By Safia Elhillo
Make Me a World, 2024. 368 pages. Young Adult
Samira is determined to have a perfect summer filled with fun parties, exploring DC, and growing as a poet--until a scandalous rumor has her grounded and unable to leave her house. When Samira turns to a poetry forum for solace, she catches the eye of an older, charismatic poet named Horus. For the first time, Samira feels wanted. But soon she's keeping a bigger secret than ever before--one that that could prove her reputation and jeopardize her place in her community.
This was such and emotionally intense book, full of believable characters and realistic situations. Samira struggles to find her own place in the world under the watchful eye of her mother, so when she retreats to an internet forum and finds someone who expresses appreciation for her work, it’s no wonder she latches onto that approval. Yet, the reader sees the red flags. I really appreciated this thought-provoking coming-of-age novel. It reminded me of some of my own teen years and situations I could have fallen into, but managed to avoid, not fully recognizing the red flags in my own life. Very well done.
If you liked Bright Red Fruit, you might also like:
By Elizabeth Acevedo
Harper Teen, 2018. 361 pages. Young Adult
Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, she has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking. But Xiomara has plenty she wants to say, and she pours all her frustration and passion onto the pages of a leather notebook. when she is invited to join her school’s slam poetry club, she doesn’t know how she could ever attend without her mami finding out, much less speak her words out loud. But still, she can’t stop thinking about performing her poems, because in the face of a world that may not want to hear her, Xiomara refuses to be silent.
By Olivia A. Cole
Labyrinth Road, 2023. 377 pages. Young Adult
Sixteen-year-old Alicia Rivers has a reputation that precedes her. But there's more to her story than the whispers that follow her throughout the hallways at school--whispers that splinter into a million different insults that really mean: a girl who has had sex. But what her classmates don't know is that Alicia was abused by a popular teacher, and that trauma has rewritten every cell in her body into someone she doesn't recognize. To the world around her, she's been cast, like the mythical Medusa, as not the victim but the monster of her own story. Alicia was abandoned by her best friend, quit the track team, and now spends her days in detention feeling isolated and invisible. When mysterious letters left in her locker hint at another victim, Alicia struggles to keep up the walls she's built around her trauma. At the same time, her growing attraction to a new girl in school makes her question what those walls are really keeping out.
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