Review: The Poet X

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

Like most books in verse, this one took me a little bit to get into, but once I did I couldn't put it down.

Xiomara is the teenage daughter of Dominican immigrants who are very strict and conservative, with her mother being devoutly relgious to the extreme. Xiomara's mother's religious zealotry causes her to be completely close-minded, controlling, and even cruel in the way she treats Xiomara, whose only "crime" has been being unable to stop her body from developing voluptuous curves that attract unwanted attention from boys and men. Xiomara has no voice at home, and instead pours all her feelings into her journal and her poetry. Eventually things reach a breaking point, triggered by her mother catching her kissing a boy, and skipping church to go to poetry club.

This book reminds me of a some others I've read, Gabi: A Girl In Pieces, I'm Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, and Love, Hate & Other Filters, which all feature daughters struggling to find their own identity and live their own lives under the weight of their parents' expectations, control, and obsession with them being "good girls". While these stories happen to feature Latino or Muslim families, I can attest to the fact that this type of repressive and controlling parenting of girls can happen in families of any ethnicity, culture, or religion. Though it was never taken quite to the extreme as in these stories, I grew up in a similar environment were daughters were treated as someone subservient and needing to be kept under strict supervision and tight control so they didn't become "bad girls" and go out and get a bad reputation or get pregnant.

Though I'm no poet, I could strongly identify with Xiomara's feeling like she had no voice, no identity as an individual within her home, and feeling like no one saw her for who she was, or even wanted to. In some ways, I still feel that way. I also related to her twin Xavier's feeling of just trying to lay low and suffer through until they could leave for college. My heart ached for both of them, being unable to express their true selves, and to be loved and accepted for who they were. I found myself getting so angry at the mother, but was pleasantly suprised to see their priest be the voice of reason, reminding her mother that anger and cruelty were sins as well, and encouraging Xiomara to keep asking questions and seeking answers until she was satisfied.

I think all teenagers (or people who have been teenagers) can relate to sometimes feeling like that have no voice, feeling the pressure of others' expectations, and many teen may deal with major conflicts with parents, particular when cultural and religious beliefs are extremely conservative, repressive, and fundamentalist, so this story could appeal to a wide audience.

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