Book Review: Out of the Easy

This book is the easiest sell to kids ever.



"Hey guys!  So this book has New Orleans, prostitution, the mob, and a cute relationship!"

This was my kids after the book talk

And it's actually really good!  It has over a 4 star rating on Goodreads, which is fairly rare. 

The basic plot is that we have Josie, a teenager who lives in the French Quarter in the 1950s.  Josie loves books and wants to go to college after high school, but there's a big problem. 
Her mother is a prostitute. 
Not only that, but Josie's part time job is cleaning the brothel every morning.  (My kids had hilarious reactions upon hearing this, and yeah.  Ew.)

Basically, her mom is one big old mess, constantly in trouble/mixed up with the wrong people, and makes it very difficult for Josie to gain her education.  There's your ubiquitous love triangle as well, but it has an interesting twist.  And motorcyclist Jesse, one point of the triangle, is totally delicious.

(I'm not sure what it says about me that I am a 26 year old woman who still falls for teenage dreamboats in YAL...I swear I'm not a creep in real life...)

I really enjoyed the relationships in this book and how they are realistically complicated.  For example, the madam of the brothel is far more of a mother to Josie than her biological mother.  I just love shades of grey in novels.  (Ironically, Ruta Sepetys also wrote Between Shades of Grey.)

The kids who've read this so far have flown through it and told me they enjoyed it.  And I think it's the first historical fiction-esque book I've book talked, so yay for diversity.  It wasn't a perfect book, but at the same time I can't think of any complaints.

4.5 out of 5 badass madams

Not saying Scarlett O'Hara was a madam, but I'm also not-not saying that.  This is just how I imagine the character Willie looking.