Better Must Come, Desmond Hall
Better Must Come, Desmond Hall
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

Better Must Come

Author: Desmond Hall

Narrator: Jaime Lincoln Smith

Unabridged: 7 hr 59 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/04/2024

Synopsis

Barely Missing Everything meets American Street in this “well-plotted, taut page-turner” (Booklist, starred review) that looks at the darker side of light-filled Jamaica and how a tragedy and missing drug money helplessly entangle the lives of two teens who want to change their fate.

Deja is a “barrel girl”—one of the Jamaican kids who get barrels full of clothes, food, and treats shipped to them from parents who have moved to the US or Canada to make more money. Gabriel is caught up in a gang and desperate for a way out. When he meets Deja at a party, he starts looking for a way into her life and wonders if they could be a part of each other’s futures.

Then, one day while out fishing, Deja spies a go-fast boat stalled out by some rocks, smeared with blood. Inside, a badly wounded man thrusts a knapsack at her, begging her to deliver it to his original destination, and to not say a word. She binds his wounds, determined to send for help and make good on her promise…not realizing that the bag is stuffed with $500,000 American. Not realizing that the posse Gabriel is in will stop at nothing to get their hands on this bag—or that Gabriel’s and her lives will intersect in ways neither ever imagined, as they both are forced to make split-second choices to keep the ones they love most alive.

About Desmond Hall

Desmond Hall was born in Jamaica, West Indies, and moved to Jamaica, Queens. He has worked as a high school biology and English teacher in East New York, Brooklyn; counseled teenage ex-cons after their release from Rikers Island; and served as Spike Lee’s creative director at Spike DDB. Desmond has served on the board of the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids and the Advertising Council and judged the One Show, the American Advertising Awards, and the NYC Downtown Short Film Festival. He’s also been named one of Variety magazine’s Top 50 Creatives to Watch. He’s the author of Your Corner Dark and Better Must Come. Desmond lives outside of Boston with his wife and two daughters.

Reviews

Goodreads review by The Bookish Bri

Better Must Come is a title that definitely goes with the storyline. Deja had it hard. The responsibilities she had shouldn’t have been given to her. Those responsibilities resulted in her making some crazy decisions, which led to her basically being on the run. This book was just okay for me. It was......more

Goodreads review by Lit_Vibrations (Sammesha D.)

For this book to be YA it was definitely a wild story. Nobody expects a teen to go through or deal with situations both Deja and Gabriel encountered in this book. But these are the harsh realities for many growing up in Jamaica. The struggle to survive, a desire to provide, but being forced to take......more

Goodreads review by Donnakay'sBookWorld

This was a fast-paced contemporary YA with thrilling elements that had me on the edge of my seat at some points. We meet Deja, a 17yr girl, who has had to take on a lot more responsibility than she should have to at her young age. Unfortunately, she meets Gabriel, who she's possibly interested in, b......more

Goodreads review by Latoya (jamaicangirlreads)

I did not expect to be so enraptured by this story but here we are! In Better Must Come, we follow seventeen year old Deja and Gabriel, both great people at heart that got caught up in the cross fires of a drug exchange gone wrong. In the midst of this mishap, Deja ends up with $500K in her hands. I......more

Goodreads review by Natashia

3.5/5- it was ok for me Thoughts: Deja is a barrel girl. I had no idea what this was until explained in text. She is basically receiving a care package from her mom, who is in the states working to provide for her family. I got the impression that this was looked at negatively but I understood the s......more

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