When We Ride

Starred review from January 1, 2025
A hardworking high school senior strives to keep his future bright while driving around his drug-dealing friend. Benny and Lawson, both raised by struggling single moms after their fathers left, are neighbors, best friends, and total opposites. Lawson, a white boy who's charismatic and popular, goes to school mainly to deal drugs--not to study. Mexican American Benny, who's quiet and studious, ranks near the top of their class. Lawson helps Benny come out of his shell at parties and stands up for him against bullies, and Benny is there when Lawson needs a ride. Benny's mom holds down multiple cleaning jobs, works to stay sober, and encourages her son to go to college. By contrast, Lawson's mom, who's on welfare, depends on Lawson dealing marijuana to make rent. As graduation nears, the duo find themselves on dangerously different paths. Feeling trapped by his dependent mother and a new, violent drug boss, Lawson starts selling harder drugs. The risk of getting arrested or attacked because of Lawson's drug dealing terrifies Benny, who threatens to stop driving Lawson around. Written in swift, emotive verse from Benny's perspective, this work will leave readers empathizing with Benny's struggle to prioritize his own future while remaining loyal to the childhood best friend he genuinely wants to help. But it's the expertly paced plot twist at the end that makes Benny and Lawson's story heartbreakingly unforgettable. Achingly, beautifully written.(Verse fiction. 14-18)

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Starred review from December 16, 2024
While college-bound Mexican American Diego plays by the rules, Lawson, who is white, deals drugs to get by. Despite their perceived differences, both grew up in financially unstable homes without their fathers, a similarity that binds them together. As such, Diego feels it’s his responsibility to persuade Lawson to pursue a less dangerous lifestyle; he bargains, cajoles, and even threatens Lawson as they drive around in Diego’s 1980 Cadillac DeVille. As the work cycles on, Diego struggles with the idea of embarking on a future that could require abandoning his best friend. Using
simple language with short lines and sparkling imagery (“fluorescent lights/ that break the dark of midnight”), Ogle (Abuela, Don’t Forget Me) portrays the boys’ circumstances with gritty frankness, positing on how, for some families, hard choices don’t feel like choices at all: the money Lawson makes is the only thing paying his and his mother’s rent. In this riveting, at times heartbreaking verse novel, Ogle delivers an affecting portrait of two “ride or die” friends in dire circumstances for whom the phrase becomes scarily literal. Ages 14–up. Agent: Brent Taylor, Triada US.

March 1, 2025
Grades 9-12 Seventeen-year-old Mexican American Diego and Lawson, his white best friend, are so close they call themselves "brothers from different mothers." But in some ways they're opposites. Diego is an excellent student, hardworking at his part-time job bussing tables, which he hates. Lawson is a terrible student, always on the brink of failing, but he has a job, too: selling weed. Because Diego has a car, a 1980 Cadillac De Ville, Lawson always needs a ride, sometimes to his drug supplier. Despite his better judgment, Diego complies--until Lawson partners with a dangerous new supplier and starts dealing hard drugs. The two have several bitter fallings-out over this, and when Diego is accepted to college, he pulls away from Lawson, perhaps for the last time. After a violent confrontation, Lawson drops out of school and Diego begins to find new friends, although missing Lawson and desperately worrying about him. Will they somehow reconcile? Ogle's excellent, hard-edged novel in verse is a cautionary tale bound to invite thought and serious discussion. An important book.

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Starred review from March 7, 2025

Gr 9 Up-Diego "Benny" Benevides and his best friend, Lawson, have considered each other brothers ever since a bullying incident as elementary students. Now seniors in high school, both boys are struggling to help their single mothers by following vastly different paths. Benny's alcoholic mom tells him "Don't be like me. Be better." He is very studious, working for low wages at a diner, striving to go to college and make her proud. She takes the bus to work so she can give her son "Maria Carmen," her 1980 Cadillac DeVille, to help him meet those goals. Meanwhile, Lawson is not interested in school and makes his money selling weed. When he first asks Benny for rides, it seems more benign but selling spirals quickly into heavier drugs. Lawson cannot say no to his controlling and violent dealer, Trent. Benny's gripping introspective conflict between his own future and loyalty to Lawson is palpable. The novel in verse format is perfect for this character-driven, issue-oriented storyline mash-up, as readers delve deep into the battle playing out in the protagonist's mind. Ogle is exceptionally skillful at inviting readers into the emotional intensity of each decision Benny makes, with addiction and poverty laid raw using spare, carefully selected free verse. This pairs well with similarly themed verse novels where decision-making is paramount, like Jason Reynolds's Long Way Down and Ellen Hopkins's classic "Crank" series. VERDICT A gritty and nuanced glimpse into the underbelly of poverty, addiction, and gun violence.-Lisa Krok

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