A review by emleemay
Piecing Me Together by Renée Watson

4.0

And this makes me wonder if a black girl’s life is only about being stitched together and coming undone, being stitched together and coming undone.
I wonder if there’s ever a way for a girl like me to feel whole.

[b:Piecing Me Together|25566675|Piecing Me Together|Renée Watson|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1466549070s/25566675.jpg|45365182] is such an important and moving book. It released during Black History Month, and was perhaps overshadowed by the buzz surrounding the amazing [b:The Hate U Give|32075671|The Hate U Give|Angie Thomas|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1476284759s/32075671.jpg|49638190] that followed up a month later. Both books look at what it means to be a black teen in modern America, but their tones and focal points are different.

[b:The Hate U Give|32075671|The Hate U Give|Angie Thomas|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1476284759s/32075671.jpg|49638190] is a hard-hitting book about one of the most horrific problems facing America today: the shooting of unharmed, black teenagers. It pulls no punches; it rips your heart out; it says what needs to be said.

[b:Piecing Me Together|25566675|Piecing Me Together|Renée Watson|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1466549070s/25566675.jpg|45365182], on the other hand, is a quieter read. It's about the everyday microaggressions that Jade faces as a scholarship student at a mostly-white school. It's about art - collages specifically (hence the cover) - and using this as a form of expression. It's about careful, nuanced friendships, identity and self-worth.

Sometimes I just want to be comfortable in this skin, this body. Want to cock my head back and laugh loud and free, all my teeth showing, and not be told I’m too rowdy, too ghetto.

Jade describes herself as a bigger girl, and the book proceeds to consider standards of beauty and how they are forced upon us.

But where this book stands out (and, really, where it shouldn't stand out) is that it is less about relations between black people and white people, and more about class issues within race. In [b:Piecing Me Together|25566675|Piecing Me Together|Renée Watson|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1466549070s/25566675.jpg|45365182], Jade joins "Women to Women", a program that connects young black teens with older, successful black women in order to *hopefully* improve their prospects.

Jade, however, struggles to connect with her mentor - Maxine - because Maxine grew up surrounded by wealth. The author shows these divides along wealth and class lines within race and how this affects relationships between wealthy and poor black women, whilst also showing how racial divides affect the relationship between Jade and her equally poor white friend, Sam.

It's things like this that really open my eyes to my privilege as a white reader. It is thankfully not strange anymore to read a book with a diverse set of characters, or a book that explores white/POC racial divides, but the real test of equality will not be when it's normal to see many POC among the white people on our screens and in our books, but when relationships between POC (of different class/religion/background/etc.) are explored as much as the relationships between white people.

This book takes some very necessary steps in that direction. It's also a powerful coming-of-age story, made easy to read in one sitting by the author's engaging style. Highly recommended for YA Contemporary fans.

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