Knockout Games

June 2, 2014
A 15-year-old gets mixed up in dangerous activities in this gritty urban drama, partially inspired by real events. After Erica’s parents split up and her mother takes her to live in St. Louis, Erica feels like a fish out of water, part of a small white minority in her new school. Her only refuge is the video camera her father gave her. Then Erica meets Kalvin, the so-called Knockout King, is swept up by his dangerous charm, and starts filming the activities of his “TKO” club, a gang of middle-schoolers who assault random passersby with the intention of knocking them out: “One hit or quit.” As events spiral out of control, with people getting hurt and the authorities cracking down, Erica has to choose between her new relationship and friends, and doing the right thing. Neri (Ghetto Cowboy) skillfully portrays the moral and emotional turmoil of a teen desperate for acceptance, and the repercussions of making hard decisions. Racial and social undercurrents further give this story an intense, thought-provoking edge. Ages 12–up. Agent: Edward Necarsulmer IV, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner.

July 1, 2014

Gr 9 Up-When she is displaced by her parents' divorce, Erica finds herself in a rougher neighborhood and school than she's used to, and falls under the influence of a charismatic boy known as the Knockout King. Kalvin and his crew select targets based on their perceived "weakness" and make a game out of trying to knock them out as if in a boxing ring. Erica becomes the group's videographer, capturing their attacks on film and sharing them via social media. The friends' antics grow increasingly out of control, with eventual fatal results. The connections between the characters felt largely unearned. Erica's close friendship with Destiny, who initially recruits the budding filmmaker, is unshakable by events that would tear apart even well-established friendships, and comes about without any real growth. While it is mentioned that Kalvin is attractive, there is nothing about him that would explain why Erica is so blind to his transgressions. The narrator is a surrogate for readers, but her outsider status makes the novel's foreshortened time line feel even more rushed, and the decision to switch from first- to third-person for a climactic scene seemingly serves no stylistic purpose. Neri addresses the racialized fear of the knockout games somewhat-the narrator and the majority of the victims are white, while most of the crew is black-but his book fails to rise above the sensationalized premise.-L. Lee Butler, Stoughton High School, MA

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from July 1, 2014
New girl Erica falls in with the wrong crowd in an exploration of racial tension in St. Louis.In the wake of her parents' separation, Erica finds herself in a new city and new school. After showing off her skills with the camera her estranged father gave as a parting gift, Erica wins the attention of a boxing club called the TKOs and the affection of their leader, Kalvin. The TKOs play the horrific "Knockout Game," in which kids assault total strangers with a single punch for no reason other than the adrenaline rush. Erica is enamored by the TKOs and their worldview, but as things get real, Erica makes moves to get out. The results are thrilling. At every fork in the road, Erica makes the wrong decision, but surprisingly, this only makes her more endearing. The book's second half, detailing Erica's struggles to escape the TKOs and Kalvin's tightening grip, is even stronger than the beginning; it's where the author's meaty ideas and exciting action sequences blend together perfectly. Kalvin may seem like every parent's worst nightmare for their daughter, but the author draws him with a complexity that helps illustrate the larger themes being explored. Neri's main concern is the "post-racial" urban landscape, raising many talking points while letting readers come to their own conclusions.Harsh and relentless, a tough but worthy read. (Fiction. 12-16)

COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

New girl Erica falls in with the wrong crowd in an exploration of racial tension in St. Louis.In the wake of her parents' separation, Erica finds herself in a new city and new school. After showing off her skills with the camera her estranged father gave as a parting gift, Erica wins the attention of a boxing club called the TKOs and the affection of their leader, Kalvin. The TKOs play the horrific "Knockout Game," in which kids assault total strangers with a single punch for no reason other than the adrenaline rush. Erica is enamored by the TKOs and their worldview, but as things get real, Erica makes moves to get out. The results are thrilling. At every fork in the road, Erica makes the wrong decision, but surprisingly, this only makes her more endearing. The book's second half, detailing Erica's struggles to escape the TKOs and Kalvin's tightening grip, is even stronger than the beginning; it's where the author's meaty ideas and exciting action sequences blend together perfectly. Kalvin may seem like every parent's worst nightmare for their daughter, but the author draws him with a complexity that helps illustrate the larger themes being explored. Neri's main concern is the "post-racial" urban landscape, raising many talking points while letting readers come to their own conclusions.Harsh and relentless, a tough but worthy read. (Fiction. 12-16) COPYRIGHT(1) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

August 1, 2014
Grades 9-12 The indispensable Neri (Yummy: The Last Days of a Southside Shorty, 2010) delivers another strong shot to the chin with this bracing look at the initiations of sex and violence. Erica, 16, is new to St. Louis, where she falls under the sway of Kalvin, aka the Knockout King, the charming leader of a gang of youths who, quite simply, choose a random stranger and challenge one another to run up and punch his lights out. What Erica, the sole white kid, brings to the table are tech skills: her video edits of the knockouts become viral hits. How Erica's videos figure into the gang's downfall is not unpredictable, but that takes little away from what is a tensely drawn relationship between a girl (overweight, awkward, and a well of competing desires) and a boy (arrogant, self-destructive, and at war with his own feelings). Many authors would end the novel when the lesson is learned, but Neri offers an entire fourth-act crime-novel capper. This study of infatuation and manipulation will be of particular interest to older YA readers moving beyond the limits of parental control.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2015
Fifteen-year-old Erica (who is white) feels like "the freak show coming to town" at her mostly black new school. Then Kalvin Barnes, the Knockout King, recruits her to film his violent TKO Club. When she begins to feel uneasy about her involvement and tries to pull back, life turns harrowing. Characters are well drawn and believable, and the story is well plotted and suspenseful.

(Copyright 2015 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

November 1, 2014
Fifteen-year-old Erica Asher describes her new video camera as "a virgin waiting for something to happen." Her father gave it to her before her parents split up and she and her mother moved to St. Louis. Now Erica's the new girl at school, the big, red-headed white girl at a mostly black school feeling like "the freak show coming to town." But then her videos catch the eye of Kalvin Barnes, the Knockout King, who recruits her to film his TKO Club (in which a member is selected to approach a stranger and knock him or her out with a single punch to the head). Erica's videos record the violent attacks, and all of a sudden she's in with the TKO Club, friends with the tall, green-eyed Kalvin, and getting tons of friend requests on her new Facebook page. But when she begins to feel uneasy about her involvement and tries to pull back, life turns harrowing. Neri deftly handles various themes: being an outsider; the relationship between boredom and violence; doing what is right (and being labeled a snitch) versus keeping quiet and hanging onto her newfound friends. Particularly effective is the Gatsby-esque reference to eyes (or "eyez") and watchers: disembodied eyes on neighborhood walls and t-shirts; the Watchers protecting neighborhoods; and Erica's own all-seeing camera. Are they observing, or are they judging? Characters are well drawn and believable, and the story is well plotted and suspenseful, except for a jarring switch to a third-person point of view in one late chapter. Still, this is Neri's (Yummy, rev. 11/10) most powerful novel to date. dean schneider

(Copyright 2014 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)