*Thank you, Penguin & BookishFirst, for this ARC of Break This House, by Candice Iloh in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and ideas are my own.*
This story starts off in Brooklyn, where 16-year-old Yaminah (Minah) is living her life alongside her young father. Right away you feel the raw emotions spill from both father and daughter - the complicated, rocky but deep love that so often encapsulates teenage years between parent and child. Minah is finding her own voice and way, discovering how big the world is, and just how much her current reality is stifling and boxing her in.
Within the first few dozen pages, the reader is introduced to the beginnings of what will grow to be the heart of her story. A Facebook message from her cousin Tiff informs her of her mother's death, which send her careening headfirst through the stages of loss, reflections on familial estrangement, and far more questions than answers. Minah will journey back to her birthplace and childhood stomping grounds. She will spend time with her mother's side of the family in Obsidian, Michigan where she will face all the changes that time have wrought.
This book felt like an emotional rollercoaster through coming of age, familial estrangement, structural racism, gentrification, addiction, loss, cancer, mental illness, and other heavy topics. Iloh expertly narrates the story through Minah along with heartbreaking journal entries interwoven throughout the book penned by her deceased mother.
I did not want to put this book down!
"My babies. I hope now you can see me for who I really was. Somebody who ain't always know how to be your mama. Somebody who ain't know how to be. Just a person."
This story starts off in Brooklyn, where 16-year-old Yaminah (Minah) is living her life alongside her young father. Right away you feel the raw emotions spill from both father and daughter - the complicated, rocky but deep love that so often encapsulates teenage years between parent and child. Minah is finding her own voice and way, discovering how big the world is, and just how much her current reality is stifling and boxing her in.
Within the first few dozen pages, the reader is introduced to the beginnings of what will grow to be the heart of her story. A Facebook message from her cousin Tiff informs her of her mother's death, which send her careening headfirst through the stages of loss, reflections on familial estrangement, and far more questions than answers. Minah will journey back to her birthplace and childhood stomping grounds. She will spend time with her mother's side of the family in Obsidian, Michigan where she will face all the changes that time have wrought.
This book felt like an emotional rollercoaster through coming of age, familial estrangement, structural racism, gentrification, addiction, loss, cancer, mental illness, and other heavy topics. Iloh expertly narrates the story through Minah along with heartbreaking journal entries interwoven throughout the book penned by her deceased mother.
I did not want to put this book down!
"My babies. I hope now you can see me for who I really was. Somebody who ain't always know how to be your mama. Somebody who ain't know how to be. Just a person."