Book Review: After the Shot Drops by Randy Ribay

Publisher’s description

A powerful novel about friendship, basketball, and one teen’s mission to create a better life for his family in the tradition of Jason Reynolds, Matt de la Pena, and Walter Dean Myers.     
Bunny and Nasir have been best friends forever, but when Bunny accepts an athletic scholarship across town, Nasir feels betrayed. While Bunny tries to fit in with his new, privileged peers, Nasir spends more time with his cousin, Wallace, who is being evicted. Nasir can’t help but wonder why the neighborhood is falling over itself to help Bunny when Wallace is in trouble.

When Wallace makes a bet against Bunny, Nasir is faced with an impossible decision—maybe a dangerous one.
Told from alternating perspectives, After the Shot Drops is a heart-pounding story about the responsibilities of great talent and the importance of compassion.

Amanda’s thoughts

This fast-paced story of choices, compassion, and consequences is the kind of book you need to read in one sitting. Both the stakes and the tension are high, the characters are dynamic and complicated, and, because of the dramatic principle of Chekhov’s gun, you can be pretty sure you know what’s eventually coming, but it’s still shocking and somehow a surprise.

For Bunny Thompson (nicknamed Bunny “because I got the hops”), a talented basketball player who likely has a huge career ahead of him, transferring to a private school in the suburbs seemed like a good choice. He will get to play on a great team, get a better education, and hopefully get noticed even more, which will all lead to him hopefully being recruited heavily and eventually able to help out his family (which consists of his older sister, who is in college, his twin little sisters, his nurse mother, who works the graveyard shift at the hospital, and his dad, who owns a bookstore). But Bunny grows conflicted about his choice as his time at St. Sebastian’s goes on. He’s one of a handful of black kids, feels like he has nothing in common with his classmates, and often feels like some sort of mascot. To his best friend Nasir and many others in their neighborhood, Bunny’s move feels like a betrayal, a rejection, like he’s leaving everyone behind and thinks he’s better than they are. Nasir and Bunny go months without talking, though it’s clear that both boys miss each other and would like to be able to bridge the gulf between them. But for Nasir, that’s an especially complicated idea, thanks to his cousin Wallace.

Wallace is no fan of Bunny. His only real friend is Nasir, who would love to be able to help Wallace and his grandma, who are about to be evicted, but doesn’t really have any resources to do that. So he tries to help by encouraging Wallace to get a job to help with bills, by being in Wallace’s corner and advocating for him and defending him, even though Nasir’s parents think Wallace is a bad influence. Wallace tries to get some money by making shady deals and placing bets that he isn’t good for. Bunny and Nasir repeatedly approach each other to try to mend their friendship, but each time, Nasir feels like he’s betraying Wallace, that Bunny has plenty of people in his corner, and plenty of resources and opportunities, but Wallace has nothing and no one. Wallace eventually puts Nasir—and Bunny—in an impossible situation, one that will test everyone’s loyalty, and the already high stakes of this story really ramp up. Readers will race through the final chapters to see what happens to all three of these complicated and conflicted characters.

Told through an incredibly effective alternation narration, readers get to see deep inside the minds of both Bunny and Nasir. who show that the situation is much more complicated than just being about two best friends driven apart by Bunny’s choice to change schools. Gripping, suspenseful, and complex, this story of basketball, friendship, courage, desperation, and choices will appeal to a wide audience. A must-have for all collections. 

Review copy courtesy of the publisher

ISBN-13: 9781328702272
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication date: 03/06/2018

Filed under: Book Reviews