Street Pharm

By Allison van Diepen

Reviewed by Ser Michael V., BCCHS student

“Know your enemies. Understand them. Figure out their next move,” “Never show weakness.” This is some of Tyrone Johnson’s personal code. It means he doesn’t trust people easily because it might bring him trouble.

The book Street Pharm takes place in the city of Brooklyn, New York where some illegal activities are happening, a noisy place where you can see gang fights on the streets. A place that is not the easiest place to live in. A boy named Tyrone Johnson takes over his dad’s drug dealing business because his dad got caught and went to jail. When Ty was 14 yrs. old, he took over his dad’s business and worked hard to fully control the business. Ty is a really good and smart person; everywhere he goes they know him because his father is one of the best hustlers in town when it comes to drug dealing. He has a lot of rules and one of the most important is don’t let a girl into your life if you’re dealing because it might ruin your reputation and put your family and love ones in danger. However, Ty meets Alyse, a very nice girl who catches his attention, and at first they don’t know if they are really in love with each other. But when they get to know each other and become closer, they fall madly in love with each other.

When the business is doing well, a guy named Darkman wants to take over Ty’s territory. Darkman plans to kill Ty, but Ty knows how to survive. How will he take the challenge of Darkman? Will he survive or die? If you want to know more, read this book—It’s really a good book. The book has a lot of intense parts; it has funny and sad parts that make the book more interesting. I would recommend this book to everyone, even if you don’t like reading books. I will definitely say that when you start reading this book, you won’t be able to stop because it will be interesting at the start and will be more interesting as you read on.

I like this book because it relates to problems that most teens today might be going through and therefore they might be able to connect with the book at some point. Having a broken family might lead you to be a rebellious child to your family and even get involved in some illegal activities. I like how Allison van Diepen wrote the story because it’s easy to picture the scenes as you read and not hard to understand what’s happening, and also, it gets you to predict what will happen next.