The east coast version of Boyz-N-The-Hood, Paper Chasers is the Essence Magazine best seller which is set in Queens, New York during the summer of 1991. At a time when the crack epidemic was wreaking havoc in just about every major city in America , Paper Chasers follows the lives of The Fourth Crew, a close-knit crew from Queens, NY. Paper Chasers intricately follows the crew which hails from middle class homes and a middle class neighborhood and shows that the repercussions of the fast money lifestyle is not just limited to the projects and the ghetto.
This was my first book by Mark Anthony and I'll admit that at first I didn't think it was going to be so great. When I read the back of the book before starting I thought the book would be so-so. I got about a quarter of the way in and not only realized that I was way more into the story than I thought but that it was way more in depth than I thought. This is one of those books that if you're not careful you can just read real quick and not ever stop to realize exactly what the author did. The ending was CRAZY. I did have a slight problem with the ending involving Latiefe, I did think that was a bit unfair but in a way understood even that. The thing I absolutely loved most about the entire book, especially the ending, was that it wasn't the typical "happy ending" and not everything was tied up all nice and neat. The story itself didn't go like that so why should the ending. A lot of the time, even in urban fiction which deals with more real issues sometimes, the endings are just way to clean and happy go lucky but this doesn't fit that picture at all. I can't wait to read more from Mark Anthony and am already looking!
I remember reading this when I was maybe 14 or 15. I read plenty of books like this then -___- Lol, I remember this one and another one named "Ghetto Girls" at the same time. I was ashamed to tell anyone about reading that. Lol, but now that I look at it. At least I was reading =) ...