An Empowering Novel

The Poet X

By: Elizabeth Acevedo

Genre: YA Realistic Fiction

Pages: 368

Published: 2018

Read:  December 2018

4 out of 5 stars

I love how REAL this book is. I think all readers (especially teens), no matter their ethnicity, will be able to relate to some aspect of this book. The reader gets to know and understand the ins and outs of Xiomara’s thoughts and feelings. With the book portraying a poet through the use of poetry the authenticity of story is enhanced. As a reader, one can feel that Acevedo carefully chose every word written and the powerful meaning behind it. All readers will resonate with every beautiful sentence. Acevedo writes about how to be a girl, a sister, a daughter and a teen in today's difficult world.

It’s an important read for everyone.

A great book of poems

Gmorning Gnight! little pep talks for me & you

By: Lin-Manuel Miranda

Genre: Poetry

Pages: 207

Published: 2018

Read:  January

4 out of 5 stars

First, I love the reason this book was published. Miranda would tweet a Good Morning and a Good Night every day. Some of his followers requested the poems be published in a book. He obeyed.

Some poems were inspirational, some funny, some very serious and some just plain old cute. Although I did not care for every single one, they were all well done. The ones that didn’t trigger with me were because I felt the Good Morning versus Good Night poems were too similar, repeating the phrases.

I would love to see these poems in a page-a-day calendar so you can read one every morning/every night. I guess I could do that on Twitter. Jonny Sun did a phenomenal job with the illustrations for each poem as well.

One of my favorites is:

Good Morning.

I know it seems like everyone left

without you for the party

and those stepsisters suck,

but us woodland creatures are on your side.

Good night.

I know it seems like everyone is at the Prince’s ball

all the time,

but it’s okay to go home before midnight.

Kick off your shoes.