Ghettoside (Leovy) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
Jill Leovy's powerful new book…is old-school narrative journalism…a serious and kaleidoscopic achievement…Nestled inside the story of one gang-related killing is a well-made and timely argument…that transcends a single death. Ms. Leovy suggests, six decades after the start of the civil rights movement, that the "impunity for the murder of black men" remains America's great and largely ignored race problem…Like an orchestra, Ghettoside needs time to warm up…Yet once it gets rolling, it is tidal in its force…Ms. Leovy's greatest gift as a journalist [is] her ability to remain hard-headed while displaying an almost Tolstoyan level of human sympathy. Nearly every person in her story—killers and victims, hookers and soccer moms, good cops and bad—exists within a rich social context…[Leovy's] a crisp writer with a crisp mind and the ability to boil entire skies of information into hard journalistic rain.
Dwight Garner - New York Times


This is a world that most journalists never cover, and most of America never sees…. In Ghettoside, [Leovy] tackles this "plague of murders," as she calls it, with a book-length narrative that enables her to write about it with all the context and complexity it deserves…. Leovy's relentless reporting has produced a book packed with valuable, hard-won insights—and it serves as a crucial, 366-page reminder that "black lives matter," showing how the "system's failure to catch killers effectively made black lives cheap.
Jennifer Gonnerman - New York Times Book Review
 

Masterful....gritty reporting that matches the police work behind it.
Los Angeles Times


Moving and engrossing.
San Francisco Chronicle


(Starred review.) [A]bsorbing....a powerful argument about race and our criminal justice system.... Leovy spins a good yarn.... Readers may come for Leovy’s detective story; they will stay for her lucid social critique.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review.) The author digs deeply into the story of one particular murder, exploring the long history of racism, discrimination, and poverty.... Like the best narrative nonfiction, the book burrows into both heart and brain.... [A] worthwhile read. —Kate Sheehan, C.H. Booth Lib., Newtown, CT
Library Journal


[T]he author journeys where most fear to tread: ...a vacuum left by a legal system that fails to serve everyone equally. Leovy posits that the gang violence in LA is the result of the local police simply not doing their jobs.... [S]obering and informative.
Kirkus Reviews