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A review by katiegilley
With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo
4.0
“I’ve had a lot of things to feel ashamed about and I’ve learned most of them are other people’s problems, not mine.”
This was an amazing book! Emoni is a teen mom in Philly living with her daughter and grandmother. She has a gift for cooking – she can look at a few ingredients in the fridge and start dreaming up a spice mix to make something unique and delicious. Emoni got pregnant her freshman year of high school but worked hard to stay caught up with her classmates and to graduate on time. Now it’s her senior year and she has a full school load, a toddler underfoot, a grandmother she constantly worries about, and a job at a fast food restaurant. She is feeling overloaded but an incredible elective is now being offered at her school: a cooking class that includes a trip to Spain.
Emoni is torn about even taking the class. Should she add the additional stress? Can she afford the trip to Spain? What about her grandmother and her baby — can she even leave them? And once in the class, she chafes at the rules and expectations set by the teacher. Why follow a recipe when she already knows how to make it better?
This was a beautiful coming of age story with a heroine we can all learn from. I love this author’s work – Emoni’s emotional tug of war leapt off the page and felt so real. I’m looking forward to more by Elizabeth Acevedo.
This was an amazing book! Emoni is a teen mom in Philly living with her daughter and grandmother. She has a gift for cooking – she can look at a few ingredients in the fridge and start dreaming up a spice mix to make something unique and delicious. Emoni got pregnant her freshman year of high school but worked hard to stay caught up with her classmates and to graduate on time. Now it’s her senior year and she has a full school load, a toddler underfoot, a grandmother she constantly worries about, and a job at a fast food restaurant. She is feeling overloaded but an incredible elective is now being offered at her school: a cooking class that includes a trip to Spain.
Emoni is torn about even taking the class. Should she add the additional stress? Can she afford the trip to Spain? What about her grandmother and her baby — can she even leave them? And once in the class, she chafes at the rules and expectations set by the teacher. Why follow a recipe when she already knows how to make it better?
This was a beautiful coming of age story with a heroine we can all learn from. I love this author’s work – Emoni’s emotional tug of war leapt off the page and felt so real. I’m looking forward to more by Elizabeth Acevedo.