Inspired by Occupy Wall Street, 17 year old Angela Jones and four other homeless teenagers occupy an empty commercial building owned by Bank of America. As they slowly transform it into a teen homeless shelter, Ange goes into crisis mode when the other residents decide to use firearms to prevent the police from evicting them.
17 year-old heroine Angela Jones meets a 19 year-olf activist named Fabio during the Occupy Wall Street protest in September 2011. Together with three other homeless teenagers, they "occupy" a vacant commercial building in Brooklyn's disadvantaged Bedford-Sutyvesant neighborhood. Over the course of five months, they transform Freedom House into a teen homeless shelter.
When Bank of America obtains a court-ordered eviction notice, Fabio, Angela and the other teenagers decide to use automatic weapons to prvent the police from evicting them. Determined to stop the eviction by nonviolent means, Ange reaches other to the African American church across the street.
The police arrive to find the church has mobilize 75 community members to commit civil disobedience by blocking access to the building. Meanwhile ange is one of four residents standing at the front windows with an M16.
The police and the other teenagers decide to use automatic weapons to preven
Excerpt
Ange’s skin crawled as Phillip placed the M16 in her arms. The gun was cold and unnaturally smooth. It smelled like burnt rubber. Then he left her alone with PJ, a tall, thin, forty-something with wavy, shoulder length black hair and a long, unkempt beard. The small unheated barn, with its dirt floor, was virtually empty except for a large utility table covered in scratches and stains. PJ had a laptop plugged into a socket that hung from the ceiling on a cord. He played her a video of a young woman disassembling an M16A2. The woman, who was white, had dark brown hair and wore a plain white tee shirt. Two men in uniform shirts stood on either side timing her. She looked up at them triumphantly as she set the last part on the table.
PJ was dressed in faded overalls fastened over a bulky gray cardigan and two sweatshirts. Ange could see them at the collar line—one gray and one dark blue.
“You see that?” He dragged out his vowels with a singsong intonation. Lacey said he was from Appalachia. “Two minutes ten seconds.”
He clicked replay and they watched the video again. Then he closed the laptop, shoved it aside, and replaced it with a glossy black and white poster depicting the M16 parts in the order they were to be removed.
“Okay. You do it now.”
Copying the woman in the video, Ange turned the weapon over to find the safety. Then removing the magazine to check the chamber, she removed the bolt carrier group. Laying the receiver and charging handle on the table, she broke the BCG down by removing the bolt retaining cotter pin, bolt and firing pin.
“Well done. Now reassemble it.”
She repeated the entire process three times. Then Phillip returned with a pair of ear protectors and safety glasses and took her to the firing area. A mixed race Haitian, he was slightly taller than PJ. He wore his hair in long dreadlocks, and Ange guessed he was somewhere in his early forties. Phillip’s face was long and narrow with deeply set eyes, a large hooked nose, thin lips, a sparse, untrimmed beard, and permanent creases on his forehead and around his eyes. Like many of Ange’s activist friends, he dressed in an assortment of free and secondhand clothes. Today he was wearing dark blue track pants, a mangy leather jacket that looked like it had been through the washing machine, and a woolen maroon cap that covered his forehead and ears.
Ange had hoped that PJ would take her for target practice. She didn’t like or trust Phillip. He didn’t seem to like teenagers very much. His desire to work with them puzzled her. She strongly sensed he had some ulterior agenda that had nothing to do with empowering the homeless youth of Bedford-Stuyvesant. She was also convinced it was his idea—not Fabio’s—that they use weapons to defend themselves against the impending eviction. Occupy Homes, like Occupy Wall Street and other left-leaning movements, had always opted for nonviolent methods in confronting the police. Although Bank of America had yet to acknowledge the teenagers had taken over the abandoned Credit Union building, everyone knew it was only a matter of time before the bank obtained an eviction order.
Recruiting and training teenagers to shoot automatic weapons wasn’t normal, no matter how radical you were. Lacey said that military-style assault rifles were illegal in New York State, that PJ most likely belonged to some right wing militia. She gave no clue—and Ange didn’t ask—how she knew these things. Ange assumed the ex-boyfriend who taught Lacey to shoot was the source of information.
Lacey and Geneva were already outside in the firing area. They lay side by side aiming at multicolored concentric circles attached to straw bales. Phillip directed Ange to lie down next to them. Gritting her teeth, Ange did as she was told, determined to block out the churning nausea in her gut with sheer force of will. The sooner she learned to do this, the sooner she could end the firearms lessons and this whole sordid chapter of her life.
Professional Reviews
Dinorah Blackman from Readers Favorite
A Rebel Comes of Age is a well-written story about the unusual life of a group of teenagers who are a part of a left-leaning movement. Angela Jones and her new friend Fabio decide to work on establishing a shelter for homeless teenagers. They enlist the help of three other teens and establish Freedom House in a building that used to be the Credit Union. They receive support from a few organizations, including the church across the street. All seems to be going well until their numbers increase. Inevitably this leads to an increase in problems and challenges. Freedom House attracts many who are not mature enough to live on their own and many who couldn’t care less about the vision of the founders. A number of difficult situations emerge that lead Angela on a path to self-discovery. Amidst deep anger, rebellion, rampant promiscuity, and the unavoidable task of growing up, Freedom House becomes steeped in political activism and differences in opinion regarding how the place should be run lead to a number of unusual events. When Angela becomes the victim of racism and bullying by the very teenagers she wants to help, she questions her commitment to the cause, but she eventually learns that change requires patience.
Dr. Stuart Jeanne Bramhall is an amazing storyteller. The plot shares some often overlooked details that help the reader to form a mental picture of the plight of these young activists. The dialogues are written exactly as each character would speak which gives the impression of listening to the voices in one’s head. The story is based on a serious problem that is often ignored in our society. It’s the issue of teenagers that have left their homes, whether willingly or forced by circumstances. Life on the streets is not easy and Bramhall vividly describes the hardships these youngsters face and the way in which it affects and changes them. The author does a great job at exposing corruption, while at the same time honoring those individuals and organizations that are willing to protest and help those in need.
Samantha Wreck at Samthebookaholic
This book was very interesting. It’s not something I’ve ever read before so everything was new to me. Surprisingly most of the issues that were going on were teenage issue which actually made the book seem more real. They weren’t acting too old for heir age. Let me tell you, this book is a roller coaster. There are so many ups and downs that it will make your head spin but in a good way.
Ange is around my age and when she goes through a teenage related problem I feel like I could connect with her and understand her more. She also comes to difficult decisions that she has to face and make. This is definitely a coming of age story. Throughout you see her make difficult decisions on her way to try and find herself which many people can relate to. I know I can. I’m still trying to figure myself out. All the characters were amazing. They seemed so real. I loved their different personalities and how they were with each other.
Overall, I have to say this book is definitely a page turner. I highly recommend it. This book will keep you on your toes waiting for what’s going to happen next. I am so glad that I got the chance to review this book. I just want to thank Stuart for giving me the chance. This is an amazing book and will definitely recommend it to my friends.
The Book Landers
I loved the whole theme/set up of the novel–A Rebel Comes of Age tells the story of a group of homeless teens try to form a safe haven in an unused corporate building. I mean, who hasn’t wondered what it would be like to live with a a group of kids, free of adults? The author explores many problems that have the potential to arise in such theoretical situations; for example, characters have to deal with who and how rules are set, how work is divided among the teens and what to do with rule breakers. In many ways, this book reminded my of Lord of the Flies. . . The main character, Ange, is totally lovable. She just wants to make the world a better place.
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