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3.94 AVERAGE
3.94 AVERAGE
This was a really good and fascinating book! It’s about a girl who immigrated from Haiti to Detroit and her journey of navigating life in America. I found all the characters to be complex and each had distinguishing personalities. I also really enjoyed the cultural reference to the Haitian Vodou and the lwas that Fabiola prayed to.
☞ 4.5 stars
☞ 4.5 stars
challenging
emotional
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
This was an interesting premise, but I wondered how many tropes of poverty/gangs/drugs in Detroit were accurate and which were dramatized.
I loved learning about Haitian culture and the peppering of French & Creole words. Suspenseful plot that keeps a reader's attention.
Takeaway 1: Know the rules before you play the game
Takeaway 2: The American dream is just as convoluted and messy as a literal dream.
Takeaway 2: The American dream is just as convoluted and messy as a literal dream.
In fairness, it is possible that the narration of this one contributed to my lack of love for it.
Exactly what I expected from the book jacket. Not a bad thing, but didn’t exceed expectations. Perhaps because I’ve read quite a lot of immigrant stories. This is a thriving and main stay genre in Canada, more so than possibly anything else.
Good plot structure & characters, but in terms of teaching — yikes! Profanity, voodoo, drugs, violence....
Zoboi has managed to pack a lot of good stuff into one book. Through the main character, we get the experience of a Haitian immigrant to the United States (Zoboi's own experience), including her bafflement at aspects of American culture, her surprise at the way things aren't always better in America, and her pain at being separated from her mother by immigration enforcement. Then, through her family, we see the complications of life in inner-city Detroit, where surviving means sometimes making choices that aren't on the right side of the law. It's a story brimming with complex characters who have to choose between bad options on every side as they try to find the metaphorical place where being American meets joy (represented physically by the cross-streets by the family's house).
The aspects I didn't like were all pretty small in the grand scheme of things, but they kept me from fully loving this book. I don't enjoy magical realism, and I wish that Zoboi had kept Papa Legba's character more ambiguous; for most of the book, it's not clear if Fabiola is just interpreting everything through a Haitian/Voudo lens or if he really is Papa Legba, but then we get a pretty concrete answer by the end. I thought the relationship with Kasim felt instalove-y, which I think was somewhat intentional in order to allow for the whole plot arc with Kasim over the course of the book, but it annoyed me nonetheless. I also had a hard time believing thatChantel would have gotten involved in selling drugs . And I found two of the main plot twists predictable, though I didn't guess that Dray had killed Fabiola's uncle .
If you're already not a fan of YA, I don't think this book is going to change your mind, but if you do enjoy YA or you're open to it, I think this is a great book to read. And if you don't already know a lot about Voudo or the American immigrant experience, this is definitely worth picking up.
The aspects I didn't like were all pretty small in the grand scheme of things, but they kept me from fully loving this book. I don't enjoy magical realism, and I wish that Zoboi had kept Papa Legba's character more ambiguous; for most of the book, it's not clear if Fabiola is just interpreting everything through a Haitian/Voudo lens or if he really is Papa Legba, but then we get a pretty concrete answer by the end. I thought the relationship with Kasim felt instalove-y, which I think was somewhat intentional in order to allow for the whole plot arc with Kasim over the course of the book, but it annoyed me nonetheless. I also had a hard time believing that
If you're already not a fan of YA, I don't think this book is going to change your mind, but if you do enjoy YA or you're open to it, I think this is a great book to read. And if you don't already know a lot about Voudo or the American immigrant experience, this is definitely worth picking up.