Review: The Poet X

The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Xiomara wants to hide her body, but her voice wants-no, needs-to be heard.

X struggles with her mother's expectation, the unwanted attention her body brings, her father's silence, hew own lack of faith or belief, and later with feelings she has for a boy. All the while she writes poems in a journal her brother gave her, trying to figure things out. When the opportunity compete in a poetry slam arises, she has to figure out if her voice is worth the fight and struggle.

I was sucked in to this book and devoured it in a day. The poetry is beautiful, insightful, and captivating. My favorites:
...
poems build inside me
like I've been gifted a box of metaphor Legos
that I stack and stack and stack. (p. 103)

He is not elegant enough for a sonnet,
too well-thought out for a free write,
taking too much space in my thoughts
to ever be a haiku. )p. 107)

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