3.5/5 stars.

Full Review from my blog Owl Eyes Reviews

This book caught my eye when everyone on booktube started talking so highly about it. It really held my attention because I haven’t seen a buzz around a book by an author of color in quite a long time. I want to read more by authors of color this year, and I thought this memoir would be a pretty good place to start.
I was a little apprehensive to read this book because I have a really hard time reading books in verse. Every book that I have read that is in verse has not been my favorite. I’m not quite sure what it is, they just don’t sit well with me.
The prose in this book was really beautiful, it real like spoken word poetry. I really got into it at the beginning but, after a while, it started getting to me the way all books in verse do. When poetry is used solely to tell a story, you lose the poetry part and it just becomes a choppy story.
I really did enjoy the emotion that Woodson was able to share with the reader. It was the sole thing that kept me reading. It was quite interesting for me to read a memoir in this form. It was a very different experience for me.
In the end, I enjoyed reading this book. It wasn’t my favorite, but it was still a good experience.