Victor LaValle manages to paint an accurate picture of what it's like to be a 12 year old girl. From the beginning with her social concerns about her friends who she sees later "clumped together like socks that had just come out of the dryer" to her personal concerns about appearance and what people think of her, and her longing for Sunny to come back and make it all tolerable, Lucretia is 100% a 12 year old.
Sunny has been away getting treatment for an illness. Just when Sunny gets back and things look like they could become a little more normal for Loochie, as Lucretia is known to friends and family, things go sideways. She sees a Kroon on her fire escape who tells her through gestures that Sunny is upstairs in apartment 6D.
Louis, Loochie's older brother, has told her that 6D is where the Kroon's live and how monstrous they are and dangerous. And here begins a real adventure for Loochie. She feels she must go up there and rescue Sunny who is weak from treatment for the illness and being sick. Inside the apartment as she runs to evade the Kroons, she finds trees and concrete and more. Her resolve is tested more than once. She remembers Louis saying, "Horrors come for kids too. Being young doesn't protect anyone."
Lucretia and the Kroons is definitely worth reading. (In fact, I read it twice.) I give it 4 out of 5 stars.
Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in exchange for my unbiased opinion.
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