My Book of Life by Angel

Title: My Book of Life by Angel

Author: Martine Leavitt

Genre: YA/Teen/Coming of Age

Release Date: September 4, 2012

My Rating:
♥♥♥♥♥

When sixteen-year-old Angel meets Call at the mall, he buys her meals and says he loves her, and he gives her some candy that makes her feel like she can fly. Pretty soon she's addicted to his candy, and she moves in with him. As a favor, he asks her to hook up with a couple of friends of his, and then a couple more. Now Angel is stuck working the streets at Hastings and Main, a notorious spot in Vancouver, Canada, where the girls turn tricks until they disappear without a trace, and the authorities don't care. But after her friend Serena disappears, and when Call brings home a girl who is even younger and more vulnerable than her to learn the trade, Angel knows that she and the new girl have got to find a way out.

Via Goodreads

*Sniff sniff*
I'm still having a hard time trying to keep the tears away whenever I think of this book.
I totally understand how My Book of Life by Angel by Martine Leavitt was a National Book Award Finalist.
The cover is so gorgeous!
This book is definitely out of my comfort zone; I'm usually not one to read books about depressing world-matters, like suicide, cutting, drugs, murder, you get my drift.  But I am so amazingly happy that I didn't just skip over this book!  This has to be one of the most provocative, eye-opening, somber stories that I have ever read.  I cried about 7 times while reading this.
So, this book is written in poem form, which with any other book I'd be like "NO."  But this story deserves to be an exception to every novel stereotype.  If you don't like the whole poem form, don't let that keep you from getting this book!  Once you get into it, it starts to read like a novel.
The main character is a 16 year-old named Angel.  She is the modern rebellious teen who has a semi-broken family.  Angel also likes to shoplift... which is how she gets introduced to Call who basically ruins her life.  Call persuades Angel to become a prostitute (because that is definitely how teenagers show their undying affection!  Yeah, right) and her life starts to teeter into an even more insidious downward spiral.  To top it all off, Call brings an 11 year-old girl to do some of the work.  Of course, Angel keeps her safe.
There aren't really any spoilers that I could accidentally spill (yeah!); the story is pretty straight forward.
Angel's narration is so lyrical and melodious, ugh... here come the tears.  She is an innocent who has been put in an unfavorable situation, but attempts to make the best out of it, and she does.
If you guys read this book, you will not regret it.  My Book of Life by Angel is a beautiful story that deserves more recognition than it has received.
Overall, I'm giving MBOLBA a 5/5 (surprise, surprise!) because I can find absolutely no faults with this book.
Perfectly flawless.