Red At The Bone by Jacqueline Woodson

Title: Red At The Bone by Jacqueline Woodson

My Ratings: 5 Stars

Publisher: Riverhead Books

Source: Times Reads

Goodreads Synopsis:

Moving forward and backward in time, Jacqueline Woodson’s taut and powerful new novel uncovers the role that history and community have played in the experiences, decisions, and relationships of these families, and in the life of the new child.

As the book opens in 2001, it is the evening of sixteen-year-old Melody’s coming of age ceremony in her grandparents’ Brooklyn brownstone. Watched lovingly by her relatives and friends, making her entrance to the music of Prince, she wears a special custom-made dress. But the event is not without poignancy. Sixteen years earlier, that very dress was measured and sewn for a different wearer: Melody’s mother, for her own ceremony– a celebration that ultimately never took place.

Unfurling the history of Melody’s parents and grandparents to show how they all arrived at this moment, Woodson considers not just their ambitions and successes but also the costs, the tolls they’ve paid for striving to overcome expectations and escape the pull of history. As it explores sexual desire and identity, ambition, gentrification, education, class and status, and the life-altering facts of parenthood, Red at the Bone most strikingly looks at the ways in which young people must so often make long-lasting decisions about their lives–even before they have begun to figure out who they are and what they want to be.

Sometimes, we do not need extraordinary tales to teach a profound lesson. Stories like Red At The Bone teaches us why life ain’t a fairy tale and it’s not always a happy ending. An ending is nothing but another start of another journey.

We follow so many people in this book that I’m so confused at times. We have Iris, Aubrey, Po-Boy, Sabe, and Melody. It is through them that we hear this story being told. My favorite got to be Iris’ , because her voice is the rawest and most honest of them all.

Iris and Aubrey are young lovers. At tender age or 16, Iris is pregnant with Aubrey’s baby. Unlike other boys, Aubrey stepped up and took up the role naturally. For Iris however, it didn’t come easy. Ambitious Iris, she studied and got into college. There, she found a new self, a new love, slowly drifting away from her old life and family.

It’s hard to say why I am particularly in love with this book. It didn’t have grand plot or hopeful ending, but I am head over heels for this beautiful tale.

Melody, finding herself lack of mother’s love, thrived on Aubrey’s attention and her grandparents love. It’s interesting to see how a girl who is deprived of a mother’s love would turn up eventually. Melody found love too eventually, but did she?

I love this god-honest, beautiful book. It’s almost poetic and I’m a fan of it’s fast paced story line. I hope you’ll pick this up someday and enjoy it as much as I did. It’s available I. All good bookstores.

Thank you Times Reads for sending me a review copy, I loved it! Till the next review, take care bookalings!