Review: After the Shot Drops

After the Shot Drops by Randy Ribay
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Paired pretty closely with my first reading of All American Boys, this book is very similar in style, though centered on slightly different themes. There's not so much to do with police brutality here, and the two narrators are far more closely connected than Reynolds and Kiley's, being lifelong best friends...until now, when Bunny's transferred to a high-end Catholic private school and Nasir feels left behind. And that's just the beginning of the chips Nasir has on his shoulder when it comes to Bunny - he also feels like Bunny took "his" girl away from him when Keyona was, of course, never "his" in the first place. And then when Nasir's cousin Wallace gets in trouble and Bunny's involved, like it or not...well, I won't spoil you, but the ending, in particular, will leave you GASPING.

After the Shot Drops is my first, and certainly not my last, taste of Randy Ribay's talent. There are a lot of characters with which he populates this book, and a lot of thoughts provoked. St. Sebastian's school may have some level of diversity - it put a smile on my face to know there's an out gay dude on the basketball team - but still, Bunny feels very much unwelcome there as a black boy, and even further, he gets a lot of people looking at him like he's a sellout trying to break away from his community. (Nas included.)

The best part of this book is that Ribay doesn't try to paint either of his protagonists as total angels. Both Nasir and Bunny are flawed in their own ways - deeply so, even - and yet, they both deserve everything to go right for them in the end. Which, of course, is easier said than done.

Whenever Ribay comes out with a new book, you'll be sure I'll get ahold of it as soon as possible. Until then, I'll have to see if my library happens to carry An Infinite Number of Parallel Universes.

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