Book Review: The Poet X*,by Elizabeth Acevedo, published March 6, 2018, 361 pages (Kindle edition), Lexile HL800** Recommended for accelerated readers in grades 6-8, otherwise for grades 9-12 or ages 12+ Please note: although this book is in the Pageturner library for both several middle and high school classes, it still requires student requests for unincluded classes for purchases to be made.

Written in both prose and free verse, this novel chronicles the coming-of-age story of Xiomara Batista, born in the US of Dominican parents and living in Harlem. Her twin brother is Xavier, but his name is never actually mentioned; she calls him Twin. Xiomara is very tall for her age, already a D-cup at 15--and to her hyper-religious mother, who'd wanted to be a nun, her body is a walking sin. No, REALLY. Twin, of course, is the beloved son who can do no wrong, but who never defends her. Instead, she defends HIM, and she's more than ready with her fists, her nails, whatever she can use to protect both of them. We realize, before she knows it consciously, that Twin is gay. Xiomara is expectant as school is set to start with her sophomore year:

"Wednesday, September 5 Night before First Day of School As I lie in bed, thinking of this new school year, I feel myself stretching my skin apart. Even with my Amazon frame, I feel too small for all that’s inside me. I want to break myself open like an egg smacked hard against an edge...

"Chisholm H.S. sits wide and squat, taking up half a block, redbrick and fenced-in courtyard with ball hoops and benches. It’s not like Twin’s fancy genius school: glass, and futuristic. This is the typical hood school, and not too long ago it was considered one of the worst in the city...I walk through metal detectors, and turn my pockets out, and greet security guards by name, and am one of hundreds who every day are sifted like flour through the doors. And I keep my head down, and I cause no waves." Twin is a genius and mom pays for his best of the best schools by cleaning offices in downtown NYC; he skipped a grade and is a junior this year. Later, she will think he'll escape a year before she can.

She writes about "the most impactful day of her life,' her first English writing assignment, when she got her first period and didn't know what to use. She'd bought tampons, inserted it wrong, and went to her mother in pain--who didn't respond as she'd hoped:

"When Mami came home I was crying. I pointed at the instructions; Mami put her hand out but didn’t take them. Instead she backhanded me so quick she cut open my lip. “Good girls don’t wear tampones. Are you still a virgin? Are you having relations?” AT THIS POINT, XIOMARA IS 11 YEARS OLD. Why is it we're never told what to do? My sister had to show me--many days later, my mother put a pamphlet on my bed whose title read, "You're a Young Woman Now" with a girl in jeans gazing in some bewilderment at her reflection, all decked out in a pink party dress. Catholics, I swear.

What she actually submitted for that assignment was a harmless nothing, with a joke on herself: "Final Draft When I turned twelve my twin brother saved up enough lunch money to get me something fancy: a notebook for our birthday. (I got him some steel knuckles so he could defend himself, but he used them to conduct electricity for a science project instead. My brother’s a
genius.)

In that notebook, X finds herself through words. With every new writing assignment, there are several variations of what's real before she submits to something harmless. Her teacher thinks she has much greater depths and keeps at her to join their poetry club.

In science, she's partnered with a boy from Trinidad named Aman; he's the one who will "christen" her X, and she will RUN with it. Their relationship will blossom until her mom sees them in a PDA on a train. Her mother has been pushing her toward confirmation in the church, which she's been resisting; men are the enemy, why follow a male trinity with no women? Now her mother clamps down on her entire life, calls her whore, & threatens to send her to the Dominican Republic. Her reputation ruined, when a boy at school grabs her butt and squeezes with both hands, Aman watches and doesn't respond. X decides they can all go to hell and let's him know it. Her mother tries to burn her notebook, causing her father and Twin to intervene:

"I’ve never mourned something dying before this moment. I have no more poems. My mind blanks. A roar tears from my mouth. “Burn it! Burn it. This is where the poems are,” I say, thumping a fist against my chest. “Will you burn me? Will you burn me, too? You would burn me, wouldn’t you, if you could?”

X runs, texts Aman, knowing she'd given him short shrift, and ends up at his apartment. His mother has never left Trinidad and his father is at work. She and Aman apologize to one another and are this close to having sex when she stops him. And instead of shoving her out the door as she fully expects, he hands her his t-shirt to wipe away her tears and envelops her in a hug.

"Freedom seems like such a big word. Something too big; maybe like a skyscraper I’ve glimpsed from the foot of the building but never been invited to climb."

Meanwhile, X tries slam poetry readings and is celebrated for her performances. At last, she's discovered a way for her to build her own community, and that community fully embraces her, standing ovations and all. Father Sean, their priest, recognizes that confirmation is not for X. And it will be Father Sean whom X recruits to initiate change in her relationship with her mother. It will change the family dynamic altogether. Her long silent, uninvolved father will finally step up, too--and show her how to dance, a thing he's not done since his wedding. Soon, her family is in the poetry audience, too, and so is Father Sean, clapping loudly.

In a final assignment that year, she quotes a biblical passage:

"'The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple.'—Psalm 119:130"

And writes: "…[L]earning to believe in the power of my own words has been the most freeing experience of my life. It has brought me the most light. And isn’t that what a poem is? A lantern glowing in the dark."

TIP: Be sure to read Acevedo's Acknowledgment at the end! There's more to this story than meets the eye.
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* “In 2018, Kirkus Reviews named The Poet X one of the best young adult books of the year.[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Poet_X - cite_note-27

** “A text designated as “HL” has a Lexile text measure much lower than the average reading ability of the intended age range of its readers. Librarians and booksellers sometimes refer to young adult books with disproportionately low Lexile measures as “high-low” books, meaning “high-interest” plus “low-readability.” These books receive an HL code. Fiction HL books are often useful when matching older (grade seven and beyond) struggling or reluctant readers with text at both an appropriate difficulty level and an appropriate developmental level.” https://lexile.com/parents-students/find-books-at-the-right-level/about-lexile-text-codes/ - HL

Love That Book!

By: Dee Turner