Angel was forced by her mother to move across the country to live in New York with her Uncle and start a new life. She misses her siblings terribly, but if she’s honest with herself she doesn’t blame her mother for trying to get her out of a challenging situation. Her Uncle is very kind to her and tries to help her get settled at her new school. She has a seminar class called H.E.R. which stands for Her Excellence in Resilience and Honoring Everyone’s Roots where she and her classmates are free to share and learn about each other. Angel becomes immersed in her lit. class where she has access to all kinds of amazing authors she previously never had time for since she was helping to raise her younger siblings. Reading these stories by authors such as Toni Morrison and Zora Neale Hurston gives her some time to reflect on her own situation and the choices she had made at her old school. Can she overcome her past to heal both inside and out? Can she focus on herself instead of worrying about everyone around her? Can she make new, authentic friends and find a way to shine at this new school?
This book is hard to put down until the very end. Angel is such a dynamic character and even though readers do not know for awhile what situation she is running from, it is obvious she is trying to heal in multiple ways from some terrible event. The way the author weaves in her poetry is also really engaging because it helps shine a light on Angel’s feelings in a way that prose can’t. The characters are all really interesting too, considering many of them only appear a handful of times yet are so memorable the reader welcomes them back each time. Recommended for readers looking for something that will make them think, because this book will lead readers to thinking about a variety of things long after the last page has been read.
Young Adult Book Reviews 