2016 book 144

Jacqueline Woodson's Another Brooklyn
This book is a perfect counterpart to Emma Cline's The Girls, and if you have read and enjoyed that one, I urge you to read this one too. It's also set in the 1970s and also deals with girlhood and girls coming of age, but it's set in gritty 1970s Brooklyn and focuses on a group of young black girls. Parts of this are hard to read, but the matter of fact narrative voice, the atmosphere, and the frankly dazzling writing balance that out. There is so much to delve into here in terms of class, race, and gender--I think this is Woodson's first novel for adults (she's an award-winning YA writer) and it packs a wallop. It's beautiful and sad and GREAT. A.