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If you're black you don't have to march to pay dues, Diane. You pay dues just by breathing.This was an unexpectedly holistic delight. it is technically YA, but it's YA that doesn't pretend everyone had a PG/PG-13 childhood, and so it rings more true in a historical fiction sense (1960s-early 1970s Chicago, USA) than most middle/high school narratives do. It's a coming of age, but it's a real, black, and queer coming of age, replete with tackling antiblackness, queerphobia, Malcolm X, MLK, sex changes, improvement of black education, bleaching creams, and other cultural artifacts that really aren't that aged or irrelevant, even when semi-cloaked behind 60s-70s AAVE. As such, I couldn't recommend this to a child unless the parents were comfortable with it, but it would be good high school or even early college reading material if the school isn't mature enough to tackle works like [b:The Color Purple|11486|The Color Purple|Alice Walker|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1386925078s/11486.jpg|3300573] (trigger warnings required, of course). The messages are affirming, especially the last less than clear cut stance on sexuality, which I wish I had had at the end of my high school career, painful as the associated events involved in the discovery were. In the end, this is an odd duck of young eyes and mature themes, and YA/NA would benefit, if they aren't already, as genres if more works embraced such a balance.
I can't believe they're beating white kids like that.As someone who's in a transition state, albeit of a more bachelor, self-supporting variety, I can sympathize with Jane Stevenson's, aka Stevie's, reactions to rapid changes and turnabouts handed out from the bounds of middle school to the edge of high school. Looking back, my own trajectory could have been much worse, as a number of Stevie's experiences reflect, but it also could have been a lot better, especially with regards to my becoming aware of the intricacies of my identity and finding some, if not a lot, of acceptance for it. Either way, Stevie's bildungsroman pulls no punches, and thus I could relate to it a lot more, cuss words and fear of sexual assault and all, than I usually can to such narratives, despite my being white. It was also fascinating to view the country shaking events of Malcolm X, MLK, the Black Panthers, and associated Afro American movements as a peripheral yet ingrained facet of the landscape. It went a ways towards humanizing the narrative that is so often tossed around as a pedestal no one would dare argue with, and while it never got down into the gritty details of black nationalism vs nonviolence, one has a better sense of what the world was like back then in terms of a history that had happened and the future that was yet to come. It gives me perspective on my own problems and allows me to relax a bit in the knowledge that I'm in a safe enough position to keep doing what I'm doing and going where I"m going. Bumps here and there are likely to always be frustrating as all hell, but that's what savings and three paychecks in one month are for.
This book was a hopeful entity during an ongoing trying time. People lie and take advantage of you, the long term end results are sometimes worse the incipient beginnings, hard work is sometimes despite all past failures rewarded, and if free time is sometimes thrust upon you, it's best to take advantage of it while you can. Much like Stevie at the end of this book, I'm eager for change and nervous as all hell, and while my situation is not as sustaining as it could be, it'll suffice until I succeed in getting something more relevant. There's not many similarities between 1960s/70s black urban teenhood and 2010's white suburban mid-twenties, but the cycles of joy and anger and success and failure are all the same, as is the need for a balance between professionalism and humanization, when to withhold out of courtesy and when to confide out of solidarity. That's not a message I expected to get out of a semi-YA novel at my age, but it's comforting during my minor crisis in capitalism, and it reminds me that I need to take care of myself regardless of what my brain tells me. I just gotta work on convincing myself of that.
challenging
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
Just recently reread this book. I hadn't read it in over 15 years and I still loved it. Its amazing at how relevant it is in 2019...I love how Stevie struggles to find herself and stands her ground!!!
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I think this book would really help a black middle school girl understand the complexity of growing up, identity, and social pressure. Given I am not the target age range, it was simply an ok read.
What a great book! If only I had had Stevie's confidence and integrity as a high schooler (or even now).
Ugh…
This book had such potential… and then it fell down the rabbit hole.
This book had such potential… and then it fell down the rabbit hole.
“Sometimes, your soul looks back and wonders how you got over.”
3.5 stars. This shows its age in a lot of ways, some of them good and some of them bad, but I can't help but have a lot of nostalgia for this type of young adult, coming of age narrative, especially one that features a young black girl growing up amidst rising tensions and the equal rights movements, beginning to question her sexuality. Stevie's voice is very distinct, and I liked following her from a young age, being relatively naïve, and seeing as she learns about the world, how it reacts to her, and we see as she learns about the ways she's affected by racism and sexism. This was written 30-ish years ago and it was set about 30 years before that, and so there are a few things that didn't always sit right with me. A lot of casual fatphobia, and the discussion of queerness was good, but not always great. (Although maybe my perception of that is being coloured by the fact that I have already started the second book, and I have some thoughts.) It would have been nice if the intersectionality was a little more nuanced, but it does make sense, given the time period, and given that Stevie is so young and just sort of learning about things. But I really did like this. These kinds of coming of age stories just strike a chord with me. She has a strained but loving relationship with her mother, who is a difficult woman, but it's easy to see that she just is who she is because of how racism has sculpted her. It's easy to sympathise with them both. Stevie learns a lot of the typical MG/YA lessons and morals, but it was great seeing it through the lens of this time, especially with regards to her sexuality. The ending chapters were really poignant.
Listened to the audiobook as read by Amber Patrick and really enjoyed it. I think she did a good job of capturing Stevie's personality, and also just the essence of the times in the 1960s. Again, I know this isn't my usual genre and I know it's not something that I would ever absolutely love, but I still had a good time and I'm already continuing the series.
This novel is the coming-of-age story of Jean "Stevie" Stevenson, a young girl growing up on the south-side of Chicago. I usually love reading books about Chicago, especially those that paint a rich and detailed picture of what the city was like "back in the day," but Sinclair falls short. Chicago is merely a setting to Stevie's story. Readers meet Stevie in elementary school, as she struggles with what it means to be popular. We follow her through high school were she is confronted with the need to make several decisions regarding her race and sexuality. Considering it is young adult novel, I'm sure young adults or 7th and 8th graders would enjoy the book.
I was going to rate this four stars but I went with five because the ending was so lovely and unexpected.