Preview of Way Past Cool Summary:

Some may find reading this novel difficult. Way Past Cool may be the bluntest, most straightforward novel about innercity teenage gangs—especially junior high school gangs—ever published, delving deeper and more harshly into the lives of innercity street life than even S. E. Hinton's landmark novel The Outsiders (1967; please see separate entry). The almost hopeless lives that Way Past Cool's youngsters endure and the way they accept brutality as an everyday part of their lives can be very disturbing to read. Mowry compounds the edgy uneasiness of his story by showing how gang members have concerns common to most American young adults—such as homework, getting along with difficult teachers, watching children's programs on television, and striving to fit in with other kids by wearing fashionable clothing and shoes. This mixture of ordinary adolescent cares with the "rules" of gang behavior and the frankly...