Writers of Color 50 Books Challenge

(I'm so far behind in reviewing that I've skipped forward a little; I will go back and do the books I read in October, though, and hopefully catch up by the end of this month.)

#39: Jenny Han, Shug

Annemarie Wilcox, nicknamed "Shug" by her family, is just starting junior high, and a lot of things are changing. Her family is showing the strain of the constant fights between her parents, her friends are more interested in boyfriends than in girlfriends, and Shug herself suddenly has a crush on Mark, the boy she's been best friends with forever. But everything is changing too fast for Shug, and she wonders why she can't just stay a kid.

This is slightly lower in age range than the YA I normally read, but it's rewardingly rich, more complex than it seems at first glance. Shug's family in particular is beautifully observed: her beautiful, alcoholic mother; her often absent father; her pretty sister Celia, nearly ready to leave the nest; and Shug herself, whose voice is pitch-perfect, poised on the verge of young adulthood but uncertain of how to get there. As she also does in _The Summer I Turned Pretty_ (which I read in July and really liked), Han does an excellent job of capturing that uncertain time when a girl starts to turn from a child into a young woman.

#40: Zetta Elliott, A Wish After Midnight

Fifteen-year-old Genna lives in Brooklyn in a cramped apartment in a crime-filled neighborhood and dreams of a better future and a career as a psychiatrist. Her only consolations are her boyfriend Judah, who's from Jamaica and wants to go back to Africa, and her nearly daily visits to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, where she tosses a few coins into the fountain and makes a wish. One night, when she flees into the garden after a fight with her mother, she is transported back in time to Civil-War-era Brooklyn, into a time of racial tension and outright rioting.

Genna is a wonderful character -- tough, smart, resourceful, and thoughtful -- and the rest of the characters, while we don't get to know them as thoroughly as Genna, are vivid as well. Also vivid are the settings: present-day and past Brooklyn, which are both beautifully evoked in their differences and in their similarities. The historical details are telling, but never bog down the narrative. Elliott's presentation of racial issues is complex, both in present and past: Judah feels solely African and wants to go back to Africa, while Genna feels that she is also American and wants to reconcile the different parts of her heritage.

Clearly there are comparisons to be made here with Octavia Butler's excellent Kindred, and Elliott's book stands up very well to the comparison. It made me think of Kindred (and think that they would be very good back-to-back reads) while never making me feel that it was at all imitating it.

I should also note that there is at least one major plot thread left unresolved, and that Elliott is apparently working on a sequel, Judah's Tale, which I eagerly anticipate.