I read this book as part of my book club, which normally reads YA or middle grade award winners, but we're shifting at least temporarily to award-winning adult novels. One thing this book has in common with YA is that it's a coming of age story about a 13 year old boy, but the way it tells the story of his family is definitely aimed at an adult reader.
The story starts out in the POV of Jojo, who lives with his grandparents, his mom and his three year old sister Kayla near the Mississippi coast. Jojo's mother Leonie is black, and his father Michael is white and from a family that doesn't recognize his biracial children. Michael is up in the state penitentiary in the Mississippi Delta, and the narrative of the book really begins when we learn he's about to be released and Leonie takes their children on a road trip to pick up him.
The POV switches back and forth between Jojo and Leonie and one other character midway through the book, and it's an incredibly effective way of describing a family and an existence that is ruled by extremes. I found Jojo to be a very sympathetic narrator and Leonie to be a challenging one, because her choices are so easy to censure from the outside and yet from within her experience it's hard to know what other choices she had.
The subjects and themes of this book were difficult to deal with. The story lays out with crushing clarity the direct line between slavery and mass incarceration, and the cycles of oppression and hurt that play into every aspect of Jojo's family and life. One of the main strengths of the book is how beautiful the writing is, so the reader really feels the hurt and injustice and hopelessness of it all. It's the story of America few people want to hear, and it must be heard, and I hope this book becomes a part of high school curriculums like The Grapes of Wrath is. I doubt it will, for exactly the reasons you would expect, but it should be. The writing is harsh and visceral and necessary, and it's a story that will stay with me for a long time.
Grade: A
The story starts out in the POV of Jojo, who lives with his grandparents, his mom and his three year old sister Kayla near the Mississippi coast. Jojo's mother Leonie is black, and his father Michael is white and from a family that doesn't recognize his biracial children. Michael is up in the state penitentiary in the Mississippi Delta, and the narrative of the book really begins when we learn he's about to be released and Leonie takes their children on a road trip to pick up him.
The POV switches back and forth between Jojo and Leonie and one other character midway through the book, and it's an incredibly effective way of describing a family and an existence that is ruled by extremes. I found Jojo to be a very sympathetic narrator and Leonie to be a challenging one, because her choices are so easy to censure from the outside and yet from within her experience it's hard to know what other choices she had.
The subjects and themes of this book were difficult to deal with. The story lays out with crushing clarity the direct line between slavery and mass incarceration, and the cycles of oppression and hurt that play into every aspect of Jojo's family and life. One of the main strengths of the book is how beautiful the writing is, so the reader really feels the hurt and injustice and hopelessness of it all. It's the story of America few people want to hear, and it must be heard, and I hope this book becomes a part of high school curriculums like The Grapes of Wrath is. I doubt it will, for exactly the reasons you would expect, but it should be. The writing is harsh and visceral and necessary, and it's a story that will stay with me for a long time.
Grade: A
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