Zuri Benitez has pride. Brooklyn pride, family pride, and pride in her Afro-Latino roots. But pride might not be enough to save her rapidly gentrifying neighborhood from becoming unrecognizable.
When the wealthy Darcy family moves in across the street, Zuri wants nothing to do with their two teenage sons, even as her older sister, Janae, starts to fall for the charming Ainsley. She especially can’t stand the judgmental and arrogant Darius. Yet as Zuri and Darius are forced to find common ground, their initial dislike shifts into an unexpected understanding.
But with four wild sisters pulling her in different directions, cute boy Warren vying for her attention, and college applications hovering on the horizon, Zuri fights to find her place in Bushwick’s changing landscape, or lose it all.
Buy it – Amazon
I got this in the mail today, and it’s the cutest book I’ve read all year. Honestly, I’m sick of pride and prejudice retellings. I wish it was a story that stood on it’s own in a way.
I loved this one, because it’s something I’ve never read. Ever. it’s a totally new story and really shows why we need more black/brown authors in YA lit….
review later.
I posted this review originally on my blog… <a href=”https://assiasomething.com/2018/09/21/pride-ibi-zoboi/”>HERE</a>
This is the first review I’ve been soooo excited to write about for a while. I feel like I’ve been waiting years for this book! Since American Street!
At the beginning of the year, I read a book about gentrification in the Bronx (The Education of Margot Sanchez), and this story covers how it’s affecting Brooklyn. Pride focused on families that lived in a neighborhood being gentrified, and TEoMS was about a small family business that was affected.
My favorite scene was on page 86,
“’Next time I’ll take you to my favorite spot, other than the corner of Jefferson and Buschwick,’ I say.
‘Where’s that?’ he asks, walking a little too close to me.
‘The corn of Fulton and Hoyt. Downtown. It’s where I buy my books,’ I say. ‘My father takes me there everyone once in a while.’
‘A book store is your favorite place?’ He turns his whole body to me now.
‘It’s not a bookstore. It’s a book…spot. This guy sells books on the corner.’
‘Why don’t you go to a bookstore?’
‘Well, it is like a bookstore. Come on, Warren. You know this already. You’re smart, and if you didn’t go to that fancy school, you’d be getting your books from the brother on the corner too.’”
I don’t like this quote because I can relate (when I was younger I got books from library sales and Borders), but I specifically remember this author mentioning that she brought books on the corner when she was younger ( and maybe still now) and now that I look back to when those interviews were posted, it was probably when she in the midst of writing this book.
(Sidenote – While I didn’t buy books on the corner, I know that urban books were sold on the corner. Like urban romance novels. Now those authors are making BANK on Amazon. Like they deserve.)
This book was like nothing I’ve ever read in YA (same with American Street), and that’s why I gave them both five stars. Other reviewers commented on how much they disliked the language and dialect of Pride’s characters, but I loved the distinctions between characters. Zuri and Darius are from different spaces, so they will speak differently. Language is SO important, and a large symbol of culture. Where you are and where you’re from, changes how you speak! If you never really notice language, and how you speak, you’re privileged in that. Over the summer I watched this video about language, where this black woman explained how she talks differently when she’s in different spaces. The way she spoke changed when she was at work, form when she was at home, from when she was hanging with friends. And when those ways of speaking intersected, it felt like she was cooking in the bathroom. I definitely understood why the author wrote her characters using AAVE, and why Zuri made such a huge deal about the way Darius spoke. Language is important.
I felt like the Pride and prejudice premise was limiting, and this story could have been amazing if it strayed more for Austen. Honestly, I was reminded how much I prefer Persuasion, to Pride and Prejudice. Like I know Darcy was a stoic asshole for half of the book, but imagine if Darius hadn’t been that way and he’d opened up more before the end of the book. I wanted to know more about those brothers than what we’re told.
I really enjoyed this. Five stars…dassit…
assia
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