I read this book because the author is a friend of a friend, etc. In such cases I usually expect to be impressed, inspired to write my own stuff, heartened to know a published young writer with lots of potential. But to my surprise, I was immediately sucked into this book. The language is fresh and exciting, the characters and conflicts extremely believeable, but most importantly, the author has some great stories to tell. I have passed the book along to several friends who are now anxiously sucked in as I was a week ago. And I find myself running words together and inventing new ones in both writing and speech (in the style of the author, certainly not on account of a drinking problem). My only criticisms are that the prose is clunky in a few places (like, two times, so who cares?) and I was left at the end wanting a little more resolution, perhaps more a sense of how the many anecdotes hang together as a book. Neither is a major issue, though, and I expect any kinks in the author's execution to be long-since worked out by the time I get my paws on his next novel. I am looking forward to it.

Sandro Meallet's Edgewater Angles is episodic storytelling at its best. Tomer is a fully developed character whose life makes for compelling reading. His adventures are both funny and heartwarming. He is any modern day, urban Tom Sawyer who the reader roots for throughout the book. A must read for anyone interested in new authors. A simply marvelous book!

I happen to read a chapter of this book in an brochure from Doubleday and decided to test my interest in novels about minorities and gangs (I'm intially from small town midwest). Wow, what a blast of truth and a fresh new realization about everday life in south central Los Angeles. Toomer, narrator and main character, lives a life and experiences things everyday that most people could never deal with. I never expected a book that deals with all the bad things about inner city life to focus on the little bits of happiness and joy that its inhabitants find and turn those bits into something much bigger and more meaningful. I laughed, cried, and did not want the book to end.