Vinyl Moon
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4.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
A teen girl hiding the scars of a past relationship finds home and healing in the words of strong Black writers. A beautiful sophomore novel from a critically acclaimed author and poet that explores how words have the power to shape and uplift our world even in the midst of pain.
"A true embodiment of the term Black Girl Magic.” –Booklist
When Darius told Angel he loved her, she believed him. But five weeks after the incident, Angel finds herself in Brooklyn, far from her family, from him, and from the California life she has known.
Angel feels out of sync with her new neighborhood. At school, she can’t shake the feeling everyone knows what happened—and that it was her fault. The only place that makes sense is Ms. G’s class. There, Angel’s classmates share their own stories of pain, joy, and fortitude. And as Angel becomes immersed in her revolutionary literature course, the words from Black writers like Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, and Zora NEale Hurston speak to her and begin to heal the wounds of her past.
This stunning novel weaves together prose, poems, and vignettes to tell the story of Angel, a young woman whose past was shaped by domestic violence but whose love of language and music and the gift of community grant her the chance to find herself again.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
After a violent incident with her controlling boyfriend in California—one that ends with him "locked up" and her with a broken arm, a bruised eye, and internalized feelings of guilt—Angel's mother sends her to live with her uncle Spence in Brooklyn. At Flatbush's Benjamin Banneker High, Angel, who's cued as Black, feels weighed down by shame and misses her family. She begins to find solace in her homeroom/advisory class, "Her Excellence is Resilience & Honoring Everyone's Roots," with seven other teens, each facing her own struggles and pain. As the group's bond grows, Angel finds a new love of reading Black writers (James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, and Walter Dean Myers) and mixing music (a situation in which "I decide the vibe"), both of which slowly address her deeper wounds. In short, sharp chapters that interweave poetry and prose, Browne (Chlorine Sky) offers snippets of Angel's life before and after the incident, bringing readers into her growth and portraying with nuance a group of Brooklyn teens unpacking their traumas and finding their joy. Ages 14–up.
