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A visual artist chronicles his rise from chaotic childhood to social-media popularity. Born in the South Bronx in 1996, Rodriguez lived in a single room with his abusive, drug-using, Honduran American mother and two half-siblings. His mother, he says, had little interest in encouraging his early interest in drawing. She once used one of his early artworks as a torch to light a stove: “She used to tell me that I was naïve,” he writes. “‘You gotta learn reality,’ she’d say. ‘This world is dark and twisted.’ She didn’t believe in protecting innocence.” His father was a “gifted tattooer” who “made me feel like becoming an artist was not just a dream but my destiny.” He was also mostly absent, moving from city to city, always one step ahead of “all these baby mamas…trying to find me, to sue me for child support.” If not for his Honduran-born grandmother, to whom the memoir is dedicated and who housed him in her humble but much safer apartment during his adolescence, Rodriguez would never have known unconditional familial love. Luckily, dedicated New York City public school teachers and, later, professional artists and other supporters he met by chance saw and encouraged Rodriguez’s artistic talent, particularly his ability to draw and paint the human face in all its forms and its expressiveness. “The subway was my gallery, and then, when I was fourteen, it became my classroom,” he writes. “My art teacher at Samuel Gompers High School, Mr. Harper, taught me that because of the diversity of people—the cheekbones, the foreheads, the mouths, all representing different ancestries—forcing me to stay sharp, the subway was the best place to hone my skills.” His curiosity and entrepreneurial spirit fueled his fame—he now has tens of millions of followers on social media. His prose, as vivid as his art, takes the reader on a wild, exhilarating ride that is, at turns, harrowing and hopeful but always honest and down to earth, even as he reaches new heights. A deeply affecting memoir. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.