The Poet X

This was so beautiful! Elizabeth Acevedo brings life to her stories through her narration and I knew I wasn't going to go wrong with choosing to listen to this as an audiobook.

This tackled issues with living in an extremely religious and conservative household that I am quite familiar with, especially growing up in the Philippines.
Although I can't say I have extremely religious and conservative parents, I most definitely have family members that are, and cousins + close friends that share Xiomara's experiences.

What I especially loved about Xiomara was her questioning attitude when it came to the church's teachings, and hearing her thoughts about her culture and the societal structure and standards that so clearly favors men.

Acevedo is incredibly talented and I love the way she writes her characters, gives them their passions and dreams, a voice, and a story that so many can relate to.

This is my 300th read of the year and I really wanted to choose something very good and memorable. Despite not being a fan of the poetry format much, I'm so glad I decided to pick up this audiobook because this amazing little novel written in verse is worth all the accolades it has received and so much more.

Xiomara is a fierce rebellious teenager who is very relatable because we all have gone through that phase. Only when we start getting to know her better do we realize that her journey is much more heartbreaking. Since she has grown into her body, she has been harassed in public and in school, touched and groped and catcalled; on top of that, she also has to listen to her uber religious mother guilt her more into believing that her body is responsible for all the unwanted attention she is getting, which only makes Xio want to disappear. However, as she grows up, she starts questioning everything - why she is supposed to believe all the religious teachings that she is taught blindly, why is it wrong to like a boy and how is it her fault when she is the victim of daily harassment.

I was not sure how much of the plot could be expressed properly due to the format but the author does a wonderful job. Listening to it in her voice also makes it better because it felt like I was reading it the way she intended. After being silenced for so long, when Xio finally discovers the power of words and poetry, I really loved seeing her come into her own. All the walls she had built around her to protect herself crumpled slowly and she let us see her true feelings. The poems truly give us a glimpse into the mind of a teenage girl going through puberty - her jumbled feelings about kissing and touching, about consent, about feeling comfortable within herself and feeling strong enough to put herself out there and most importantly, wanting to do all these things even though she is not allowed to. Her character development is just brilliant and it was a joy seeing her grow. Her relationships with her twin and best friend are also beautifully written. However, I did struggle a lot with her mother's character - she is definitely a troubled woman who lets her own personal guilt (or maybe shame) determine how her daughter should be and some might call her behavior overprotectiveness, but for me it was emotional abuse and sometimes physical too. Though the author tries to give us a sense that the mother-daughter duo are to trying to repair their relationship, I thought the ending was too simplistic and I would have definitely liked to see more remorse from the mother.

If you are skeptical about this book because of its format, don't be. Just pick up the audiobook and let the author take you on this wonderful journey into the mind of an amazing strong young woman called the Poet X who will blow your mind with her raw honesty.

This is another much-hyped book - and oh man, did it stand up to the hype. Told entirely through poetry, this novel was extraordinarily powerful, and had me sobbing near the end. Xiomara is an amazing character, and her poetry shows us her emotions more than prose ever could.

I've always loved poetry for that reason; especially poetry that plays with formatting - spacing and line breaks and size of stanzas. It's so much more evocative than simple paragraphs of prose. (My favorite poet is probably e.e. cummings, who is rather infamous for unusual formatting.)

Acavedo does similar things, making Xiomara's poetry explode across the page when necessary, and ordering it into simpler stanzas in calmer moments. It's not rhyming, even poetry; this is written slam poetry. And I love it.

Xiomara is Dominican, living in Harlem, with a very strict, religious mother. Her twin brother is gay but not out to their parents; Xiomara is fine with this but knows their mother won't be. Her poems cover her need to protect her brother and herself, both from their parents and from the outside world. She writes about street harassment and questioning God and falling in love with a boy, which is also against her mother's rules. Her poems are at turns heartbreaking and joyous, but always beautiful.

This is an amazing book, and is the second book on my Best of the Year list. I am blown away.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.

X got bars!!! Giving it the elusive 6th star. Was expecting to love it but was just stone blown away by it. Not a wasted word, such truth and clarity in characters (I KNOW these kids), and a gripping emotional arc. This story lives and breathes and will be air to the kids that need it. Must try to squeeze so many copies for the library from our tiny end of year budget. Brainstorming good pairings: Long Way Down, Gabi A Girl in Pieces, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, X, so many poetry books, etc.

This was my first novel written in verse and I was captivated.

I see why The Poet X won The National Book Award.

It is nothing short of brilliant.

And beautiful.

And heartbreaking.

I know only peripherally about the warring cultures she writes about but I felt her struggle. Daily battles with her mother, her classmates, her faith, her body.

Parents, have your teens read this book.

There is no cursing, no sex. Just real teen angst that on some level every person can relate to.

I chose Elizabeth Acevedo for the 52 week reading challenge- the prompt was A Book by a Caribbean author.

I found this on my daughter's bookshelf.

I am so glad I picked it up.

This is why I love reading challenges.

Acevedo has a truly beautiful literary voice, and her narration is flawless, I would highly recommend the audiobook.
I really wish I had read this book before Clap When You Land because I kept comparing it to how powerful Clap When You Land was and it really got in the way of me enjoying this book for what it is, don't get me wrong this book has powerful moments too it's just not as strong.

I loved this story, especially being told in the format of poetry- seems the only appropriate way to tell the story of a blossoming poet! I highly recommend listening to the audiobook version, as the author reads it herself with the raw emotion and energy of the words cutting through and piercing your heart. I'd love to listen again and have a hard copy to follow along to visualize the poetic structures, but for now I'll be thinking about X and this poetry for a while. I highly recommend it!

So so good. I'm a little overwhelmed with emotions right now. It's been a while since I've connected with a main character like this and seen myself in a story.  Our experiences and circumstances are different but there was a lot that really hit me in the gut. Things I've thought of, my complicated relationship with religion growing up, etc. I can't wait to read more by this author!

Wow this is a power and beautifully written book. I recommend listening to the Audiobook version. There were times it made me laugh and cry. It's a very powerful look at a girl learning who she is and how to relate and make peace with her mother.
(There are some sexual inferences that may not be appropriate for younger readers)

Единственное, что мне не нравится в творениях американских авторов, - это беспочвенный оптимизм. Да, очень хочется, чтобы все неприятности заканчивались хорошо: на помощь неожиданно приходил посторонний человек (отвергнутый парень, который глубоко в сердце продолжает тебя любить) или вселенная вдруг начинала аттракцион невиданной щедрости, подтасовывая события в твою пользу. Но правда в том, что со своими проблемами мы разбираемся сами (у каждого своя чаша, которую нужно испить до дна, и близкие люди не такие всепрощающие и понимающие, как хотелось бы) - так уж устроен мир.