunit element at play, I found the actual approach with the narrative perspective more focused on Brooklyn herself to be thoroughly effective and provoke more interesting questions that simply “who killed her?” or “why?” The question of accountability is embedded in more subtle ways throughout the text and it’s on the reader to see through (and beyond) Brooklyn’s perspective.

On a morning in February 2003, a woman’s body is found strangled and the police are at a loss. Back in the early 1990s, Brooklyn grew up as the middle child of the pastor at their Staten Island church. As soon as she hit puberty, she began to see that there was a difference between what her father preached and what her parents and the other important folks of the church practiced – appearances mattered more than most things because that was what kept the money flowing in. Given the hypocrisy of it all, Brooklyn begins acting out and dreaming of the day she can get away from the intense scrutiny and criticism of her family life – especially at the hands of her mother. When the day finally comes, it isn’t as triumphant as she dreamed and she burns bridges behind her. But Brooklyn is determined to learn from the hustling she saw from her parents and the church and make something for herself – to survive at any cost, even when it means sacrificing her relationships with those around her.

Brooklyn is not a character that you’re meant to like, especially as the story progresses. At the same time, getting her backstory and seeing the environment and treatment from her parents that shaped her, it’s difficult to not feel a bit of sympathy and understand her initial poor choices. And with so much of the perspective in the novel shown through Brooklyn’s perspective, it can be easy to fall into seeing things her way. But Brown does give brief insights into the thoughts and perspectives of those around Brooklyn too, reminding the reader to look deeper. For me, I was left ruminating on the question of her age and when did she cross the line into it truly being on her to step up and take responsibility for herself and her (bad) actions. She’s only on the cusp of legal adulthood when the initial breaks with her family happen and what we know of the science of brain development and maturity is still evolving. But by the end of the novel she is undoubtedly at an age when she is responsible for her behavior. So where does that line exist and when did she cross it?

Though the reader is left knowing how everything unfolded and the narrative circles back to where it started with the woman’s body and the police investigating, I still kind of want to see how the investigation itself unfolds. The reader knows the who and the how and the why, but the detectives don’t. We start off the story in the same clueless spot, yet thanks to the narrative structure, the reader goes back to the beginning and watches from there. How does the story look when it’s explored in reverse or when it’s examined in a non-chronological way? Do they figure it out or did her actions and hustles in life obfuscate things to a point where there isn’t enough left for anyone not there along the way to be able to piece it together? What is the larger impact of the death on the community given she’d been gone so long (and her mother had been deliberately misleading folks about just where Brooklyn had been all those years)? So basically, even though there were times when I was insanely frustrated with Brooklyn and disgusted with her mistakes and decisions, I don’t think I’d hesitate to read another book about the impact she continues to have on the lives of those around her, even after death.

4.5✨ The rollercoaster of emotions I felt as I read Brooklyn was intense. I understood her story all too well. She felt like she was suffocating because of her overbearing strict parents and wanting to be “grown.” But the fast life was not a place for someone like Brooklyn: those that have lived a sheltered and spoiled life. She had so many opportunities to change the narrative of her life throughout the book. But, Brooklyn’s biggest weakness was her inability to regulate her emotions. She constantly acted irrationally and impulsively. She lashed out when she didn’t get her way, and was extremely selfish. I empathized with her character a lot, especially towards the ending. But even after hitting rock bottom, she still made poor decisions that hurt her in the end.

I thoroughly enjoyed this story, and I wouldn’t expect anything less than stellar from the author. The storytelling, plot, 90s vibes, and the characters were all accurately portrayed, The grit, dangerous lifestyle, tough love, backstabbing, and raw emotions was just what I needed. I understand that the ending felt rushed but I personally am happy we have this story. It would have been nice to see what happened with Alonzo’s story and how her former friends and family would have responded to the news but I still loved it.

My first experience with Tracy Brown’s work was 𝐻𝑜𝑙𝑑 𝑌𝑜𝑢 𝐷𝑜𝑤𝑛 and I loved it. Just like it, I loved 𝐁𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐥𝐲𝐧, the story, as well.

The beginning has Brooklyn at a young age experiencing one the most traumatic things a young girl could ever experience. Not to mention, her mother’s betrayal! I feel like this set the trajectory for Brooklyn’s life. I felt as though we start out with an innocent Brooklyn and quickly get introduced to a totally different person. Kind of felt like a flip of a switch!

As I continued to read I found myself nervous for the outcomes of her life as she ventured into dangerous territory. The story became real for me because I wanted to jump into the book and say girl don’t do this or that because her decision making was horrible. I can only blame her for maybe 80% of her actions and the remainder on her parents. I felt as though if they had handled the previous situation differently, Brooklyn 𝐦𝐚𝐲 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 taken a different path. But, once she was in the game, she caught on quickly, but her greed, selfishness, and anger caught up and gets her in a world of trouble!

As you can see I was fully vested in this one. I will say there was a bit of a slow moment somewhere in the book where it felt was rushed or the writing felt a bit different, not as strong as the rest. However, Tracy Brown was an amazing writer and her work will truly be missed as a writer!

I received an Advanced Reader Copy an am voluntarily reviewing it. I did not know this book was about a young girl. I enjoyed it. It actually reminded me of Flyy Girl and The Coldest Winter Ever. Brooklyn Melody James was the middle child in every sense of the word. She spent her life trying to stand out and get noticed. In a family that was the head of the Promised Land Church, she was very involved in church activities. Brooklyn noticed very quickly that her parents did whatever they needed to do to appear like the man and woman of God that they were supposed to be. Brooklyn found out quickly that appearances were all that matter. They would turn their back and anyone or anything that tarnished that appearance, even their own daughter.

Brooklyn decided to do things that made her happy regardless of how anyone else felt. Her priority was getting out of the fake life her parents had made for her. Everything Brooklyn thought she wanted came in the form of the local hustler, Alonzo. Zo was seven years older than Brooklyn, who was still underage at the time of their meeting. No one could tell Brooklyn no. She even started working for Zo. What's the difference? He funds the church. They make a way to turn his dirty money good. Why could she get a slice of that pie?

Everything came to a head when Brooklyn got caught. Brooklyn, only looking out for herself, exploded on her family. Basically, if she was going down, she was going to take everyone down with her. She left and went to some of her hustler friends. They got her deep in the game and she did good for a while. But Brooklyn still just wanted what Brooklyn wanted. I am just going to come out and say it. Brooklyn was selfish from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet.

Ms. Brown had me in my feelings with this book. Readers will be thrown into turmoil over this girl. You want her to succeed, but deep down you know she doesn't really deserve it. She is not going to do right being successful. Not the way Brooklyn did it. Readers also have to keep in mind that she is just a kid. She hasn't lived life and doesn't know what to do. Thankfully, she had people looking out for her. Whew, Ms. Brown knows how to pull readers in emotionally and that is why I enjoyed this book. I was so vested and at some points disliked Brooklyn with my whole heart but still rooted for her selfish tail. It is not a lot of books that grip me the way this one did.

This book is nothing short of amazing writing from an amazing author… Tracy Brown wrote phenomenal stories that we will cherish for a lifetime. This book was a good read with heavy topics and wrote so beautifully that you couldn’t help but be completely immersed in the story. From beginning to end I couldn’t get enough and I was cheerleading for Brooklyn the whole way through.

Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Griffin for the ARC.

I could not put down this book. The storytelling and writing drew me right in. A heartbreaking tale, about a girl, Brooklyn, who struggles with her conservative family and always wants something better for herself. Even though Brooklyn’s character is unlikable, I still rooted for her to make the right decisions. She was selfish, a master manipulator and only did things that she thought would better her own life. The story line was easy to follow, I enjoyed how it began and how it ended. This was an emotional rollercoaster of a read. A story of hardships, family drama and breaking from expectations. This would make a fantastic book club read! I am so sad that we lost Tracy Brown last year. She had so much more to give, and I would have loved to read more of her talent.

Brooklyn by Tracy Brown is a story of a master manipulator and serial survivor who will destroy anything in her path in order to get what she wants. The story opens with a murder and Brooklyn Melody James leaves behind a web of lies, heartache, and betrayal. As her life slips away, she recalls the events that brought her there. Brooklyn learned the art of the hustle of her parents, who used the church to get money and she is determined to be the type of woman who lives by her own rules. After one explosive fight with her parents, she runs away to New York City. There, she charms her way into the inner circle of hustlers and picks up the necessary tricks of the trade. With an inflated ego, ambition and ruthlessness, she leaves a trail of burned bridges and broken hearts. Little does she know that her reign of terror is about to end; but the question isn’t who will do it, it’s who wouldn’t?
Brooklyn is the third book I have read and reviewed for Tracy Brown and I think this one is my favorite. I devoured this book in two days. I was hooked from the opening chapter and I could not put it down. It was captivating from the beginning with its powerful story with its heartbreaking grittiness and realism. At first, Brooklyn was easy to sympathize with as she realizes the facade her family puts up is all a front but as she goes from group of friends to group of friends, her behavior and lack of remorse is heartbreaking. Even at points when it seems she is turning a new leaf and getting on the straight and narrow, her selfishness rears its ugly head. The identity of her killer was a shocker! Sadly, Ms Brown passed away before this book was published but I hope she knew how impactful her stories have been for me and millions of other readers. I highly, highly recommend Brooklyn!

Brooklyn is available in paperback, eBook and audiobook

Wow, I had zero expectations going into this book (I didn't even know what it was about!) and it was incredible. The writing captured my attention from page one. The main character, Brooklyn, was not likeable - she was sneaky, conniving, childish and self centered... yet I felt myself fully invested in what came next for her. The characters have stayed with me long past finishing the book, they were so real. Be ready for an emotional rollercoaster while reading this book - you will feel them all throughout the book. I loved this book so much that I can't wait to read some of Brown's earlier books.
Thank you Netgalley for my advanced reader copy.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this read. This book was great. I have about 20% left to read in this book and have yet to read it. Since knowing the author has passed away, I just want to hold on to that and read it slowly, as this is the last book from her.

I really struggled with this book. I wonder if I’m the target audience for a story like this and I could possibly just not be into urban stories like this anymore.

I hated Brooklyn’s character and her mom wasn’t any better. They sucked! I wanted to whoop Brooklyn & quite honestly I’m not surprised with the deadly ending she had because she just was doing too much of what she wanted to do and not listening to the wisdom of her dad— can’t say her mom cause she was horrible. I don’t think I can recommend this book because I just didn’t like it.

RIP Tracy Brown, a truly brilliant writer. Brown’s last novel, Hold You Down, was a 5 star read for me, so I was grateful to receive a free ARC from Net Galley and St. Martin’s Press in exchange for an honest review. What can I say, Brown knows how to craft a heart pumping, page turning novel full of characters you will both love and hate. Brooklyn James is 17-year-old preacher’s kid longing to escape her suffocating family life when she falls for an older man who hustles drugs for a living. Brooklyn is lured into the lifestyle just as her family is hit with a tragic event. While Brooklyn finds success in her new path, the trauma of her past looms, painfully unresolved. Brooklyn makes bad decision after bad decision, leading to a shocking yet inevitable end (not a spoiler). I flew through this one in two days.