DIG

Four teenagers' anxieties are laid bare in an unsettling YA audiobook that examines privilege, racism, and class. The Shoveler, who leads a nomadic life with his thieving mom, and Malcolm, who is struggling with his father's terminal cancer, reveal themselves through narrators Mike Chamberlain and Kirby Heyborne. Tonya Cornelisse's voice adds bittersweetness to “CanIHelpYou's” drug-dealing life. All three narrators provide the perfect combo of teen angst and whatever, which serve as emotional anchors in their chaotic lives. King’s narration knits their individual stories into a snarled whole that shows an extended family imploding from multigenerational secrets. Her pacing is rough around the edges, but she magnifies the surrealism in her writing with an unflinching fierceness that’s hard to imagine coming from anyone else. S.T.C. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine [Published: APRIL 2019]