When first reading The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater I was interested in the character Sasha, an agender teen, and was excited to experience their story. After reading the book I felt let down. The beginning brought so much hope with the great character development and  fascinating plot, but then it all came to a halt. This novel started to read more and more like a research paper rather than an engaging story with vivid images and nuanced characters. We lost the essence of what a YA reader needs in order to be engaged in a book. Even though this book could bring excitement for some audiences who enjoy research and true crime, I didn’t fit in that category. 

The 57 Bus is a true crime novel that focuses around two teenagers, Sasha and Richard, who are much like polar opposites. Sasha is a teen who doesn’t identify as either male or female, they have grown up with lots of opportunities due to their economic status. Richard on the other hand comes from a sketchy neighborhood and struggles at school. This book connects these two teens through a disturbing accident which leads into an ongoing journey through the justice system. 

Slater starts the book with a “Sasha” chapter where we learn about their life, their identity, friends, and their family. We begin to feel for them and begin to connect to Sasha. Then Slater takes it all away. After the accident occurs Sasha becomes a shadow disappearing into their own world and leaving the story. I thought this was a bad decision on Slater's part. What YA readers need are engaging and powerful characters with powerful emotions. Slowly erasing them from the story leaves us with nebulous facts and insignificant details. As for the other main character, Richard, he started to be more of a statistic in the “Justice” chapter. Slater never gave us the chance to feel for him and to understand how he felt throughout the book. In the end of the novel, Dashka Slater has a list of many statistics. A few of them include: Number of juveniles held in correctional facilities on any given day: 54,148. Percentage of juveniles who are African American: 16. Number of people currently serving life sentences without the possibility of parole for crimes committed as juveniles: 2,570” These quotes strengthen my argument that the character Richard had no depth to him and is only used to represent a statistic and not a fully developed and engaging character. The statistics are talking about young African American boys who have grown up without much economic opportunities. Who do you think that’s describing? Richard.  

 I was so excited after reading the “Sasha” section, but after that my positive opinion on the book diminished. Dashka Slater is known as a journalist and that is probably one of the reasons that this book reads as a nonfiction article. Additionally, The 57 Bus is a true story so Dashka Slater didn’t really have any leeway to create an impacting and exciting novel. She just had to stick to the true facts. The 57 Bus had a chance to be great due to the interesting characters and the engaging accident, but Slater took out the captivating and appealing parts of the book which left us with banal facts and aloof characters. 

Now don’t get me wrong, learning about justice and inequality is an extremely important issue. Throughout this year especially with the BLM protests, I’ve become more interested in the issues of social inequality. However, the way Slater writes this book is less successful with YA readers than books such as: The Hate U Give, Dear Martin, All American Boys, and Stamped. These are the types of books I feel engaged in. In those books we are learning through the eyes of well developed and lovable characters. There is excitement and emotion in those stories that I don’t feel in The 57 Bus. The 57 Bus spreads the same themes as these other books, like LGBTQIA+, justice system, privilege, and poverty, but doesn’t generate emotion to make me want to read the book. 

Ultimately even though The 57 Bus shows us the truth of the justice system, it doesn’t give us the emotions of characters that are vital for young adults to stay invested in a book.