The Poet X

As a Dominican woman I have never read a book about someone that is Dominican. I haven't seen myself in a character like I did when I read this book. I bet y'all already know what I'm giving this book.

5/5☆

The writing was beautiful, The whole book is written in verse and all of the verses make a story. I loved the fact that there was parts that were in Spanish and that the Spanish words weren't italicized. In every book that has a Latinx character, when they speak in Spanish it's always in italics. And this one tiny detail means so much to me and I know it means alot to other Spanish speaking readers.
I loved the characters, Xiomara, Xavier, and Caridad were my babies. Bro I even lowkey loved the parents. I saw myself in both Xiomara and Caridad because I've had that part in my life where I wasn't into going to church I questioned everything. My parents wanted me to do one thing when I wanted to do another. Almost everything Xiomara was going through I've gone through too. Y'all Dominican parents don't play, they crazy. But I see myself now like Caridad where she made a choice to go to church and is so caring and always has her friends back no matter what.
I am so happy this book exists because now Latinx teens can have a character to relate too. I didn't have someone like that almost every book I read as a kid were about white kids. And even though I did see a bit of myself in some of them. But it's different when you can fully see your self being represented in a book. And that's beautiful!

Representation is important.

 I just finished listening to this audiobook, and the author did an outstanding job narrating it herself, and the story itself felt very raw and realistic, I can hear X and the author at the same time, as a latina myself  I can understand the struggles she faces, how religion is indoctrinated to us at such young age, how we're forced to believe and teached to follow the commandments even if we don't really grasp the meaning behind them. 

 “When I'm told to have faith in the father, the son, in men – and men are the first ones to make me feel so small.”

This is the YA material the world needs. The themes of sticking up for what you believe and questioning everything pressed on you by the adults in your life is much more important than falling in love with manipulative vampires. There also is the incredibly important calling out boys for not checking other boys when they publicly abuse women. I love the poetry style writing and the different cadence choice on each page. Xiomara continued to grow throughout the story, starting out boy crazy, obsessed with a first kiss, to becoming a passionate slam poet who writes about the tumultuous relationships in her life. I read this in a little over 4 hours. An amazing read.

Xiomara Batista, a young Latinx in Harlem, finds she can only speak of her true experiences and her true feelings in the poetry she writes constantly in her notebook.

Xiomara and her mother conflict over religion and Xiomara's desire to have a boyfriend. Xiomara is closed off from most of her teachers and fellow students at the high school. Her twin brother gives her a notebook and encourages her to write about her experiences and her feelings, and Xiomara does this, and here in the notebook, Xiomara discovers her gifts.

This is a beautiful story of a daughter and her mother as they navigate the difficult waters of leaving a child-adult relationship and moving toward an adult-adult relationship. It's the story of a girl trying to find her own voice, trying to do and say the things that seem right and true for her.

And it's all told in free verse.

Deep BreathSCREAMS FOR 47 YEARS Oh my GOD this was so so SO fantastic and heart wrenching!!!! Everyone NEEDS to read this book!!!! I really can't do it justice, it's just so GOOD!!!!! Books like The Poet X are so so SO important, Especially right now!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This book was so amazing it was hard to put down.
I really loved how it's written in verse. It's certainly not for everyone but it really helped me feel immersed in Xiomara's mind. She ended up being a really relatable character even though we have basically nothing in common. I love characters that provide that connection. Literally everything is just so beautiful I don't even know how to properly explain it.

I read this book as an audiobook and holy crap once I started listening to it, I couldn't put it down. It was a short book– about 4 hours if I remember correctly– as it's told completely in verse. But holy crap, this book. The things Xiomara goes through, the things her brother goes through... my heart ached for them. I want more of Xiomara's story. I felt like at the end she was finally coming into her own and though a sequel isn't necessary, I loved this main character and this book so much that I would gladly read more about where her life goes from there.

I read The Poet X through the audiobook, which was really good! I thought it was wonderfully written. I even teared up a few times. There were moments where I could completely relate to her struggles. I loved that she had Twin as her support system- someone who understood her but not completely. Her wanting to be heard was loud enough for it to reverberate through the writing.

I am a sucker for a happy ending. But I didn't think The Poet X needed one. But her struggles with her place in the world, religion and her family were swept under the rug towards the end. Xiomara had so much more to learn and go through. So, the happy ending felt like a pretty ribbon was tied in a bow to her story.

I loved the discussions of religion, sexual harassment, family expectations. But keep that in mind before going into this book, it can be a bit tough!

It is rare that I encounter any book with a character that shares the same name as my brother. It is even rarer that the character not only has his name, but shares the way he looks, and his mannerisms. I could see my young brother in Ms. Acevedo's novel-in-verse, and I could see my young self in the pursuit of slam excellence, and I could see my friends and everyone I knew in high school in every part of this book. The Poet X is not just a beautiful poem to growing up and coming of age, but an ode to the diversity of experience we don't see often enough on the page.

“I stand on a stage and say a poem. There is power in the word”

This is an easy 5 stars. I love poetry. I love reading. Mixing the two together the way Elizabeth Acevedo does is magic. Her flow, her words, her emotion are truly amazing. Poetry is hard because it's personal, and when spoken or written it bares not only the heart, but the deepest part of the soul. For most of us...that type of vulnerability is frightening. There were many instances I was in tears, I could feel her pain.

With a Korean mother, who is very religious, I can relate to some of the mother-daughter dynamic that this book touches upon. It brought back so many painful memories for me, but not in an entirely bad way. I wish I had found a book like this when I was a teen...I felt so alone. If I could have read a book like this? I would have found comfort in knowing someone else understood that loneliness and pain.

This is a must read, even for those who don't usually read poetry. Definitely one of my favorites and one I will read again.

This probably would have been a four star book, possibly five, due to the lovely prose which involves many wonderful quotes, and a main character who seemingly isn't going to take crap from anyone. (And having a nerdy gay side character doesn't hurt).

But...I have two main issues with this book.

1)The gay side couple is in literally one scene. It feels like they're there to tick of a LGBT+ diversity box, rather to be interesting characters.

1.5)Not a major issue but I do think it's ridiculous that there are three haikus in here, that are not actually haikus because their syllables weren't counted correctly. On page 243, one titled:
“Haiku: The Best Part About Thanksgiving Was When Mami:
Returned my cell,
Until I remember I've
got no one to text. “
(There needs to be another syllable in the first line to get to the proper 5)

On page 265:
“Traditionally
contrasting ideas are
tied together neat.”
(Needs another syllable on line 2 to get to 7)

And on page 266:
“I'm like a haiku,
with different sides
except no clean tie.”
(Which is missing a whole 2 syllables from it's second line. I swear I'm done complaining about literal poetry mechanics, now onto the big issue.)

2)SHE DOESN'T STAND UP FOR HERSELF WHEN HER MOTHER GIVES HER CRAP. AND BY CRAP I MEAN A BEATING.
Something that's been drilled into my brain since I was little (thanks to my mother), is “if anyone ever hits you, EVER, get the fuck out of there.” (Though she excluded the f word when I was younger). Xiomara, the main character is built up to be a fighter, she'll threaten assholes who grope her at school, and beat up assholes who harass her brother, but when her own mother BEATS her, she doesn't call Child Protective Services.

Later, she tells her poetry/English teacher about the attack, to which the teacher says, “You do need to talk to your mom. Really talk to her. And you do need to figure out how to make a relationship with her work.” So, you're a teacher and a student tells you their mother beat them. Do you a)CALL CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES or b)Tell them they need to work it out. If you answered b, you're as morally bankrupt as this teacher, who does nothing after this.

The family does eventually try out family therapy, but not with someone with a psychology degree, oh no, that might actually be helpful, they go to their Church's pastor. Just for context, the entire reason Xiomara's mother beat her, was because she kissed a boy, a completely normal thing, that doesn't cause most atheist, (or any decent religious people) to BEAT THEIR CHILDREN. When Xiomara arrives home, her mother yells that she's a whore, yanks her hair, and hits her. After her beating, Xiomara's mother forces her to kneel ontop of rice infront of a statue of the virgin Mary, as penance. This leaves her with dozens of bruises on her knees. It doesn't matter what religious beliefs, (or lack there of) or ideas about punishing children for “naughty” behaviour, decent people do not intend to cause their children suffering. Any parent who does, deserves to have their children taken from them.

Xiomara should have taken my mother's advice, and gotten the hell away from her's.

As a Dominican woman I have never read a book about someone that is Dominican. I haven't seen myself in a character like I did when I read this book. I bet y'all already know what I'm giving this book.

5/5☆

The writing was beautiful, The whole book is written in verse and all of the verses make a story. I loved the fact that there was parts that were in Spanish and that the Spanish words weren't italicized. In every book that has a Latinx character, when they speak in Spanish it's always in italics. And this one tiny detail means so much to me and I know it means alot to other Spanish speaking readers.
I loved the characters, Xiomara, Xavier, and Caridad were my babies. Bro I even lowkey loved the parents. I saw myself in both Xiomara and Caridad because I've had that part in my life where I wasn't into going to church I questioned everything. My parents wanted me to do one thing when I wanted to do another. Almost everything Xiomara was going through I've gone through too. Y'all Dominican parents don't play, they crazy. But I see myself now like Caridad where she made a choice to go to church and is so caring and always has her friends back no matter what.
I am so happy this book exists because now Latinx teens can have a character to relate too. I didn't have someone like that almost every book I read as a kid were about white kids. And even though I did see a bit of myself in some of them. But it's different when you can fully see your self being represented in a book. And that's beautiful!

Representation is important.