One of the prompts on the StoryGraph Onboarding Reading Challenge was to read a book that someone suggested for their Reading Women Challenge prompts. I took a look at that challenge and clicked through to see what people recommended for the "read a book by an author from the Caribbean or India." I skimmed through the suggestions until I found a book that I already owned - The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo (who is Dominican American). This young adult novel written in verse won an insane amount of awards back when it was published in 2018, including the Michael L. Printz award and the National Book Award for Young People's Literature. I've been wanting to read it for a while now, and this was the perfect opportunity.
This novel follows Xiomara Batista, a tenth grade student growing up in Harlem with her parents and her twin brother Xavier. Xiomara is an outgoing and confident young woman, which often causes her to clash with her parents. They are from the Dominican Republic, and they have a very strict, old-school parenting style. This is especially true of her mother, who is extremely religious and expects Xiomara to be just as devout. She also expects her daughter to take on a large share of the housework and has told her that she is not allowed to date until she is finished with college. This is tough on Xiomara, as she finds herself increasingly uninterested in her religion and increasingly interested in boys.
As an outlet for her feelings, Xiomara turns to poetry. She has a special notebook that she writes her feelings in everyday in the form of free verse poetry. This is also the way she narrates the entire novel, giving readers an inside look at her passion and talent for the art form. As the story begins, Xiomara finds herself at a bit of a crossroads. Her mother is pressuring her to attend confirmation classes and place more emphasis on church, but she is struggling with religious doubts and her heart isn't in it. Before long, she starts skipping her confirmation classes and attending a spoken word poetry club at her school instead. She falls in love with performing her work and excels at it. She also develops a major crush on a boy in her science class and starts a secret relationship with him. While she doesn't want to make her parents angry, the pull to follow her heart is stronger than her fear of being disobedient. Keeping up all these deceptions proves impossible however, and when her mother discovers what she's been up to, Xiomara must find a way to assert her independence without destroying her family relationships.
This was a beautiful and emotional novel, and by the time I finished reading, I understood why it won so many awards. As Acevedo is Afro-Caribbean herself, she was able to create an extremely authentic voice for Xiomara. Her culture was integral to the story and shone clearly throughout its pages. I really liked reading a story told from a perspective that is different to my own. I also really enjoyed the unique free verse structure, and found it to be both artistic and easy to read. I finished the novel over the course of three hours or so and was totally absorbed in the story the whole time. This is the kind of book that is much more character-driven than plot-driven, which worked well because Xiomara had such a distinctive, likable voice and showed clear growth throughout the story.
Another aspect of The Poet X that I appreciated was how Acevedo was willing to talk about issues that affect young women that I don't often see discussed in young adult literature. For example, the attention from men that girls start receiving after they reach puberty. Xiomara is a naturally curvy girl with a large chest, and this causes her to attract a lot of attention, both wanted and unwanted. She is interested in boys, and is flattered when they find her attractive, but at the same time, she has to fend off vulgar cat calls from strangers and be on her guard against boys touching her without permission. She feels split over the various reactions to her body, which is a completely realistic struggle that most girls go through. Even more realistic is how her maturing body changes her relationship with her mother. Once Xiomara has her first period, her mother becomes hyper-focused on her sexuality. She shames her for trying to use tampons (something that many women believe somehow affects your virginity), forbids her to date or even just hang out with boys, and calls her derogatory names when she discovers her secret boyfriend. This kind of overzealous maternal guarding of teen girls' sexuality is very common and the abrupt shift from being treated like a treasured kid to a suspected deviant is an upsetting fact of life for many women. I appreciated seeing it explored here. Also, Xiomara pleasures herself at one point during the story, and it was written respectfully and beautifully. I see this with teenage male protagonists fairly frequently, but this was the first time I read a female protagonist exploring this aspect of her sexuality. I thought that was pretty cool.
Ultimately, this is one of those novels where reading the summary on its back cover doesn't capture how special the book is. Elizabeth Acevedo created a truly emotional and satisfying coming of age story in The Poet X, and I'd highly recommend it to anyone interested in young adult realistic fiction. However, my recommendation is probably not needed at this point. I'm definitely really late to read this particular novel. Since its publication, Acevedo has written two more books. Both happen to be sitting on my shelves, waiting for me, and I've never been so glad to have stocked up on books I was only guessing I would enjoy.
Total Books Read in 2020: 61
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