The book starts off with Melody’s coming out ceremony, but it doesn’t just follow her story. It goes back and forth between the past and present, and also alternates between characters so readers can grasp the full magnitude of what Melody’s coming out truly means to her family. Her birth, after all, was what joined two very different families together. Her mother, Iris, was fairly well-to-do and was supposed to have her own coming out, but fell from grace when she got pregnant with Melody. Iris was forced out of her Catholic high school and ended up going away to college and leaving her child behind with her parents to try to get her life back on track. Melody’s father, Aubrey, on the other hand, was being raised by a poor single mother who was doing her best to keep him from relying on “the system” that she was embarrased and ashamed to need herself. It was amazing, really, to see how those two families had gotten to the point in history where their stories merged and astounding to see what all of these characters had overcome in their personal experiences.
Exploring themes of racial identity, racism, class, status, familial love, romantic love, sexual identity, and more would be a tall order for most writers, but Jacqueline Woodson is such an amazing writer that it came together without feeling the slightest bit contrived. I am continually impressed by the way Woodson can write compelling stories that increase a reader’s understanding of history and their empathy for the struggles of their fellow humans and manages to do so with absolutely beautiful prose. If this book isn’t considered a “classic” in years to come, I will be shocked.
Happy Reading!
Librarina 