The Poet X, by Elizabeth Acevedo

The Poet X, by Elizabeth Acevedo

From my Kirkus column about The Poet X, by Elizabeth Acevedo:

Xiomara is fifteen, a sophomore, a twin, the daughter of Dominican immigrants. She’s an unwilling attendee of confirmation class, an aspiring poet, a girl who is beginning to find that the expectations and restrictions and assumptions laid on her shoulders—by her mother, her church, her peers, by societal culture—don’t just chafe: they restrict, squeeze, confine.

She’s angry, scared, yearning.

Her mouth is quiet but her heart and mind are clamoring to be heard.

As you may already know, I usually have a hard time writing about books that I especially love—my heart overrides and short-circuits my brain—and I am reduced to shouting, “JUST READ IT OMG” while throwing copies of it at people. So. Because talking about the book as a whole is TOO MUCH for me to handle, here are a few elements that I especially loved.