“ The Necessary Hunger is a moving, insightful story about family, friendship, and young people coming of age with the cards stacked against them.” “Mesmerizing in evoking Nancy’s love for basketball…an artless soul-baring that grows deeply moving.” She creates a family, in all senses of the word, of characters who are complex, admirable, and aggravating readers will root for them on and off the court.” “Revoyr triumphs in blending many complex issues, including urban poverty and violence, adolescent sexuality, and the vitality of basketball, without losing sight of her characters.

“Quietly intimate, vigorously honest, and uniquely American…Tough and tender without a single false note.” on the way home from work and keep plowing through until you’ve turned the last page… It beats with the pulse of life…American writers dealing with race relations tend to focus on black-white or Asian-white situations Revoyr has the imagination to depict racial issues in which whites are not the reference point.” “ The Necessary Hunger is the kind of irresistible read you start on the subway at 6 p.m. It is about sports as a means of salvation, about the nature of competition, and ultimately about the various kinds of love. The Necessary Hunger is about families, friendship, racial identity, and young people who are nearing adulthood in a dangerous and challenging world. For others, however, stranded in an inner-city Los Angeles neighborhood that promises little in the way of opportunity, it will mark not only the end of their time in school but also the end of their hope.Īs Nancy and Raina both prepare to leave the urban neighborhood that has nurtured them, they find themselves looking toward a future that is no longer easily defined. For some of them, their senior year will be full of glory, and the anticipation of college. The Necessary Hunger follows Nancy, Raina, and several of their friends through their last year of high school. When Nancy’s father and Raina’s mother fall in love and decide to move in together, the girls are faced with the challenge of negotiating their already intense rivalry and friendship-and of living with the scrutiny of neighbors who react with varying degrees of comfort to their Japanese-American and African-American household. Faced with the college recruitment process and unsure where her skill will take her, Nancy is not prepared for meeting Raina Webber, an All-State shooting guard whose passion for basketball is matched only by her talent for it.

As a star basketball player in her senior year of high school, Nancy Takahiro’s life is about to change forever.

The necessary hunger by nina revoyr