Clay's father has lost his job and abandoned his pregnant wife and his son. When his mother loses her job too, they have to move into a seedy hotel. And then one day, Clay's mother doesn't come back either... for days.
Fearing both social services and the police, Clay takes to the streets. Fortunately, he finds two homeless men, a young black man named Buddy and an old white man named Calvin, who take him under their wing and look out for him the best they are able to. For about ten weeks during the late fall and early winter, Clay is homeless on the streets of New York City, his only comfort, being the two men he's sharing a crate with. When he gets pneumonia, Buddy sees to it that he gets to a hospital, and social services takes over from there.
The biggest success of the book is putting faces and personalities on the homeless people that we too often ignore completely, as though they are invisible. Somehow, I can't say Clay's story tugged at my heart very much. The reader didn't get to know him in good times, so we only saw him while he was miserable. That is realistic, given the situation, but also keeps the reader from getting too emotionally involved with Clay. I felt more attached to Buddy than to the protagonist. ( )

A really excellent book about homelessness and creating community. ( )

Monkey Island had the potential to be so much more, as it is an important story that needs to be told. Far too many young adults and children find themselves in similar predicaments all across this world on a daily basis, and it’s time that someone put a voice to their struggles. The sad truth is that the majority of us are too busy with our own families and lives to care about the homeless, and instead look upon them as an annoying nuisance, or an eyesore cluttering up our clean city. The fact of the matter is that they are human beings, just like any of us in our warm beds, eating three meals a day. A true measure of the success of a society is how it treats its weakest members, and for this alone I know we are surely failing.

Now that I am done my rant I must say, this short novel left a lot to be desired. The character development was weak, and at the end of it I am left frustrated with the lack of insight Paula Fox has afforded us into the thoughts and feelings of our protagonist whilst struggling through such profound and traumatizing experiences. It almost appeared to downplay the severity of such circumstances, and how someone this young would be affected by abandonment. In the end, some authenticity was evidenced in the fact that this was a story about resilience and forgiveness, two imperative aspects in surviving life on the streets and bad parenting.

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Monkey Island had the potential to be so much more, as it is an important story that needs to be told. Far too many young adults and children find themselves in similar predicaments all across this world on a daily basis, and it’s time that someone put a voice to their struggles. The sad truth is that the majority of us are too busy with our own families and lives to care about the homeless, and instead look upon them as an annoying nuisance, or an eyesore cluttering up our clean city. The fact of the matter is that they are human beings, just like any of us in our warm beds, eating three meals a day. A true measure of the success of a society is how it treats its weakest members, and for this alone I know we are surely failing.

Now that I am done my rant I must say, this short novel left a lot to be desired. The character development was weak, and at the end of it I am left frustrated with the lack of insight Paula Fox has afforded us into the thoughts and feelings of our protagonist whilst struggling through such profound and traumatizing experiences. It almost appeared to downplay the severity of such circumstances, and how someone this young would be affected by abandonment. In the end, some authenticity was evidenced in the fact that this was a story about resilience and forgiveness, two imperative aspects in surviving life on the streets and bad parenting.

Check out more of my reviews at BookSnakeReviews ( )

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