Name: Red at the Bone
ISBN: 9780593152256

Jacqueline Woodson

Two families from different social classes are joined together by an unexpected pregnancy and the child that it produces.

Red at the Bone

Mari-Claire Parrin

clara

She felt red at the bone-like there was something inside of her undone and bleeding.

An unexpected teenage pregnancy pulls together two families from different social classes and explores their histories – reaching back to the Tulsa race massacre of 1921 -- and exposes the private hopes, disappointments, and longings that can bind or divide us from each other, from the New York Times-bestselling and National Book Award-winning author of "Another Brooklyn" and "Brown Girl Dreaming". 
 
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 family – reaching back to the Tulsa race massacre in 1921 -- 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.

Angelyn Francis

Such a strong voice and amazing storytelling. Each character takes a chapter and strings us through the family's history -- and just a branch of it, how Melody's arrival when her parents were 15 impacted the was such a good means to explore strained ties and relationships. Woodson is great at writing in different voices but I don't think she quite captured the cadence of 16yos in 2001. Loved it over all.

Hannah Yoon

I struggled with this book when I first started. It felt a bit choppy at times. However, the overall story is beautiful and I'm left feeling the sorrow and pain that's weaved throughout the book. The ending felt a bit rushed but was also powerful. It's a quick and easy read.

“Let the circle be unbroken.”  Much needed reread of Woodson’s incredible story spinning. 

Emma Younger

Deepika Ramesh

This was their perfect moment. Another almost-erased history unaborted. And this house with its hundred-plus years. This house with its stained-glass and leaded windows. This house with its generations cheering, saying, 'Dance, y’all and Ashe' and 'The ancestors are in the house, say what?' I and everything and everyone around me was their dream come true now. If this moment was a sentence, I’d be the period.

The sixteen-year-old Melody says, “…I’d be the period,” at her coming-of-age ceremony. It’s not an empty statement that is made by a teenager who thinks that the world revolves around her. Melody is aware of her blackness. Of the race massacre and the fire that her black family survived in Tulsa. Of the constant battle her grandparents fought to weave a net of financial security for their family. Of her father’s childhood in which there were no class privileges. Of her mother’s absence, and the love that could have held them together. But Melody still doesn’t fully grasp the gravity of the impact two teenagers’ curiosity, about sex and biology, had on their lives. Of how something shifted and became even tighter in her grandmother’s heart. Of how something became even tender in her grandfather’s soul. Of how she became everything for her father. And of everything that her mother could have had, and everything that her mother lost.

In less than 200 pages of lyrical writing, Jacqueline Woodson brings every character alive in Red At The Bone. Her entire cast is memorable. Even Baby Benjamin whose life is described in just a couple of passages. CathyMarie who props up Iris when she didn’t know she needed help. Sabe who won’t stop talking about fire and gold, but she had every reason to keep talking about them. Sabe, who is a staunch Catholic, and her little rebel against the nuns. Never mess with a momma who is grieving her daughter’s lost adolescence. She would brave the inferno to protect her child’s heart. Above all, Iris. She needs a lot of empathy. While every other character gives all their love to what she creates, in the process of creating the very thing, Iris believes she has lost the person whom she could have possibly become. How would she try to become that person when she didn’t have the time and opportunity to meet that person? Through Iris, and her journey toward discovering herself, Woodson explores the themes of sexuality, teenage pregnancy, motherhood, racial identity, and love.

You’re going to learn this. I mean, I hope you learn this. Love changes and changes. Then it changes again.

On the surface, Woodson’s writing looks effortless. The story goes back and forth in time, there are multiple perspectives, but her storytelling doesn’t falter. It doesn’t wait anywhere to take a breath. It unfolds with the confidence of a writer who leans back on her chair, and just let the words flow from her fingertips to the keyboard. The sentences don’t jostle each other. They politely arrive, one after the other, from Woodson’s heart, with a certainty that’s almost magical, as though her Black ancestors themselves want her to tell their stories.

Shoot, I love that people think the world is even halfway ready for what we about to bring.

farah farooq

Lara Engle

Red at the Bone is one of those books that gets into your soul. The structure of the book is intriguing, shuffling between character perspectives and sliding around in time, using emotion as the connecting thread. My reading of this book was enhanced by relaxing into it and feeling along with the characters. There isn't a ton of action in this book, but I feel like I really inhabited this family and that I may know them better than they know each other. It's a beautiful, slim book that reminds us to make conscious choices about our life before life makes all the choices for us. It also shows us that we can't control everything, so we need to cherish those moments when love comes through.

Alexa M

3.5 maybe 

i really liked this glimpse into a complicated family life, and i did like Jacqueline Woodson's writing. however, i think the way the story was told caused a little bit of a disconnect for me.

Abdullah

'Red at the Bone' is masterfully written and short, telling the story of two black families and how they get permanently intertwined with each other after their only children conceive a child in their early teens. Jacqueline Woodson gives depth and personality to all of her five characters we get a perspective from. You really do end up caring for almost all the characters in one way or another. It switches from different years seamlessly and it covers a variety of topics like wanting differently from what you initially thought you would, unrequited love, generational trauma, sexuality, class, and finding love in different places. The audiobook has different narrators for every character and their performances are excellent so I recommend checking out the audiobook version.

Shona Tiger

Didn't get it at first - but then it took hold of me, and wouldn't let me go.

Micah

This book was incredible. I loved the multiple timelines and perspectives that converge into one and then dart back to their respective timelines. I loved how the house and the grief this family carried became characters themselves. I loved the rawness and realness of how complicated familial relationships can be. This book feels like an artichoke with many layers that I will keep discovering each time I read it.

Liz B

Beautifully written, and it's a testament to how wonderful the writing is that I felt deeply connected to the characters despite how short the book is. Is. I wish it had been longer in many ways because I wanted to spend more time with each of the characters.

Stefanie  Uwah

2.5/5 stars

This was an extremely well written DEPRESSING book. I respect the author and would love to read more of their work. This one was not for me.

Satya Nelms

everything you’ve heard about how beautiful this book is - it’s true. every sentence is intentional. it is a compact, profound window into the lives of its characters. this is a book you come back to and with each visitation you are gifted something new.

Lauren Wightman

Sonja H

Cindy Lieberman

Every so often, I run across the same topic via different channels. I read an article and the subject is a plot point in a TV show the next night. And it has happened again. We just streamed Watchmen on HBO. In one of the first two episodes, we see an affluent suburb of Tulsa, OK get wiped out by racists in the 1930s. While this may have been a sentence in my long-ago history textbooks, I certainly didn’t remember it, nor was it as vividly described as what we saw on Watchmen. With that horrendous event in my recent memory, I was surprised to also encounter The Tulsa massacre in this novel. 

16 year-old Melody is having her debut, a quaint mostly Southern or elitist tradition involving lots of taffeta. Her story unwinds from her mother’s, her father’s and her grandparents’ stories, taking us back into their pasts and into Melody’s future. 

This short book deftly captures the divide between parents who pressure their children to “make something of yourself” and go to college vs those who often lack the resources to put food on the table every night. Which of the grown children is better off? The one who is happy with their circumstances or the one who is always striving?

Mahogany Skillings

Red at the Bone flayed my heart open. The story of a family and the love they have for each other and the love they lose is so well told that I feel shame at the paltry words I use to describe it. 

The story is told by alternating members of the family and you get enough from each person, but long for so much more when the end comes.

The words are lyrical and the conversations are the same ones you may have heard at home, but somehow they speak to you differently, make you feel a part of them and removed from them at the same time, so you can see them for what they are.

What else can I say but, read this book. It will stay with you, marinating long after the final word. Gleaming.

Jeff Brown 

An extremely well-written book by an author I had known only in passing. I’m glad I stopped to take a look.

This was a story of remembrances more than one of plot. In just over 200 pages, the author wove the stories of five people, over three generations, with historical events and heartbreak. I view the ending as hopeful — possibly. Maybe it’s just me that’s hopeful.

Recommended.

alyssa

so good. i really enjoyed the vignette / short story-ish style of this book. it seems like some people found the pace of it disorienting, but i like how it disrupted me and held my attention. my only small gripe is that i still don’t fully grasp iris or melody as characters when they’re (arguably) the center of the story.

Shelby Doherty

** spoiler alert **
           Likes:
- Quick and easy read (or audiobook listen)
- Appreciated the different points of views
- Lots of topics I do not read about often enough (LGBT, teen pregnancy, african american families, unconvential mothers)

Dislikes:
- Had a hard time fully grasping who is who
- Nothing really stood out to wow me

THE TOP 10 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE 2020 'Will remind you why you love reading' Stylist (Best New Books for 2020) 'Sublime... will strike you in the heart' Candice Carty-Williams, author of Queenie 'Profound, moving and consistently unexpected... Pure poetry' Observer 'A true spell of a book' Ocean Vuong, author of On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous 'A sharply focused gem' Sunday Times 'An epic in miniature' Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage 'Dazzling... With urgent, vital insights into questions of class, gender, race, history, queerness and sex' New York Times 'A banger' Ta-Nehisi Coates, author of The Water Dancer An unexpected teenage pregnancy brings together two families from different social classes, and exposes the private hopes, disappointments and longings that can bind or divide us. From the New York Times-bestselling and National Book Award-winning author of Another Brooklyn and Brown Girl Dreaming. Brooklyn, 2001. It is the evening of sixteen-year-old Melody's coming of age ceremony in her grandparents' brownstone. Watched lovingly by her relatives and friends, making her entrance to the music of Prince, she wears a special custom-made dress - the very same dress that was sewn for a different wearer, Melody's mother, for a celebration that ultimately never took place. Unfurling the history of Melody's family - from the 1921 Tulsa race massacre to post 9/11 New York - Red at the Bone explores sexual desire, identity, class, and the life-altering facts of parenthood, as it looks at the ways in which young people must so often make fateful decisions about their lives before they have even begun to figure out who they are and what they want to be. *** ONE OF THE BOOKS OF THE YEAR FOR: New York Times; Washington Post; Time; USA Today; O, The Oprah Magazine; Elle; Good Housekeeping; Esquire; NPR; New York Public Library; Library Journal; Kirkus; BookRiot; She Reads; The Undefeated ***

Longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2020

nisha 

Emir Andrés Ibañez

En muy pocas páginas la autora narra una saga familiar, siendo el eje y el disparador inicial un embarazo adolescente. A partir de ahí iremos conociendo las diferentes realidades y reflexiones de él y de ella, de la familia de cada unx, cómo esto repercutió en cada una de sus vidas a través de los años una vez que la bebé nació y creció y llegó a la adolescencia. Cómo son ellos en la vida adulta, las cosas que aprendieron, etc. Es un coming of age que no se centra en un solo personaje. Y que, al mismo tiempo, va abordando temas que van desde el clasismo, colorism, roles de género, etc.

Creo que la autora hizo un buen trabajo al contarnos una historia tan amplia y compleja en pocas páginas, pero aún así siento que quedaron cosas sin resolver o que se podrían haber desarrollado mejor.

Aún así me gustó. No me cambió la vida ni me emocionó ni nada... pero una buena saga familiar siempre viene bien. Me gusta el chisme, qué se le va a hacer.

This story really had me tearing up. From the complicated familial relationships to the experiences and hardships of African Americans throughout generations. This author packed a punch in a short book with such beautiful, lyrical writing, I absolutely loved this. I think everyone and their mama needs to read this book.

Emily S

Okay, so here’s the thing: this book is beautiful. 

Turn off all distractions and read it in a day, but slowly (it’s less than 200 pages and goes by super fast).

These characters are beautiful and flawed and human and heartbreaking and GOSH is the writing style flawless.