As a Black student in a newly integrated high school, Talley Barbour is a perceptive yet dreamy young woman whose white friend Didi shares her passion for running. Inexperienced Talley admires Didi's apparent sophistication and worldliness to such an extent that she wildly romanticizes Didi's relationship with a pathetic white drug addict, until Talley herself gets involved in a depressing, painful relationship with a charismatic, abusive white boy. Exploring the theme of addiction on many levels, Hamilton writes in a Black teen vernacular stream of consciousness. (Age 14 and older)

A chilling, modern love story--love intertwined with high-school politics, drug deals, addiction, heavy metal concerts, and the pressures of sexual involvement--by one of the most distinguished writers of our time.