Starred Review In short lines of free verse, teens in Harlem tell a story of anger, loss, and love across social-class lines. Damien, 17, is a basketball champion and academic star, accepted into a top college. His parents want him to date middle-class Roxanne, but he falls in love with gorgeous Junice, 16, who is desperate to protect her little sister after their single-parent mom is sentenced to 25 years for dealing drugs. Written with rap beat and rhyme but no invective or obscenity, the switching viewpoints make this great for readers' theater om Damien's furious manhood jam when he confronts his rival, and Junice's anguished visit to her raging mama in prison (a wolf caught in a trap) to the lyrical simplicity of the teens' love (Flying through an endlessly / Expanding universe / Away from the me that was / Toward a me that is beyond / understanding). The young people also invoke their history in the tradition of Langston Hughes and other great writers (these hands have scrubbed mats on the banks of / the Congo). The realistic drama on the street and at home tells a gripping story. Readers will want to reread the lines they loved.

A college-bound model citizen and a street-strong young woman inhabit a classic Romeo-and-Juliet plot in this accessible verse novel of modern-day Harlem. Each free-verse poem encapsulates a single character or scene, allowing for a telling array of well-delineated perspectives. The stunning poetry is strewn with internal and half-rhymes, blending distinct conversational styles and more formal cadences without hesitation or pretense.

Adult and young-adult aficionados of Myers's work will find this new offering revisits issues close to the author's heart: place (Harlem with all its love and squalor), race and the court system (you've got trouble if you're black and poor and in front of a judge), values for boys of color (street crime or achievement) and love of the community. This verse novel, in which entire poems dazzle readers with rhyme and rhythm and voice, finds Damien, a straight-A student, headed for Brown University. But he falls in love with Junice, a girl whose mother has just been incarcerated for selling drugs, and his direction could change. Readers enjoy multiple perspectives on this romance and the decision Damien makes. A cliffhanger conclusion might give some diehard fans the need to reflect and accept the unexpected. This quasi- Romeo and Juliet will easily find its place alongside Sharon Mills Draper's Romiette and Julio (1999), Myers's short story, "Kitty and Mack: a Love Story," West Side Story and of course, the Shakespearean play itself. (Fiction. YA)

Myers's (<EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">Monster) compellingly readable novel in verse unfolds through an array of characters, all linked by Damien Battle and Junice Ambers—who both live in Harlem but come from very different worlds. Damien has been accepted to Brown University; Junice's mother has been sentenced to 25 years for possession and drug dealing. A pair of early rap poems set up a rivalry between Damien and Sledge (whose "crew... wore their colors"), and also Damien's fascination with a "beauty" who "walks darkly, as if her mind weighs down/ Her steps," later revealed to be Junice. Myers crafts some memorable moments here, as when Junice describes her mother ("She gave freely/ To those in need, or to those who, like/ Her, were broken, and needed a fix") or when Miss Ruby, Junice's grandmother, expresses grief for her convicted daughter in a blues poem ("Yeah, it's hard, baby/ It's hard right down to the bone/ I said Oh, it's hard baby/ It's hard right down to the very bone/ It's hard when you're a woman/ And you find yourself all alone") and the banter between Damien and a buddy. Yet some readers may wish for a deeper understanding of what draws Damien to Junice, and why he risks his own family's upheaval and his future at Brown for this new romance. Though both Damien and Junice come off as sympathetic characters, their attraction to each other remains a mystery. Ages 12-up. <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">(Nov.)

Gr 8 Up-The swift flow of these short poems carries readers along in thoughts, conversations, and scenes as Damien and Junice's romance begins. He is a high achiever who has been accepted to Brown University and is expected to go far. Junice has just lost her mother to prison and is trying to keep her younger sister and her grandmother together as a family. Damien and Junice question who they are and who they will become. Hip-hop-style phrases feel like Shakespeare telling of these African-American teens in Harlem, struggling to keep it together. Intellect meets Street as true love conquers all. This is a quick and satisfying read, simple and timeless.-Corinda J. Humphrey, Los Angeles Public Library Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Myers ventures into the popular style of novels written in verse with his latest offering. With its dazzling, graffiti-esque cover and rap-like rhythms, the novel transforms the Romeo and Juliet story into an episode from the here and now. Damien is The Hero, "wearing his seventeen years easily around broad shoulders." A chance encounter with Junice, the troubled Beauty, sends his life in a new direction, much to the dismay of his ambitious mother, who expects great things of him, including advanced degrees and marriage to Roxanne. Junice has little energy to cultivate a new relationship with Damien, despite her attraction to his sweet smile and gentle nature. She must care for her younger sister and elderly grandmother when her mother is sent to prison for possession and distribution of drugs. The novel's format allows the reader to peer directly into the thoughts and feelings of the main characters, as in "Junice and Melissa" when Junice says, "I have to open my sister's mouth / And fill it with thoughts as hard / As stones so she can practice her lines / She needs to speak clearly / As she lies." The action is set using poem titles such as "Junice Ambers looking From the Window of the Bus" and "Damien Standing on the Platform, waiting for the Uptown 2." Myers's experiment with the verse form may surprise some, but hip-hop fans, readers of poetry, and hopeless romantics will respond to the emotional vibrancy of this powerful work.-Kathy Starks.