Xiomara Batista, fifteen, a first-generation Dominican American sophomore in Harlem, feels watched for her developing body, silenced at home, and unheard at school. Her mother, a devout Catholic who gave up her own youthful dreams, presses Xiomara toward confirmation and strict obedience; her twin brother, her distant father, and church offer her little room to speak. In private she fills a leather notebook with poems — about faith she is losing, desire she is not allowed, a lab partner, Aman, and anger she cannot voice aloud. When an English teacher invites her to the school's slam poetry club, performing becomes both a risk of exposure and a first experience of being fully heard. Acevedo, a National Poetry Slam champion, tells the story entirely in verse. Her debut novel won the 2018 National Book Award for Young People's Literature, and later the Michael L. Printz Award, the Pura Belpré Award, and the Carnegie Medal.
Author: Elizabeth Acevedo · Original publisher: HarperTeen (New York), 2018
