{"id":43404,"date":"2025-10-10T21:53:48","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T01:53:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=43404"},"modified":"2025-10-10T21:53:48","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T01:53:48","slug":"review-of-ride-or-die-by-gail-agnes-musikavanhu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=43404","title":{"rendered":"Review of Ride or Die, by Gail-Agnes Musikavanhu"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Ride or Die<\/em><\/p>\n

by Gail-Agnes Musikavanhu<\/p>\n

Soho Teen, 2023. 368 pages.
\nReview written July 31, 2023, from a library book<\/p>\n

Ride or Die<\/em> is the story of a rich Black teenage girl named Loli who likes to shake up expectations. She\u2019s gotten into trouble many times, but her best friends Ryan and Cairo always back her up.<\/p>\n

Then Loli meets a mysterious stranger \u2013 in a closet at a party.<\/p>\n

Loli\u2019s not one to hang out in closets at parties. But when she goes after her missing necklace in the pocket of a coat in the closet, there\u2019s someone sitting in there. And they do some talking. She accidentally leaves the necklace behind with him.<\/p>\n

But the next day, she gets it back in an envelope at her regular hang-out. Along with a letter proposing that they don\u2019t investigate each other\u2019s identity \u2013 but that they do start setting missions for each other. Adventures to solve, and then prove that they\u2019ve accomplished them. To fail a mission is to stop the adventure.<\/p>\n

And Loli can\u2019t resist. When the missions get more and more out there, she gets hooked on the adrenalin. And then they start thinking about meeting.<\/p>\n

But while Loli is obsessed with accomplishing each task (and creating her own clever challenges), she starts neglecting her current friends, the folks who have stood by her forever.<\/p>\n

I enjoyed this novel, and the mystery kept me going. It was refreshing that race was not an issue, but that the privileged rich girl at the center of it was Black. However, as it went along, some of the things she did in the name of completing these missions went way too far for me. I know that was partly what the book was about, but I lost some sympathy for her. Now, I did like the way the ending took that into account. And I did thoroughly enjoy the story. But here\u2019s fair warning: You won\u2019t want to try any of these things at home.<\/p>\n

Sohoteen.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Buy from Amazon.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Find this review on Sonderbooks<\/a> at: www.sonderbooks.com\/Teens\/ride_or_die.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.<\/p>\n

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.<\/p>\n

Subscribe<\/a> for more reviews and talk about books.<\/p>\n

Join the conversation: What did you think of this book?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ride or Die by Gail-Agnes Musikavanhu Soho Teen, 2023. 368 pages. Review written July 31, 2023, from a library book Ride or Die is the story of a rich Black teenage girl named Loli who likes to shake up expectations. She\u2019s gotten into trouble many times, but her best friends Ryan and Cairo always back […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contemporary","category-teen-fiction-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43404"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45788,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43404\/revisions\/45788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}