Tillit, L.B. Unchained.

Tillit, L.B.  Unchained.  Saddleback, 2012.  197p.    $8.95 ISB 978-1-61651-7-922 ms/hs  VG-BN Realistic Fiction

     TJ is being torn back and forth, between druggie parents, loving foster care, a rehabilitated mom, a drug gang, and the person he really wants to be.  It is realistic urban street literature, but well written, and it shows hope for the future.  TJ grew up with drug-addicted parents.  He mostly raised himself.  As a teen he is brought into a drug gang as a delivery boy.  When his father dies, TJ is placed in a foster home.  He resists at first, but discovers what it feels like to be loved, well taken care of, and valued for the first time in his life.  After two years he is making real progress at maturing.
     Then one day he is ripped from this loving home to live with his mother, who has cleaned up her act.  TJ does not want to go back.  While his mother is off drugs, she really has not learned how to parent.  TJ is dragged back into the gang and is working his way up the ranks when a rival gang raids the gang house, killing the leader and most of the members. TJ finds he has a choice.  He can take over the leadership or escape from this life.  With his mom’s approval he goes back to the loving foster family where he feels he is going back home.
     This title is well written.  It is street smart but still literate.  The plot moves at a varying pace, just the way life moves.  The situations are realistic, but TJ comes to see that he does have choices about what he will make of himself.

Joan Theal

 

Tillit, L.B. Edge of Ready.

Tillit, L.B.  Edge of Ready.  Saddleback, 2011.  196p.  $8.95     ISBN 978-1-61651-778-6    hs  VG-BN  Realistic Fiction

      Dani wants to finish high school but finds her mother’s demands for child care to be a hindrance.  When she is raped by her friend’s brother, Dani faces worse challenges but becomes empowered with the help of supportive friends and a rape counselor.  Dani tells her own story in the first person, a story of life in a rough neighborhood where a young girl is not safe, where she is afforded few opportunities to realize goals and even fewer opportunities to grow up to become an independent woman.  

     In Tillit’s first novel for Saddleback, she has captured the authentic voice of a frustrated young girl who faces insurmountable odds.  Dani’s realities include the lack of childcare, the inability to finish school, threatening surroundings, disappointment, and the need to feel safe once more after she has been raped by her friend Ruth’s brother, Evron.  With the support of Dani’s former teacher, Mrs. Grady, her rape counselor, and Ruth’s other brother Keon, Dani manages to put together the pieces of her life and move forward.   She even  helps Ruth break away from a teenage prostitution ring run by Evron.  Tillit’s simple writing style is characteristic of Saddlebacks’ novels, which promote literacy among deficient readers. Librarians and teachers will find this style appealing to high-school readers who need to feel the satisfaction of reading a book with more mature topics.  The subject matter is universal, Dani is a believable character, and the theme of self-empowerment is contemporary.  Dani survives rape, finishes school & becomes self-reliant

Martha Squaresky