{"id":4456,"date":"2018-08-02T13:38:00","date_gmt":"2018-08-02T03:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/veritysparks.com\/?p=4456"},"modified":"2018-08-05T14:18:55","modified_gmt":"2018-08-05T04:18:55","slug":"the-poet-x-by-elizabeth-acevedo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/?p=4456","title":{"rendered":"THE POET X by Elizabeth Acevedo"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/?attachment_id=4452\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-4452\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-4452\" src=\"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/poet_20180723_0001.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"468\" srcset=\"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/poet_20180723_0001.jpg 300w, https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/poet_20180723_0001-192x300.jpg 192w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>A shout out to Kathryn McAllister at Stonemans Bookroom in Castlemaine, where I work. She reads a lot more YA fiction than I do, and she pushed this one into my hands. I thought I would hate this book and I loved it. Xiomara (I&#8217;m thinking the &#8220;X&#8221; might sound like a &#8220;Z&#8221;?) is a fifteen year old Dominican girl (I had to look this up &#8211; Dominican Republic is in the Caribbean) living with her twin brother and parents in Harlem in NYC. Her mum is very, very religious (Catholic) and obsessed with keeping Xiomara away from bad influences, and that means, mainly, boys. She\u2019d love to have a daughter like Xiomara\u2019s friend Caridad. Caridad respects her parents, she can recite the Bible, she wants to wait to have sex till she\u2019s married\u2026 But Xiomara is different. Secretly, she\u2019s a poet and she wants to take part in a slam poetry competition. She also wants to get to know a boy in her class. This novel is her story \u2013 how X\u2019s voice is finally heard &#8211; written as her poetry. I was pretty sceptical, but it\u2019s brilliant. It says everything it needs to say, and it\u2019s short! Here&#8217;s a short sequence&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><em>I am un-hideable<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Taller even than my father, with what Mami always said <\/em><br \/>\n<em>was \u201c a little too much body for such a young girl\u201d.<\/em><br \/>\n<em>I am the baby fat that settled into D\u2013cups and swinging hips<\/em><br \/>\n<em>So that the boys who called me a whale in middle school<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Now ask me to send them pictures of myself in a thong.<\/em><br \/>\n<em>The other girls call me conceited. Ho\u2026Fast.<\/em><br \/>\n<em>When your body takes up more room than your voice<\/em><br \/>\n<em>you are always the target of well aimed rumours,<\/em><br \/>\n<em>which is why I let my knuckles talk for me\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A shout out to Kathryn McAllister at Stonemans Bookroom in Castlemaine, where I work. She reads a lot more YA fiction than I do, and she pushed this one into my hands. I thought I would hate this book and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/?p=4456\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4456"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4459,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4456\/revisions\/4459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}