walkitout: (Default)
Nella Acceber ([personal profile] walkitout) wrote2016-11-21 09:18 am
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_brown girl dreaming_, Jacqueline Woodson

Book group pick this month for Mayberry, NH (<-- not its real name). I got this copy from my local library (technically, it's from the Minuteman library network and comes from Goodnow).

It's prose. It's a super fast read and it is amazing how it just sinks into one's brain and the details just _stick_. Incredible writing, deceptively simple, and it seems clear from interviews (and from the content of this book, as it is a memoir) that that is both what the author intends and what the author is really, really good at. If you're wondering whether you should try a book by this author, the answer is, yes! Yes you should.

I don't generally go out of my way before reading a book club selection to research a book or author, the way I often do before reading a book _I_ pick. So I was quite startled to find partway through the book that she had been raised a JW. When she talks about the pink songbook and quotes a line or 4 of lyric, she caused my past to come right back out of its box and now I have that goddamn song stuck in my head again. Not likely to happen to most readers!

I'm looking forward to this evening's discussion, and may update this post after.