The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo
Published 6th March 2018 by Harper Collins
Star Rating - *****
Goodreads Challenge - 35/50
Synopsis (from Goodreads)
A young girl in Harlem discovers slam poetry as a way to understand her mother’s religion and her own relationship to the world. Debut novel of renowned slam poet Elizabeth Acevedo.
Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, she has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking.
But Xiomara has plenty she wants to say, and she pours all her frustration and passion onto the pages of a leather notebook, reciting the words to herself like prayers—especially after she catches feelings for a boy in her bio class named Aman, who her family can never know about. With Mami’s determination to force her daughter to obey the laws of the church, Xiomara understands that her thoughts are best kept to herself.
So when she is invited to join her school’s slam poetry club, she doesn’t know how she could ever attend without her mami finding out, much less speak her words out loud. But still, she can’t stop thinking about performing her poems.
Because in the face of a world that may not want to hear her, Xiomara refuses to be silent.
Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, she has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking.
But Xiomara has plenty she wants to say, and she pours all her frustration and passion onto the pages of a leather notebook, reciting the words to herself like prayers—especially after she catches feelings for a boy in her bio class named Aman, who her family can never know about. With Mami’s determination to force her daughter to obey the laws of the church, Xiomara understands that her thoughts are best kept to herself.
So when she is invited to join her school’s slam poetry club, she doesn’t know how she could ever attend without her mami finding out, much less speak her words out loud. But still, she can’t stop thinking about performing her poems.
Because in the face of a world that may not want to hear her, Xiomara refuses to be silent.
My Thoughts
Content Warnings for slut shaming and harassment, body shaming, homophobia and parental abuse.
I'd seen so much praise surrounding this book and, although it isn't my usual genre, I thought I'd give it a go and I'm so glad I did. This book demonstrates to me how worthwhile it is reading something outside of your comfort zone. Contemporary fiction isn't my usual go to genre, especially when its written in verse, but this is a book I would recommend everyone read. Here are my thoughts...
What I liked
I'd seen so much praise surrounding this book and, although it isn't my usual genre, I thought I'd give it a go and I'm so glad I did. This book demonstrates to me how worthwhile it is reading something outside of your comfort zone. Contemporary fiction isn't my usual go to genre, especially when its written in verse, but this is a book I would recommend everyone read. Here are my thoughts...
What I liked
• It was a beautifully written coming of age story. The author did a great job of exploring lots of challenges faced by our main character, who is Latinex, and whose mum has a devote relationship with religion. The novel explored this relationship and it's impact upon our main character and how it affected her life. She spent a lot of time questioning her upbringing and exploring what it feels like to be, what she sees as, a 'normal' teenager. This part of the novel does get quite intense, hence the C.W. for parental abuse so if you have a problem reading about religion then please be aware of this.
• This novel also did a great job of covering lots of other hard hitting topics, especially body shaming, slut shaming and harassment. You are told about our main characters maturing body type and lots of boys take advantage of this. However, our main character does a great job of growing into herself and loving who she is. By the end it does give a really body positive message. The relationship between our main character and her boyfriend is also really positive, everything is consensual and he shows our main character a lot of respect.
• As I said before this novel is beautifully written. It is completely written in verse and this provided you with a fast moving and engaging story. The writing was raw and emotional and you felt everything along with our characters. I think the way the novel was written enabled me to feel connected to the main character.
• I loved the fact that as well as having the novel written in verse, poetry played a role within the actual plot as well. The use of this as a plot point demonstrated the importance of finding an outlet to be able to share your thoughts and feelings in order to overcome any negativity within your live.
What could of been better
• Not much really as you can see I loved this book however, if I had to picky I would say a full length novel would of been great as it would of given us an opportunity to explore the characters on a deeper level. That being said the format of this novel was fantastic so like I said I'm just being picky.
Overall I thought this was a fantastically thought provoking and emotional read. The story flowed really well and it covered a lot of important topics. I have listed the content warnings at the beginning of this review however, all of these things were challenged so please try not to let these put you off. This is one I would recommend to everyone, even if it is outside of your comfort zone.
Overall Rating
Not my usual genre but I've heard lots of positive feedback about this book.
ReplyDeleteIt's not mine either but definitely worth a read.
DeleteI like that it covers a lot of hot topic issues - thanx for the review
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by.
DeleteI want this one! Thanks for sharing
ReplyDeleteThanks for visiting.
DeleteBrilliant review.
ReplyDeleteThank you.
DeleteLovely review. Not something I would normally choose to read.
ReplyDeleteThanks it's not something I would of usually picked up either but it's definitely worth a try.
DeleteI think this is something worth experimenting with
ReplyDeleteGreat review, I've been hearing a lot of great things about this book, I'm really glad you fully enjoyed this book. Thank you so much for sharing your awesome post.
ReplyDelete