CW: sexual assault/abuse

“What I discover now is that fire can live in your bones, that betrayal can strike the match and light your greatest fears ablaze.”

Rightfully on the National Book Award list this year, this novel told in verse easily rivals my favorites from Elizabeth Acevedo, in parts far surpassing the emotion achieved in the unique, sparse format. Ada’s voice is sad and strong and lively and awkward and real and wonderful. She volleys time back and forth throughout the pages, graduating high school and starting college at Howard, but traveling back to reveal her family’s past. Expected to be in all ways a Good God-fearing Girl, she carries an immense weight upon her back.

“I had never questioned how the Bible was the word of God, when many of the books were written by men whose names sounded American.... Words are powerful unless they’re not biblical, unless they’re not written by men, unless they’re unlike Jesus’ spit itself. Why can’t I pray outside of his name? Why is my name not enough?”

When she went to her first gynecological appointment because campus posters constantly remind everyone to be careful and get tested, and the visit is free, and she described the fear and the way her body clamped down... I knew for sure that this book was going to be heavy, memorable: “Down there is forbidden, is a safe with no key, is a hazard, is a pit bull’s jaw snapped, is a Venus fly trap, is a danger zone, is a dungeon, is a clenched fist, is a place you don’t touch, is a place he touched anyway, is a place I could not talk about, is a private thing, is secret, is unknown, is reason my head hung low leaving my eyes only proud enough to trace my feet.”