Maddy Donaldo is a homeless young adult who survives the streets of San Francisco with her friends and dog Root. One day she happens across a murder scene and sees the presumed killer. This leads her to encounters with the police, the boy’s parents, and courtroom testimony. This was such an intense read, especially because it centers around homelessness, which is a huge point of contention in this country. I really enjoyed this book!

I’m conflicted about my thoughts on this book and I’m not quite sure how to rate it. This book was honestly not for me so rating this book is not at all easy and I want to be as fair as possible. The main problem for me is that I don’t really feel anything for this book. I didn’t hate it but I didn’t really like it either. What I was expecting and what it actually was are on two completely different spectrums. I was expecting this to be a more plot-driven read, considering the book starts off Maddy stumbling across a dead boy and his murderer; but this was much more character-driven, which I'm not thrilled about. I write this to say, I didn’t connect to or really care for the characters at all, thus I didn’t feel invested in this story, although I found the lens into homelessness in America intriguing enough to keep on reading. There is so much more going on with the plight of homelessness but this story makes it seem less dire than the real life situation.

Happy pub day to #AtTheEdgeOfTheHaight and welcome to my first #blogtour ✨
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Thank you to @netgalley @algonquinbooks @kr.seligman for sending me an ARC copy of this beautiful novel
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I love how this book captures incredibly difficult topics such as homelessness, anxiety, and grief, and does not try to glamorize them. The book follows homeless twenty year old Maddy and her dog Root as they navigate living in San Francisco following the murder of a homeless young boy. I highly recommend picking this one up today!
RATING: ✨✨✨✨

I can't remember if I've ever read a book where the main character was experiencing homelessness, so this was a unique and important perspective. It was emotional and humanizing, and I can see why it was the 2019 Pen/Bellwether prize winner for Socially Engaged Fiction.

Thank you to Netgalley and Algonquin books for this emotional and distinctive look into the struggles of homelessness through young Maddy’s eyes. There’s a range of emotions readers go through as the events of Maddy’s everyday life on the streets is suddenly interrupt when she witnesses a murder. Originally unsure of how or even where her life if headed, 20 year old Maddy’s is thrust into the middle of a police investigation, bombarded with questions from the grieving parents, and questions her own existence as she slowly comes to realize that maybe there’s more to life than what she’s seen this far.

While there have been mixed views on the debut novel, I found Maddy’s confusion, anger, and bravery extremely compelling. Initially one would assume that the murder she witnessed would be the focal point of the story, however it becomes apparently clear that it’s Maddy’s inner struggle of discover who she is and what type of person she wants to be.

This was such a great, heartstring-pulling read. I loved the friendships, pup-ships, and mystery. The hardships the characters faced were rough, knowing that so many Americans face these struggles daily. The characters were easy to connect with, even though I’ve never experienced their situations, and I wanted to give them hugs and support.

At the Edge of the Haight tells the story of a homeless youth, Maddy Donaldo, who lives with her dog, Root, in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. But one day she runs across a young man lying dead, and the man that is almost certainly his killer locks eyes with her. He tells her, “Keep a handle on the fucking dog…I know where to find your ass.”

I was invited to read and review this award-winning novel by Algonquin Books. My thanks go to them and Net Galley for the review copies. It’s for sale now.

At first, I am not sure I’ll like this book. It seems a bit self-conscious, a bit like a public service announcement or an infomercial. I wonder what I have gotten myself into. But about a quarter of the way in, it wakes up and begins to flow. It becomes my dedicated bathroom book, since I’ve been given a physical review copy, and I find myself brightening when I enter the loo. There are any number of places when the author has the opportunity to use an obvious plot device, but she chooses something better. By the end of the story I believe Maddy as a character, and I appreciate the way it ends.

My home town, Seattle, has an enormous problem with homelessness, estimated in the tens of thousands, and most of them are native Seattle-ites that have been priced out of the housing market. I know one of the people out there; others have squatted in my yard until my dog made them feel unwelcome. Not one part of this city is entirely free of tents, cardboard shacks, and other makeshift shelters. So this subject is never far from my thoughts.

The fact is that there aren’t nearly enough shelter beds, whether in open rooms with mats on the floor, hotels with doors that close and provide privacy, or other options, but in reading this book, it is also clear that there are times when it’s better to walk away from free shelter. Take our friend Maddy. The shelter she sometimes frequents is one where the probable killer has seen her. She can’t go there safely. There are shelters where she can’t take her dog. There are others that sound pretty good, but a night filled with the screams of a neighbor experiencing a mental health crisis make the private niche way deep in the park more appealing. The cops range from businesslike 3 AM bush beaters (“You can’t camp here!”) to the overtly cruel, and most of the homeless know better than to try to confide in them. And so it goes.

The main part of this story involves a couple—Dave and Marva—that are the parents of Shane, the murder victim. They live on the other side of the country, and they never understood why Shane wouldn’t come home. No one besides Maddy recalls having seen Shane, and so although she has only seen him once—dead—they latch onto her, vowing to help her since they couldn’t help him. Between their grief and ignorance, however, they bumble around and breach boundaries in ways that are outrageously presumptuous, and when they drag her to their home for Thanksgiving, they introduce her as someone that “knew Shane,” which of course she didn’t. Maddy feels bad for these folks, but she doesn’t want to be their project. It’s a bizarre situation for her to be in.

Though it is marketed as commercial fiction, I think a lot of teens would embrace this story. I suggest that Language Arts teachers in middle and high schools add it to their shelves, as should librarians. The vocabulary is accessible, and despite the quote I lead with, there’s very little profanity.

Recommended especially for teenage readers.

Every two years San Francisco takes a census count of the number of homeless people living on the city’s streets, in its shelters or jails. The count in 2019 was more than 8000 people without homes, a 17% rise from the count in 2017. At the Edge of the Haight won the Pen/ Bellwether Prize for socially engaged fiction because it calls attention to the myriad issues faced by people who are homeless through the story of Maddy, her dog Root, Ash, Fleet and Hope

The book starts with Maddy witnessing a murder in the park where she and her friends sleep. That sense of fear chases her through the book as she faces; being persistently moved on by the police, her dog being impounded, watching a friend overdose and being attacked for food and money. The concept of home, whether it is related to place or people, is explored, as are the difficulties of transitioning between the streets and life in the confines of a shelter or social housing

I felt at times as if I was observing the characters rather than truly engaging with them as the novel focussed on their external rather than inner lives, but what it conveyed with heart-breaking clarity was the daily, unrelenting struggle to remain safe. If you want a book that examines the nuance of a complex social issue then At the Edge of the Haight does that very well indeed
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for myeARC

Disclaimer: I received this arc and e-arc from the publisher. Thanks! All opinions are my own.

Book: At The Edge of the Haight

Author: Katherine Seligman

Book Series: Standalone

Rating: 3/5

Recommended For...: young adult readers, thriller, mystery, crime

Publication Date: January 19, 2021

Genre: YA Thriller

Recommended Age: 16+ (murder, violence, gore, death, homelessness, overdose TW, drug use, pedophilia mentioned, abuse (physical and emotional))

Explanation of CWs: Murder is central to the plot and there is some violence and gore in the book. Homelessness is experienced by the main character. There is an overdose scene. There is some drug use shown. There is implied pedophilia mentioned. Abuse is also shown.

Publisher: Algonquin Books

Pages: 304

Synopsis: Maddy Donaldo, homeless at twenty, has made a family of sorts in the dangerous spaces of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. She knows whom to trust, where to eat, when to move locations, and how to take care of her dog. It’s the only home she has. When she unwittingly witnesses the murder of a young homeless boy and is seen by the perpetrator, her relatively stable life is upended. Suddenly, everyone from the police to the dead boys’ parents want to talk to Maddy about what she saw. As adults pressure her to give up her secrets and reunite with her own family before she meets a similar fate, Maddy must decide whether she wants to stay lost or be found. Against the backdrop of a radically changing San Francisco, a city which embraces a booming tech economy while struggling to maintain its culture of tolerance, At the Edge of the Haight follows the lives of those who depend on makeshift homes and communities.

As judge Hillary Jordan says, “This book pulled me deep into a world I knew little about, bringing the struggles of its young, homeless inhabitants—the kind of people we avoid eye contact with on the street—to vivid, poignant life. The novel demands that you take a close look. If you knew, could you still ignore, fear, or condemn them? And knowing, how can you ever forget?”

Review: For the most part I thought the book was ok. It had some really good world building and the plot was intriguing enough to keep me going with the book. The book also had some fairly good moments.

However, I couldn’t really connect with this book. I couldn’t connect with the characters and they felt flat for me. The writing was disjointed and I didn’t like the back and forth of the book. The rest of the book was fine, but the characters really ruined it for me.

Verdict: Not for me but maybe for you.

This book is in turns tragic and frustrating and hopeful. I had to work hard to not judge some of Maddy and her friends' decisions, but I also thought she was a very realistic character. I had to keep reminding myself that just because we can offer solutions for other people's problems doesn't mean they will work for everyone. I highly recommend this well written book.

At the Edge of the Haight is a story that is too real in our world today. Homelessness is a huge problem and this book tells Maddy's story, a young woman who finds her community in Golden Gate Park. Their life and everyday struggles is written in a way that is heartbreaking at times and hard to read.

At the Edge of the Haight follows a homeless woman after she discovers a dead body in the park. We see her threatened by the perpetrator, bullied by the cops and her homeless cohorts about the issue. We get a glimpse of life on the streets, how each of the characters came to live the life they have and how they seem to be oblivious or disinterested in any attempts to help them. The murdered boy's parents take an interest in Maddy and want to do for her what they couldn't for their son. She repeatedly shirks their help and shows us that while her life on the streets isn't perfect, she is content.

I just did not get anything out of this book. I think it was intended to help build empathy towards the homeless and their plight but I found the characters really selfish. I am happy with non-conformity to an extent and I get that's a millennial thing but being lazy and just begging for money to then buy drugs just did not endear me to these people. I think the author was trying to show often times those who are trying to help are just enabling and not truly getting to the root of the issues. But the responses of Maddy and Ash to that help was overly selfish and truly unkind. I would have preferred for this story to focus on the murder and still give us a taste of the plight of the homeless without being as meandering and pointless as it was. Generally, I do not like to give reviews that are overly negative without offering what I liked about the book but in this case, I'm struggling with that. I liked the dog and that while the people were awful to one another, they did treat their animals well. There was an attempt to try to explain the impact of mental illness on this culture but it just didn't hit the mark for me.

Thanks to Algonquin for a copy. All opinions above are my own.

This just didn’t work for me at all. When Maddy stumbled upon the dying boy, I thought the book was going to be about trying to find his murderer, and while it was part of the story, his parents just made things weird. I didn’t understand why they kept insisting on getting to know Shane through Maddy when she told them many times she had never even met him. They were oddly fixated on her and trying to help her and I guess I was just left wondering what the point of the whole book was. The author did a great job of humanizing the homeless population, but the writing wasn’t great and the story was choppy.

While we got to know Maddy, the rest of the characters were very flat. We only saw them at the surface level. I feel there was a lot of potential here for a unique book on the homeless community, but it fell flat and never really got there for me

Thank you to Algonquin for inviting me to be a part of the blog tour for Katherine Seligman’s paperback release of At The Edge of the Haight.

Maddy is homeless. She lives in a park in San Francisco with her dog and some friends she met on the streets. She is not unhappy, her home life was not great and she feels like her actual family does not care about her as much as the makeshift family that she’s built throughout her days in shelters and the park.

One day Maddy stumbles upon the end moments of a murder. She sees the boy’s life leave his eyes and the murderer makes eye contact with her and threatens her. Now Maddy’s life is turned upside down. Even moreso when she tells her sort-of boyfriend and it gets out to the police that she witnessed it. Now she has the cops breathing down her neck and the victim’s parents begging for any sort of answers she can supply. As Maddy goes through this experience, she starts to question and learn what family means to her.

Algonquin invites me to read a lot of YA contemporary, which I enjoy since it isn’t my typical genre, so I feel like I might bring a different perspective to the books than someone who always gravitates towards contemporary. One of my biggest gripes about YA contemporary is the female MC is typically very immature and makes absolutely awful decisions (I was a teenage girl, I am speaking from experience here!). However, given this subject matter (being homeless), I had a feeling that Maddy wasn’t going to be the standard YA female, and I was right. She is a little more mature, a little more ‘street smart’ and wiser than the typical teenage girl…as you have to be if you’re going to survive on the street. She was a little stubborn, particularly with the victim’s parents willingness to help her and be there for her, but given her history it’s understandable that she would be reluctant to trust. That said, we do get a nice character arc, not just for our MC but for several of the characters.

The setting was my main reason for accepting the invite to this blog tour. I think anyone who has spent more than 5 minutes in San Francisco has had a love affair with the city. I always enjoy reading about places that I’ve been and love. Not to mention the more focused setting of our MC being homeless really sets a good scene for a unique story. The timeliness can’t be stressed enough, as San Francisco has always had a seedy underbelly and higher homeless population, but as of late is impossible to ignore or deny.

The story itself did drag a little bit to me. There was a lot of repeated conversations and a lot of the same internal dialogue, which I understand is part of the internal struggle the MC is experiencing while she figures out her path, but it slowed the story down to read the same thing varied several times. I liked the balance of the characters and their personalities. I think it is important to highlight that you can find good people in all walks of life, as well as bad people. This book doesn’t put homelessness (the act of being homeless) in a positive light, but it shows that we don’t always know everyone’s stories and it’s important to have compassion and understand life is different for all of us.

This story follows the life of Maddy, who is apart of the homeless community within San Francisco. She knows how to live - where to eat, where to sleep, where to shower, and most importantly, how to avoid the police. However, one day she witnesses the murder of a young man when chasing after her dog, and her world is changed for the worst. She has to face the killer, the police and the young man's parents who want to know what happened to their son and how he came to be in the park. However, this ends up with Maddy being reunited with her lost family by the young man's parents. This puts the question into Maddy's thoughts about who her true family is.

This book was powerful from the beginning, but then began to lose some power for me as the story went on. In saying that, I did thoroughly enjoy this book a lot more than expected. I find mystery books to either be hit or miss for me. I truly couldn't put the book down for over the first half of the book. I wanted to find out more about Maddy and her backstory, along with Ash and Fleet, and the other characters that were within the homeless community. It is definitely not an easy read, due to certain actions that the characters fulfil, that make you constantly be questioning them, but I also loved that aspect.

The way that Seligman thrusts you into a world that not many people, myself included, know not a lot about. This was definitely an eye opening reading experience. I truly didn't know what I was expecting, but this was everything and more. You can definitely tell that Seligman has done her research into the homeless community, as I felt like Maddy was incredibly well rounded and explained character. However, I did feel like Maddy's character was the only one to be fully explored and explained under the superficial level. I wanted a further dive into Ash's character and his backstory, along with Fleet as well.

I highly recommend this book to absolutely anyone and everyone due to the pure fact of pushing yourself out of your normal boundaries and reading and learning more about the homeless community, especially the fact that not everyone that lives on the streets wants to be saved.

Maddy Donaldo is homeless, living in San Francisco. She does her best to stay out of trouble and moves around with her dog and a small group of transients. She witnesses the murder of a man and she is thrown into an upheaval of how to protect herself while doing the right thing.

When she gives her account of what happened to the police, her life ultimately changes. This young man’s family comes to sort everything out and when they meet Maddy they want to help her get out of this life she is living. The one thing is Maddy is not sure she wants to change anything about her life.

There is also a mystery and Maddy delves into what really happened to this man and she starts to investigate this to find that answer out. This is more literary than your typical mystery.

This is a powerful story about a woman coming of age, and trying to find her place in the world. Her voice is strong, and although I did not always agree with her, she never took any of her decisions lightly. She is thoughtful, kind, but does not need or want to accept handouts, except for maybe some spare change. If you have not picked this one up, it might be worth going back and reading this one.

Thank you NetGalley and Algonquin for an Advanced Reader’s Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I really struggle with story. I understand homeless is one of the big problems in the US however, it was hard to gain empathy for this character. This is what I got from this story. The people who were homeless were perfectly happy and would whether getting high. When they are offered help or a job they turn it down. Bookending with unresolved murder plus a cliffhanger regarding Maddy and her mother.

Maddy is living a rough life on the streets of San Francisco. After living homeless for years, she has scratched out a routine of rotating though friendly businesses and places to sleep and forged friendships. While not ideal, Maddy has no desire to return to where she has come from. Life in Golden Gate Park suits her just fine, that is, until she stumbles across a murder in progress. Maddy is left reeling, not knowing what to do or where to go... or who she can rely on.
Katherine Seligman has written a slow burn mystery with elements of the life of a homeless youth, which many do not have insight to everyday. Her description of Maddy's routine and the characters she encounters appear realistic. Seligman's research shows through. While the book has a quality story, the ending felt anticlimactic. I respect the author's choice to not make a tidy ending, but wish there was a crescendo to the story.
#AttheEdgeoftheHaight #NetGalley

I lived in the Haight in the 90s and it was so much fun to remember and relive this neighborhood through this thriller.

I found this book to be very compelling, and what I enjoyed most is it didn’t seem to fall into so many of the clichés about homelessness that I expected. Maddy is complex and flawed, but not yet cynical, and her story is very compelling. You can understand her indecisiveness given what she’s been through.⁣⁣
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This was a thought-provoking read given the number of homeless you see all over—particularly in the San Francisco area.