Sometimes I wonder if Amazon is peeking over my shoulder. You rather have to ponder that particular thought when you have books stacked up waiting for their turn on the review block and one of them shows up as  a Kindle Daily Deal. But when you’ve just re-read a book for the countless time like Adrian Nicole LeBlanc’s Random Family, it’s hard to separate yourself back in the present and do things like settle down and write the darn review already. You drive home from work and pass a young mother pushing a stroller down the road trailed by a string of children and think of Coco. Or see a lush girl, head thrown back in a whole body laugh sitting on a low wall surrounded by a court of young men and remember the opening lines when Jessica would hit the street. Usually I tear through books like a mad thing, gobbling words and pages as fast as I can, trying not to choke on the sheer amount of information I’m downloading.

But Random Family is a book to savor. In less capable hands, a book like Random Family would be more “oh look how awesome I am to get down and dirty with the poorz…oh I’m so edgy and awesome! Here comes whitey to save the day! Why don’t poor people eat healthy things versus all this junk food! OMG! I went to the dollar store! I ate something from the bodega! I’m the only white person here! Look at me!” Try the exact opposite. The very first time I read Random Family curled up on the couch of my first apartment, Coco and Jessica could be the people in the building next door with the children running around, the amazing smells drifting across the narrow driveway between our buildings, the Spanish music that made you want to rise up from the couch even if you felt like death warmed over and dance. Adrian Nicole LeBlanc’s genius lies in both her quietness, making you almost forget how often she must have been there with Coco and Jessica and their families, sharing meals and sadness and joy and the way she allows her subjects to open up and just tell their stories with interference or judgement.

I would love to read more about the people who were kind enough to share their lives in Random Family. I always close the book hoping Serena and her cousins could break away from their families cycle of poverty and drugs. I hope Jessica finds the peace and love she needs and deserves. I hope Cesar found a better life once he left prison. And I hope Coco kept her spirits high and still tucks a lollipop in her ponytail every now and again. But if Random Family is the only book Adrian Nicole LeBlanc ever writes and we have to leave Jessica and Coco and Cesar in the past when Adrian Nicole LeBlanc  leaves their lives, I’m okay with that. I’m just glad and grateful for the experience.