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A review by scribblerrva
The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo
3.0
A young Hispanic girl who has an overbearing/pious/traditional-minded mother wants to break free from her mother’s oppressive grip and experience life and express her creativity.
I’ve read this book before.
Twice last year.
“The First Rule of Punk” and “Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass”.
Two of these three books are about presumably attractive high-school-aged Latinas who are ogled by nearly every male they come across while at the same time are either bullied or harassed at school with varying degrees of intensity. They both get into arguments with their mother (to varying degrees of intensity) and run away from home and into the arms of some dude they know, with whom they caught up in a moment of passion and stop when things are about to venture over non-YA territory.
All three of the books end in a similar fashion, with varying degrees of resolution and mutual understanding between mother and daughter and they all live happily ever after.
The primary reason I’m only giving this book three stars is because of the style of narrative. It read like a traditional novel without being written like one. I thought it was a bold choice and one that definitely fit with who the main character was and what she was about.
All three of these books, this book and the other two I mentioned, are Pura Belpré Award winners. I’m starting to sense a pattern among the books that have been the recipients and I am now terrified to read “Esperanza Rising”.
I’ve read this book before.
Twice last year.
“The First Rule of Punk” and “Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass”.
Two of these three books are about presumably attractive high-school-aged Latinas who are ogled by nearly every male they come across while at the same time are either bullied or harassed at school with varying degrees of intensity. They both get into arguments with their mother (to varying degrees of intensity) and run away from home and into the arms of some dude they know, with whom they caught up in a moment of passion and stop when things are about to venture over non-YA territory.
All three of the books end in a similar fashion, with varying degrees of resolution and mutual understanding between mother and daughter and they all live happily ever after.
The primary reason I’m only giving this book three stars is because of the style of narrative. It read like a traditional novel without being written like one. I thought it was a bold choice and one that definitely fit with who the main character was and what she was about.
All three of these books, this book and the other two I mentioned, are Pura Belpré Award winners. I’m starting to sense a pattern among the books that have been the recipients and I am now terrified to read “Esperanza Rising”.