ANGEL & HANNAH

A passionate novel in verse about the love between two New York City teenagers whose cultural and economic expectations eventually turn their relationship to dust.

The book’s poems, most just a page or two, are tied together in four sections named for the seasons, beginning with spring, when the flowers of all beginnings bud. We first meet Hannah and Angel separately; the first two poems introduce them in second grade, then the book leaps to high school, setting the stage for abrupt chronological disconnections throughout the narrative. Bookish and school-smart Hannah from Queens, the daughter of Korean immigrants, meets Boricua Angel, a young dealer from the streets of Bushwick, at a party and they immediately fall into a dark, heedless romance. Hannah, who chafes at her father’s violent, controlling ways, eventually moves in with Angel and begins a different dance—one of poverty, Angel's drug addiction and infidelity, and her own burgeoning outbursts of rage. The richest parts of the book are the tantalizing glimpses of Hannah’s culture—often seen through Hannah's thoughts of her mother and the Korean comfort food she would cook—and her yearning to not become her parents. Though Angel’s character is well developed at first, we lose the thread of who he is beyond Nuyorican clichés as he starts to unravel from drug addiction. Ultimately, his humanity becomes rooted in his younger brother, Rafi, who was born with HIV and whom both Angel and Hannah fiercely love.

A tender and honest story of young love striving to survive the streets.