“Better Must Come” is a fast-paced YA thriller, about two Jamaican teens caught up in the world outside the tourist industry

To truly pull off an action-packed thriller with a razor sharp timeline is a skill, which is why we were so intrigued by the plot of Jamaican American author Desmond Hall’s sophomore novel when it recently landed on our desks.

Released in early June by Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books, “Better Must Come” is a true YA thriller that tells the story of Deja and Gabriel, two Jamaican teens on two very different paths who are shaken when their lives suddenly intersect.

The studious Deja and her siblings are what is known in Jamaica as “Barrel Children” — the children of a mother who moved to the United States to work in order to support their families. Every few weeks, Deja’s mother sends her children money and a barrel filled with clothes and other essentials from “foreign,” the all-encompassing term used for the United States and Canada.

While the family misses their mother desperately, they know that they are completely dependent on her American earnings to pay for things like school fees and medical care.

Everything changes when Deja’s mother is robbed and hospitalized with injuries. As Deja tries to figure out how she can keep the family afloat through selling the fish she catches, she suddenly finds herself face to face with Jamaica’s dark side when she stumbles on a badly injured man on a boat. When the man urges her to deliver 500,000 in cash for her, she has to decide how much she is willing to do for her family.

We were so happy to receive press copies of “Better Must Come” from Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books. You can get your own copy here.

Asha: I hadn't heard the term "barrel children" before I read this book! But NBC had an article about them back in 2017:

Children like Lejeane whose parents move abroad, most likely for work, are often referred to as "barrel children," after the circular brown fiber or blue plastic shipping containers used to send material support to those that are back home.

Lakshmi: I had vaguely heard it but I didn’t realize this impacted so many children!

Asha: That too! And it is really sad that people have to leave the islands in order to be able to support their families.

Lakshmi: Also I loved that Deja’s dream is to show the world the real Jamaica — and not the sanitized touristy version.

Asha: Me too! It's so easy for people to stay in the resorts or stick to the touristy areas without seeing the real country.

Lakshmi: This book really pulls no punches. The discussion about how there are so many beaches that actual Jamaicans can’t use or visit! - that one really got me…

Asha: That was crazy to me! (I've never been to the Caribbean)

But you know what...that's probably true of some of the places I've been...where the resorts are right on the beach so only customers can access them. (I'm thinking of Mauritius in particular)

Lakshmi: We see that here too though! In California and Long Island (but this is 20x worse)

Asha: In California, at least, beaches have to be open to the public. From Fox5 San Diego:

“California’s constitution guarantees all citizens the right to use the state tidelands,” Locklin told FOX 5. “Access for all.”

But that doesn’t mean homeowners don’t try time and again to block access (see Sun Microsystems co-founder Vinod Khosla).

In Jamaica, the tourist industry is bringing in so much money, but none of it seems to be going to the regular people. So to get by, Deja supplements what her mother sends with fishing (while also going to school and taking care of her siblings...when does she sleep!), while Gabriel is part of a "posse", essentially a gang, that is involved in the drug trade.

Lakshmi: Yes! It sounds so intense.

Asha: Gabriel was abandoned by his parents and ended up in an orphanage, until his aunt came to get him – except his aunt had an ulterior motive: she needed the money she would get from the government for her addictions.

Lakshmi: And Gabriel does want to break away — but he doesn’t know to do safely

Asha: It's basically impossible to break away from a posse safely

Gabriel and his friends only know one person who has done it, and he became a priest!

Lakshmi: Gabriel is such an intriguing character…

Asha: He is…

Lakshmi: I think Gabriel’s story and his proximity to Deja and her friends also shows how close the drug trade is to all aspects of Jamaican life – “Ordinary” people don’t have to look far to connect themselves to the illicit drug trade

Asha: That part was what really surprised me!

Lakshmi: Yes! Very much same!

Asha: Gabriel doesn't really want to be in a posse but he also doesn't have many options

Gabriel stole a glance at Hammer, now standing inches away from the girl in the shorts. How could he leave his number one? Could he even leave the posse if he tried? Teago didn’t “let” his people simply “leave.” “It well complicated, mon.”

Lakshmi: One missed barrel also throws off Deja’s family’s education plans. It’s a very teetering system.

Asha: It's a pretty terrible system, and it's why Deja is so torn when the man on the boat asks her to deliver the $500k – she doesn't want to get involved in something obviously connected to the drug trade, but he does promise she'll get a monetary reward and she does need the money, but also taking the money from him makes her paranoid - who can she trust?

Lakshmi: I mean, imagine being 16 and literally being handed a suitcase of cash. Especially after your mother has just been robbed too!

Asha: Desmond Hall is great at writing tension - my paranoia also sparked just reading about it!

Lakshmi: YESSS. This book is stressful!

And the structure really is incredible. The whole narrative takes place in just a few days

Asha: It was a little confusing at first because he does some jumps back in time (this is the downside of not having a physical book), but once the characters and their relationships to each other had been established, it pretty much follows a linear timeline. 

Lakshmi: Each chapter notes what day it is and the hour and we see how every little decision Deja and Gabriel makes is really life or death (or close to it).

I liked Deja’s siblings too.

Asha: Yes, they were great!

Lakshmi: They are all really bright kids so of course any disruption in school would be awful.

Asha: Her sister being a typical suspicious middle schooler was perfect. This kid knows when something's up!

Lakshmi: And being the older sister, of course Deja is very cautious about who she tells the whole story too.

Asha: She's lucky she has some good friends who look out for her – because not knowing for sure who's involved in the drug trade, she's even suspicious about her pastor!

Lakshmi: It’s a very YA book in that ALL the adults are suspicious!

Asha: Haha, i don't think her uncle and his friends are suspicious, but everyone else basically is

Lakshmi: True true.

Asha: Also who wouldn't be paranoid carrying around that much cash!

Lakshmi: Can we talk about how this book talks about Bob Marley for a second.

So as we noted early, Deja wants to devote her career to showing the 'real Jamaica' to tourists

and you can tell the author Desmond Hall had a lot of fun including his thoughts on the sanitization of Bob Marley (and the Rastafari in general)

It was funny enough, but Deja knew a couple of Rastas—not the rent-a-dreads kind the tourists usually met, who were as much part of the Jamaican “amusement park” as Mickey Mouse was at Disney World. The ones Deja knew were righteous, peace-loving people. 

“I’d say smoking is part of their religion,” she said with a smile. She pressed her feet against the backpack, knowing it was still there but checking anyway, and went on.

“The government actually treated them badly for years because of their beliefs.” And what was it her mother had said? Oh yeah.

“In fact, even the great Bob Marley wasn’t always well treated by the government, at least not until he became ‘the great Bob Marley.’”

“No way,” a man with very cool American sunglasses on— Ray-Bans?—his mouth agog, said. “Why?”

“My mother said it was because they were different: long dreadlocks, prayed to Jah, smoking ganja. Of course, nowa- days you can have two ounces of ganja and it’s no problem. In fact, Rastas are now allowed to grow ganja plants on sacred grounds.”

Knowing that he was treated so badly by the government while he was alive (this is also what the recent Bob Marley biopic touched on) makes the fact that his music is used in tourism ads even more sad.

Asha:  Ah hypocrisy. That was a great section, I especially liked how she blew the tourists' minds.

Lakshmi: Here is the part about the beach that so struck me:

White sand so fine it was almost powder. A boundless canopy of blue sky. Jamaicans by the dozen. One or two tourists. A rare beach where the people born here were allowed to swim. Not reserved for tourists alone. Deja would work on integrating the turquoise waters when she made it into the tourist industry. A hope for a coming day.

So of course a tourist wouldn't see an ordinary Jamaican at the beach! It's perfectly possible to go to the Caribbean and never see someone who isn't a service worker…which is startling.

Asha: Very startling, and sad to me

Lakshmi: This passage is just a few paragraphs later and shows how the absence of a parent in the house puts so much pressure on Deja in particular:

Deja felt a glow—a surge of happiness. Other guys—they always said something stupid about fishing not being a thing girls did. Always. She focused on Donovan and Kaleisha and finally looked back and answered his initial question. “And . . . I don’t mind taking care of them. Not all the time, anyway.” She paused.

“But . . .” he encouraged, sifting sand from hand to hand—in no hurry. She dared to think he actually wanted to know.

“But . . . well, sometimes—it’s sort of like I lose myself a little. Taking care of them all the time makes me feel like I don’t have a grip on my own life.” She folded the paper bag she’d packed for their lunch. “I tell you what, I really feel for single mothers.”

Asha: Definitely.

We have to go soon but do you have a final thought?

Lakshmi: I just really enjoyed this book. Also, I loved Desmond Hall's bio! That’s where he notes he moved from Jamaica to Jamaica, NY!!

Asha: Ha!

Lakshmi: Ah, his bio also provides a clue as to why this book seems so cinematic:

Desmond Hall was born in Jamaica, West Indies, and moved to Jamaica, Queens. He has worked as a high school biology and English teacher in East New York, Brooklyn; counseled teenage ex-cons after their release from Rikers Island; and served as Spike Lee’s creative director at Spike DDB.

Asha: Ahhhh it all comes together

Lakshmi: I hope Spike options it!!

Asha: He should!

Each month, we’re sharing our current list of pop culture favs with readers! These are a few of our (current) favorite things!

What we are watching: 

Asha: Season 9 of Grantchester premiered this month on PBS, and as a lover of British mysteries set in small English villages in the mid-20th century, it’s been at the top of my list to watch. Especially since the new vicar is a British Indian “with the wrong accent” (aka, unlike the previous vicars, he didn’t go to Cambridge).  

Lakshmi: I’m in a little movie discussion group with friends and we just watched Argentine director Fabián Bielinsky’s 2000 film “Nine Queens” (originally “Nueve reinas”) and it was absolutely astonishing and I’m still thinking about it because it was the best kind of con man movie. If any readers watch it or have already seen it, write back so that we can exchange thoughts and theories.

What we are reading: 

Asha: I’m still on my Agatha Christie read-through, and I’ve just started “The Secret of Chimneys”, which is one of her stand-alone novels (so no Poirot or Marple), published in 1925. 

Lakshmi: I got to go to the NYC book launch of journalist Sonali Kohli’s debut “Don’t Wait: Three Girls Who Fought For Change and Won” and I’m so glad I did. It’s a slim young adult nonfiction book that profiles three very different California teens who are spurred into activism for three very different reasons. The book’s structure felt really fresh and it also contained one of the best explanations of the concept of restorative justice that I’ve ever seen.

What we are listening to: 

Asha: Recently, I went to see “Galileo” at Berkeley Rep, a new rock musical about who else, Galileo starring Raúl Esparza. Which means I’ve been listening to other rock musicals, specifically “Tick Tick Boom” and “Spring Awakening” trying to decide what the music reminds me of.

Lakshmi: I’m really enjoying the new Charli XCX album “brat.” I also really liked this recent Vogue Singapore profile of the singer (and appreciated the fact that the piece does go into Charli’s Indian Ugandan identity.)