ALA Booklist (Mon Feb 06 00:00:00 CST 2023)

In her debut, Ward successfully escapes first-novel awkwardness, obviously knowledgeable of and comfortable with the milieu in which she sets her narrative: a hardscrabble town on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. Local language, personal relationships, teenage angst, the male psyche, and the grind of poverty all ring authentic as the author positions two male twins, at the point of their high-school graduation, taking divergent paths as they seek to make their way in the world. Christophe and Joshua DeLisle have the mutual devotion only close siblings can know, but the challenge to make money to not only support themselves but also their grandmother, who raised them, is met in two different fashions, one legitimate, the other illegal; consequently, their devotion is threatened. Their lives are so squeezed economically that they must climb out of debt to be successful adults while also dealing with the difficult psychological barrier to personal success and fulfillment of having been abandoned by both parents, selfish individuals whose needs have always come before those of their children. A resonant novel for any reader; for background on the writing of it, see the adjacent "Story behind the Story."

Kirkus Reviews (Mon Feb 06 00:00:00 CST 2023)

Blues on the bayou, and blood to boot. The piney woods of southern Mississippi aren't much of a place. Everyone knows everyone's business, nobody has enough to do, and in between hurricanes there's only trouble to get into. Ward's first novel opens with Christophe and Joshua DeLisle, fraternal twins, preparing to jump into the swirling waters of a muddy river—to cool off, not to kill themselves. It's a portentous moment, for just as each will jump differently, so will their lives take a different course. Caring for an ailing grandmother and just out of high school, the boys are holding their own in this backwater world until temptation presents itself: Joshua finds himself with some folding money after finding a job on the wharves, Christophe with yet more folding money after he takes up selling a little weed after not finding licit work. Danger insinuates itself in the form of the boys' long-absent father, a bad actor with a mean drug habit who likes stronger blends than Christophe has to sell, and the story thenceforth takes turns that can be seen coming from a long way off. Ward's plotting is predictable, but her story is closely observed, full of telling details: "Christophe had fallen asleep in the middle of counting his money, and was stretched out with his arms thrown over his head as if he had been surprised, his mouth open, the bills ragged and bunched underneath him." The author, a native of the Mississippi coast, serves up a world that has been little depicted: the rural African-American South, a place of grinding poverty but enduring loyalties, tragic but somehow noble at the same time. A promising debut.

School Library Journal (Fri Sep 16 00:00:00 CDT 2022)

Adult/High School African-American twins Joshua and Christophe graduate from high school and try to find jobs. While Joshua has success becoming a dockworker, Christophe is less fortunate and desperation eventually finds him turning to drug dealing. The teens are loyal to their grandmother, who raised them after their mother moved to Atlanta to start a new life and their addict father disappeared. While this plot (and the books cover) may be reminiscent of an urban fiction title, the setting is uniquerural Mississippiand the writing is distinctive. Wards beautiful language allows the location and characters to come alive, while her dialogue, written in a Southern vernacular, adds further texture. The plot is as leisurely as a hot Mississippi summer day, and although not much happens until the somewhat violent and surprising ending, this fully realized character study will appeal to teens who can see themselves here or who are interested in discovering realities far from their own lives. Jamie Watson, Harford County Public Library, MD