A review by sadi9954
Brown Girls by Daphne Palasi Andreades
4.0
Each chapter hit to close to home. It you want to feel validated, then this is the book.
I would have preferred to have vignettes from different perspectives. Overall this was a beautiful book.
Our teachers call on Nadira but stare at Anjali. Our teachers tell Michaela to 'Come to the board and answer number three and make sure you show your work, please' even though they hand the whiteboard marker to Naz. We stand when our names are called, and our teachers halt, confused. 'Oh, I'm sorry, I- No, not you, I didn't mean you, I-' Across the classroom, we catch each other's gazes. Nadira is Pakistani and wears a headscarf, which drapes elegantly beneath her neck, except for when she's playing handball and she knots the fabric, tight, under her chin. Anjali is Guyanese, and her braid looks like a thick rope that lays heavy against her back, curly baby hairs tamed by coconut oil. Michaela is Haitian and likes to mimic her parents' French accents on the school bus (Take zee twash out! she says, as we clutch our sides in laughter), and Naz's family is from the Ivory Coast- I mean, we're practically cousins, she says to Michaela. Our teachers snap at Sophie to STOP TALKING NOW, but call her Mae's name. Sophie, who is Filipino, clamps a hand over her big-ass mouth, which is never closed- she loves to gossip and flirt with the boys we call 'Spanish'- while Mae, who is Chinese and polite to teachers, at least to their faces, jolts from the bookshelf where she's stealthily shuffling novels from their alphabetical spots, in order to disrupt our English class two periods later. We laugh at our teachers, though our eyes tighten. Our classmates roar with glee at their errors and call us the wrong names from the rest of the week, too. They call us Khadija, Akanksha, Maribeth, Ximena, Breonna, Cherelle, Thanh, Yoon, Ellen. They call us Josie, Rukhsana, Sonia, Odalis, Annabehl, Kyra, Jenny, Cindy, Esther. During lunchtime, we call our teachers different names, too: dumbass, idiot, old-lady bitch. We steal permanent marker, scrawl STOOPID on their classroom doors, above posters that read Knowledge. Wisdom. Discipline. From the corner of our eyes, we study each other while we hold our Styrofoam lunch trays, wait on bus stops, and stretch in gym class, our sneakers skidding against scuffed floors. Think: Her body is not mine is not mine is not mine. And
I would have preferred to have vignettes from different perspectives. Overall this was a beautiful book.
Our teachers call on Nadira but stare at Anjali. Our teachers tell Michaela to 'Come to the board and answer number three and make sure you show your work, please' even though they hand the whiteboard marker to Naz. We stand when our names are called, and our teachers halt, confused. 'Oh, I'm sorry, I- No, not you, I didn't mean you, I-' Across the classroom, we catch each other's gazes. Nadira is Pakistani and wears a headscarf, which drapes elegantly beneath her neck, except for when she's playing handball and she knots the fabric, tight, under her chin. Anjali is Guyanese, and her braid looks like a thick rope that lays heavy against her back, curly baby hairs tamed by coconut oil. Michaela is Haitian and likes to mimic her parents' French accents on the school bus (Take zee twash out! she says, as we clutch our sides in laughter), and Naz's family is from the Ivory Coast- I mean, we're practically cousins, she says to Michaela. Our teachers snap at Sophie to STOP TALKING NOW, but call her Mae's name. Sophie, who is Filipino, clamps a hand over her big-ass mouth, which is never closed- she loves to gossip and flirt with the boys we call 'Spanish'- while Mae, who is Chinese and polite to teachers, at least to their faces, jolts from the bookshelf where she's stealthily shuffling novels from their alphabetical spots, in order to disrupt our English class two periods later. We laugh at our teachers, though our eyes tighten. Our classmates roar with glee at their errors and call us the wrong names from the rest of the week, too. They call us Khadija, Akanksha, Maribeth, Ximena, Breonna, Cherelle, Thanh, Yoon, Ellen. They call us Josie, Rukhsana, Sonia, Odalis, Annabehl, Kyra, Jenny, Cindy, Esther. During lunchtime, we call our teachers different names, too: dumbass, idiot, old-lady bitch. We steal permanent marker, scrawl STOOPID on their classroom doors, above posters that read Knowledge. Wisdom. Discipline. From the corner of our eyes, we study each other while we hold our Styrofoam lunch trays, wait on bus stops, and stretch in gym class, our sneakers skidding against scuffed floors. Think: Her body is not mine is not mine is not mine. And