Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson

Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

3.5/5.0 - This book was Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2020. The events in the story are bookended by the Tulsa race massacre in 1921 and 9/11. The book opens with Melody's coming out party, hosted by her grandparents, Sabe and Po'Boy. Melody is 16, smart, beautiful and the child of Aubrey and Iris. She was conceived when her mother was just shy of 16, and raised by her father and grandparents. Iris wanted more from life than being a wife and mother and left the family for college when Melody was just a toddler.
The book is about the dreams we have, and starting over, making things better for the next generation. Love and loss, hope and despair, are all themes that track the lives of these characters. I had a few issues with the book, which made it a 3.5, rather than a full 4 star. First, the two LBGTQ characters seemed like an after thought, and the part where Iris' breasts leaked milk when she was at college just wasn't believable for me. Other than that, it was a good book, and the second one I have read by this author.
Book 86 of 2021

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