Promise Boys. Nick Brooks. 2023. Henry Holt & Co. 279 pages. [Source: ARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]
The beloved principal of Urban Promise Prep is dead from a single gunshot to the head. Three suspects — his own students — are in custody. While police work to find a motive for who would murder a man working to save so many at risk boys, the three students are seeing the futures they’ve worked for crumbling in front of them.
Promise Boys follows J.B., Ramon, and Trey as they try to prove their innocence. To outsiders, they each appear to have a compelling motive to hurt Principal Moore, who seems to have a penchant for humiliating them under the guise of discipline. J.B. is described as quiet and smart, but with a size that intimidates and strength that hurts. Ramon is an aspiring entrepreneur whose affiliation with a local gang constantly asks him to choose between the life he wants and the reality he’s in. Trey has already been labelled a troublemaker, but the profile he brings to the school’s basketball team is hard to ignore. Almost immediately, the community erupts into a rumor mill, with nearly everyone positing their version of the crime.
I loved the style Brooks uses to tell the story; each student suspect takes the reader on a journey from the present through the days and hours leading up to Principal Kenneth Moore’s death. Along the way, they introduce significant others, family members, neighbors, and more who each share a bit more of the truth to what happened. While I don’t love comparing books in general, the teen crime-solving approach felt reminiscent of Tiffany Jackson’s Let Me Hear a Rhyme and a classic from my youth, Ghost Writer, both of which I loved. The teen sleuth approach provides a curiosity and open-mindedness that was lacking with the adults tasked with investigation. The result is an explosive finale that shocks the entire community while uncovering more than just a murder.
Promise Boys is part-suspense, part social critique. The plot may be to solve a murder, but what’s really striking about this book is Brooks’ examination of charter school culture and its impact on the students schools purport to prepare for future success. As JB, Trey, and Ramon work to clear their names, the reader gets to look behind the curtain of the school that boasts near total college acceptance rates and city-wide praise. Instead, through the eyes of faculty, staff, and community members, the reader is able to see that Urban Promise is gilded; the image it holds to the public is not how students experience it and while there may be academic successes, the question remains whether the collateral damage is worth it.
Something difficult for me to ignore is this school’s setting in Washington, D.C., a city that boasts countless well-known charter schools whose operations bear striking similarity to the fictional Urban Promise. The idea that strict discipline and rigid structure are the key to ensuring long-term success for “at-risk” kids often belies one truth — they’re kids. In Brooks’ depiction of Urban Promise, there’s little consideration for the humanity of students, evidenced by the militaristic precision with which it operates, from the blue line students must walk in hallways to the silence commanded in the lunch room. While Promise Boys is a fictional story, one walks away with a question of how close to reality is the lived experience of these students and what, if anything, should change.
I loved Promise Boys and devoured it over a few hours. There’s no question that I recommend it. It’s the kind of story that sucks the reader in and leaves you with too many questions to walk away from the book for more than a few moments. And while I always had an inkling of the truth at various points, I was pleased to be wrong on different accounts. I think it’s absolutely something teens would relate to, but I also believe that adults will benefit from the underlying messages here, too.
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