Notable Deaths in 2021
Elizabeth Acevedo Has Written Her First Novel For Adults–and It's Full Of Magic
The kernel of the story that would become Family Lore, Elizabeth Acevedo's first novel for adults, came to her in college, after a visit with one of her aunts in the Bronx. Acevedo, who'd spent many of her childhood summers hosting cousins from the Dominican Republic or traveling to see family there, had long been curious about her relatives' linked but disparate histories, and she began to think about how she might tell intergenerational stories loosely inspired by the experiences of the women in her family.
She wouldn't begin working on Family Lore for another decade. A former eighth-grade English teacher, she's spent much of her career writing for young people. The Poet X, her 2018 debut novel in verse about a teenage poet in Harlem, won the National Book Award; she followed it up with two more YA best sellers, With the Fire on High in 2019 and Clap When You Land in 2020. Acevedo, who was named the Young People's Poet Laureate in 2022, thinks she hit her stride as a YA author in part because she understands how to write for young people without talking down to them. "There's nothing like kids telling me, 'I'm also a poet and it's a secret,' or 'Xiomara [in The Poet X] makes me feel known,'" she says. It's one reason she finds widespread book bans so gutting—she worries about young readers being cut off from stories both like and unlike their own.
Though she plans to write for young readers again, she felt eager for a new challenge. "I never want to be known as this one single thing," she tells me, sitting in her cozy office in Southwest D.C., her favorite books artfully arrayed on the wall behind her. She speaks with a gentle, thoughtful conviction, and I get the sense that she answers with care not because she's worried about what she might say, but because she has such deep respect for words and the weight they carry. She explains that for her, writing for adults is largely "a difference in register": she's drawn to some of the same questions explored in her YA novels, including what love in a complicated family can look like, but she's OK letting older readers do a little more work to follow leaps in time and shifts in perspective, offering them less hand-holding and an ending that feels more open. "I don't hold back," she says. "It's bare-knuckle. It felt like I could take risks that I just have to own."
Read more: The 100 Best YA Books of All Time
In Family Lore, out Aug. 1, Flor, a seer of deaths, summons her family—including her sisters Matilde, Pastora, and Camila, daughter Ona, and niece Yadi—to celebrate her life at a living wake, causing them to wonder whether she saw her own death. Endowing her characters with extraordinary gifts—one sister grasps others' truths; one has a talent for herbalism; Ona possesses an "alpha vagina"—allowed Acevedo to consider what had formed them and what each desired, while grounding them in a strength all their own.
Acevedo's treatment of magic as an everyday possibility is compelling, but there is also magic in the wonder, surprise, frustrations, and joys the characters experience in their relationships with one another. She came up with the idea for a living wake after watching a documentary on how people commemorate death—she realized it could hold all of these women's stories, putting pressure on them in interesting ways. "When you think about death," she says, "you begin thinking about every choice you've made."
When Acevedo was small, a babysitter with a forest of houseplants suggested she talk and sing to the plants to help them grow. Young Liz discovered the joy of making up songs, but felt upset when she couldn't recall her verses. One day, she thought, I'll know how to write, and then I won't forget.
She wanted to be a singer. Then her older brothers sparked an obsession with hip-hop. She joined the poetry club in high school, competed in her first slam, and attended workshops with teaching artists. She went on to George Washington University, where she created an interdisciplinary major, a blend of poetry and performing arts.
Working as a teacher after graduation, Acevedo struggled to find time and energy to write. "I'm not a good person when I'm not writing," she says. She applied to M.F.A. Programs, and by the time she graduated from the University of Maryland in 2015, she'd published a poetry chapbook and submitted a draft of The Poet X to an agent.
Read More: The 100 Must-Read Books of 2022
The author Clint Smith, who first met Acevedo through the D.C. Poetry-slam scene in 2012, considers her "an exemplar" of how to take the craft seriously. "A lot of writers are very skilled, but don't work 10% as hard as she does," he says. "Starting out in a new genre can feel like dipping your toe in, but Liz is doing cannonballs."
Acevedo is fascinated by ensemble storytelling—one of Family Lore's many strengths—and how we all participate in it. "It's curious what people are incapable of saying about themselves or their past, sometimes because of trauma, but then you'll learn [it] from that cousin who heard from her mom," she says. "In some ways, this book is a project about how to know what's true."
It is also, like all her novels, the project of a poet: her obsession with imagery, interiority, and making every word count is what makes her descriptions and dialogue sing; her characters think and speak in voices that feel distinct and alive. "We often talk about representation in a way that feels flat, as if it's merely the checking of boxes, when in fact it's about the rendering of dimensional humans," says Naima Coster, whose novel What's Mine and Yours is among the many displayed in Acevedo's office. "Liz doesn't just render individuals, she writes about webs of relationships. I see her as someone who's leaving important historical and literary records."
Writing Family Lore helped Acevedo "quit the desire to be liked" and focus on telling the story she wanted to tell. She began practicing ancestor worship a few years ago, and says the idea that she is loved and being guided has given her "a clear-eyed approach" to her art that feels new—she has learned to trust herself and her writing in ways she didn't before.
She's now working on more novels, but "snippets of poems" keep coming to her, as they did after she gave birth to her first child last fall—visiting her son in the NICU, nursing or pumping at all hours, she found herself taking notes she recognized as verse. "Poetry is the first language I was thinking in—it's what I fall back on," she says. "I have to get really close to the bone of what I'm going through. A poem doesn't let me lie to myself."
Chung is a TIME contributor and the author of A Living Remedy
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50 Best Books For Teens Of All Time
Whether your teenage years were harrowing or magical, they're an unforgettable season of life. Remembering that is what makes books for teens so addictive for all ages, even adults. Much like the best children's books ever written, these teen-centered stories offer hope for the future and nostalgia for young love and life.
Our list of the best young adult (YA) books ever includes selections from impactful historical fiction, romance novels, fantasy books— really, from the go-to book recommendations from our readers to best books of all time. Many are best sellers and award winners, some have had a cultural impact, and others have shaped the YA category into what it is today.
We've also added timeless classics and contemporary page-turners from the Top 100 YA Books list compiled by Goodreads members, plus a handful of novels from 2020 and 2021 that have received high praise (at least four out of five stars on Goodreads) from readers and critics alike. So whether you're a fan of young adult memoirs, thrilling beach reads, paranormal fiction, or some other genre, pull up a chair. There are some stellar books for teens here for you.
Join the free Reader's Digest Book Club for great reads, monthly discussions, author Q&As and a community of book lovers.
1. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky (1999)This coming-of-age story became a cult classic because of its honest look at the lives of everyday teenagers. Through the eyes of 15-year-old Charlie, the novel details the daily trials and tribulations that many teenagers face, but it also tackles hefty and controversial topics, like drug abuse, teen pregnancy, and suicide. It also focuses on the roles that friendship, family, and love play in helping us through difficult times. Whether you're buying a new paperback or reading for free online, this belongs on your list.
Looking for your next great book? Read four of today's bestselling novels in the time it takes to read one with Reader's Digest Select Editions. And be sure to follow the Select Editions page on Facebook!
QandA With Michif/Métis Writer, Jen Ferguson, On Her Soon To Be Released Young Adult Novel.
Courtesy Jen Ferguson
Soon to be released this coming September is the sequel to Jen Ferguson's first teen novel The Summer of Bitter and Sweet. In Those Pink Mountain Nights, Ferguson explores the events that take place over the course of a week in a small-town pizzeria. She addresses the endemic violence perpetrated against Native women as well as issues of mental health and sexuality through a teen coming of age story.
Ferguson is a Michif/Métis and white writer from Canada. Her first novel was a Morris Award finalist, a Stonewall Honor, a winner of the Governor General's Literary Award in Young People's Literature, and received six starred reviews.
What inspired you to become a writer?I don't think anything ever inspired me to become a writer. I think that stories are how I understand the world. I'm not good at math, and I'm not great at things that need 3D shape, but I'm really really good at telling stories and I'm really good at doing that primarily through words. Because words aren't 3D, right? They are things that my brain understands.
I was the kind of kid who, in high school, I was writing novels on my computer in the basement of my parents house, terrible, terrible novels that no one will ever see and have been deleted and the hard drives no longer exist. But I sort of always gravitated towards writing, and I've even tried to quit writing. Not very successfully though. I've always sort of been dragged back by a story that announces itself and grabs me and says, 'Okay, it's time'.
Do you take inspiration from any other Native or non-Native writers?I feel like anything you consume, you take inspiration from. I think it's really hard to say specifically that I took inspiration from 'x' writer. I am a reformed literary fiction writer for adults. So I have read all the classics and there were very few Native writers included in the kind of reading I was doing in undergrad and then in my master's degree and my PhD.
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So that's sort of been something that I've been fixing in the last chunk of years is consuming a lot more Native writers, but I don't think that having read Tommy Orange I would ever say I'm inspired by Tommy Orange or having read Billy Ray Belcourt that I'm inspired by Billy Ray. I think that everything you consume, whether you know it or not, it's part of what's going to bubble up and be your inspiration.
Publishers are excited for Native writers and to publish Native stories and not to pigeonhole them into what they "expect" from a Native writer. I think that the past maybe eight years or so have really changed what's getting published both in kid-lit and adult but especially from Native writers, and that that's only going to keep floating outward and that's incredibly exciting. It's exciting to think that you're not the only one telling stories from your ancestry or telling stories from your nation, but that there are lots of people and there will be lots more.
How does your Indigenous and queer identity inform your writing?I think that for me, there's almost no way to write that isn't informed by who I am. I think I could generalize and say that's true for all art, right? Because the art comes from me. Therefore, it's informed by how I see the world and how I understand the world. There's a responsibility that white, cis-het, able bodied, excetera writers don't feel. They don't feel a responsibility to represent their communities.
I write for teens, so I also feel a really heavy responsibility, writing for teens. I think that makes my art stronger. I think that my particular experience with colonialism and Canada as someone who passes as a white person, unless I disclose otherwise, and passes as a straight person unless I disclose otherwise, that has to shape the kinds of stories I tell. So I find that my characters tend to have a foot in whiteness or are comparing themselves to whiteness in some way. That might not be true from another Native writer who grew up in a different way than I did or who didn't grow up in Canada because there's an experience of a particular kind of colonialism that Canadian education systems were really good at.
What do you hope young people take away from your books?I really want them to take whatever they need. I don't want to suggest to young people that there's a particular thing waiting for them that I expect them to find and take, but I would say differently for the middle aged white woman who picks up my book. There actually are things that I want her to find and take with her. But for teens, I want them to find and take what they need. I think one of my strengths as a writer and also one of my flaws as a writer is that I put a lot of things in my books. So if you don't want A, B or C, there'll be something else down the line for you to take with you.
Is there anything in the book that you're most excited for people to read?It takes place in a pizza place, and it's very loosely based on the first place that I ever worked as a sixteen year old. My bosses sort of weren't around a lot, and let the sixteen year olds run their business, which I found was really empowering and terrifying. I'm really excited for people to find that space where the teenagers are basically running this business and they're having a lot of fun doing it. To me, that's a really exciting emotional place that I remember caring about a lot, and it formed me into the kind of human I am today.
What can we expect from the new book?I think readers who love The Summer of Bitter and Sweet are going to find that there are some similarities, it's an introspective story. I care about characters more than I care about plot. Characters create plots for me rather than plot acting on characters. But instead of being in the first person, this book is in the third person. There are three main protagonists, two of them are Native. One of them is a white Canadian settler. And the book is more interested in the exterior. It's still an internal story, they're happening in that town. The pizza place the characters really love, they find out that their boss is selling it to a group that's going to franchise it. So they sort of come up against external forces. They're facing a certain kind of capitalism. They are looking for a missing Cree teen girl that the police have stopped looking for. So I think society is really loud in this book.
Do you have advice for any young aspiring Native and queer writers?So two things. One, find your people, find the people who support you unconditionally and are not trying to tear you down. Stay away from the "mean girls" in publishing. And find your people, so when you need to vent, you vent in your text chat and not all over the internet, because you're going to need to. Get accustomed to rejection and get accustomed to not letting it beat you down. There's a lot of it in the business, and it doesn't stop once you get an agent, and it doesn't stop when you get a book deal. It doesn't stop when you have an award winning book behind you. So, get used to it and learn how to move forward with it.
About the Author: "Neely Bardwell (descendant of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indian) is a staff reporter for Native News Online. Bardwell is also a student at Michigan State University where she is majoring in policy and minoring in Native American studies. "
Contact: neely@nativenewsonline.Net
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