pickEven if you're like me and love Jacqueline Woodson's writing, this slim novel from 1995 with a mere 149 ratings on Goodreads is easy to scroll past. But it's no less perfect than her more popular ones: she packs so much into a sentence. One example: in the title story, the narrator looks at an old family photograph and imagines words her sister will say as an adult "are there already, festering inside my sister's brain, waiting to explode."?
Billypar I had to reread that over and over - I found the idea of future words "festering" in a brain so unsettling, but hitting on something real that is hard to explain objectively. Woodson has more freedom to revel in all sorts of similar prose poetry without being saddled with a plot to manage - even though this is called a 'novel', it's more like short stories unfolding chronologically around a central character. 1y
Billypar Until recently, that was a form I hadn't read before, but for some reason this is the third of that variety I've read this year, along with![[tagged book]](https://image.librarything.com/pics/litsy_webpics/icon_taggedBook@3x.png)
Yo!: A Novel 1y
Yo!: A NovelBillypar AndShut Up You're Pretty 1y
Shut Up You're PrettySee All 7 Comments
Texreader Fantastic review 1y
erzascarletbookgasm I didn‘t know this book exists, will look it up. Great review! 1y
Billypar @Texreader Thanks! 🙂 1y
Billypar @erzascarletbookgasm Thanks! I got it from a used bookstore - otherwise, I wouldn't have heard of it. 1y
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