This is a difficult book to rate. Since only about 25% of the book was about the Chicago Race Riot of 1919 (and not the bigger issues of the 100 years preceding it), I felt this was a bit misrepresented. The first 20% or so of the book really grabbed me. The narrative of the five young boys who went swimming at the lake on a hot summer's day was relatable and captured my interests. Then, the book spiraled back to slavery and onward as it related to Chicago's ethnic makeup and conflicting interest groups. I appreciated this background information, but it quickly became too much and I lost the interest built up from the narrative. I wanted to know how the surviving boys dealt with the death of their friend and how that led to a race riot. Unfortunately, I had to slog through an information dump about Chicago's packing houses to get to it, and when I did get to the aftermath of Eugene's death, it was rushed and told only in bare-bones facts.
The poem at the end was probably the best part of the book, and it didn't belong to the author.
So, if it weren't for my reading challenge and the fact that this is a short book, I probably would have put it down around halfway through, just because this book wasn't what I thought it would be.
But hey, I did learn a lot about slaughter houses that reminded me of Upton Sinclair's [b:The Jungle|41681|The Jungle|Upton Sinclair|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1332140681l/41681._SY75_.jpg|1253187], so maybe the author should have retitled the book and focused on Chicago's meat packing industry instead of the Race Riot of 1919.