Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

     The book Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson is considered both a memoir and an autobiography. Also, the book was written in poem format; each chapter was a new poem. The book mainly talks about Jacqueline's childhood, mainly on how it was growing up black in the 1960's. Throughout her childhood she goes back in forth between South Carolina and New York. She explains how she never really knew where home was. She never felt completely at home in either place, it was always 50/50 with her. Jacqueline grew up in the same years of the Civil Right Movement. She writes about the struggles of growing up black and how big of an impact it had on her childhood. Although the book talks about the negativity in her childhood it also talks about her beautiful memories she shared with both sides of her family. She explicitly talks of both her mother and fathers side. She speaks of New York and South Carolina and the sacred memories she has there.
     I absolutely love this book! I'm usually not into nonfiction, biographies, memoir etc. but this book was absolutely beautiful! You didn't feel like you were reading a biography, you felt as if you were Jacqueline herself reliving all of her old memories. I can't even express how much I liked it. I read it twice because I liked it so much! She gives so much detail with her writing that you can easily imagine as if you were there with her. She talks of helping her grandfather garden, she uses such strong emotion with this one poem that it leaves my heart swelling. What I'm basically trying to say is that she literally put all my thoughts into words and made an amazing book. I'd recommend this book who likes to take their time reading. Since the book is in poem format, it might take you a while to digest the meaning of her words and poems. This isn't necessarily a bad thing but sometimes her poem get confusing if you don't take the time to analyze them and find out their meaning. I overall give this book a 10/10

Jacqueline and her family 

Love, Lucas by Chantelle Sedgwick

      The book I read was Love, Lucas by Chantelle Sedgwick. This book was about a girl named Oakley Nelson who loses her brother to cancer. Oakley is in a bad place with her brother dying, her parents constantly fighting, and the feeling of emptiness. Oakleys mom suggests staying in California with her Aunt Jo for a while to get her mind off everything. Oakley loves it by her Aunts house but her mom gives her a notebook with letters from her brother inside. Oakley tries healing from her brothers death by the help of a boy named Carson and her brothers advice in the notebook. It becomes very hard for Oakley to admit her true feelings for Carson knowing that her brother would never be able to have the same experience. She has this incredible journey about finding her true feelings for Carson and coping with her brothers death.
     I absolutely love this book with all of my heart! I read it into literally two days and then I bought it for myself so I could reread it. It was written so well and gave so much detail that I felt that I was in the story too! I would be lying if I didn't say that I cried, because I cried. A lot. The story was so heartwarming and it made me think so much. What if something like this happened to my little sister? Would I have my own Carson? I'd recommend this book to anyone who likes realistic fiction and a tad bit of romance. It's one of those books that you can never put down. I'd rate it a 10/10 because it was just that good!

Butterfly

On a purple, sun-shot evening
Under wide-flowering chestnut trees
Upon the the threshold full of dust
Yesterday, today, the days are all like these.

Trees flower forth in beauty,
Lovely too their very wood all gnarled and old
That I am half afraid to peer
Into their crowns of green and gold.

The sun has made a veil of gold
So lovely that my body aches.
Above, the heavens shriek with blue
Convinced I've smiled by some mistake.
The world's abloom and seems to smile.
I want to fly but where, how high?
If in barbed wire, things can bloom
Why couldn't I? I will not die!

Regret

I regret many things in my life but, I'd say that what I regret the most is opening myself up to people who didn't take the time to do the same. I've always had the worst trust issues, and once you lose my trust you've basically lost me. Without trust what is the base of a relationship, a friendship? So when people toss my trust away, when they carelessly say things I've always kept secret about myself, it hurts to know that I was so stupid enough to not see the their true personality. I was too blind to understand that this person couldn't be trusted, that something was off. It huts me to think that the one person who I relied on the most, betrayed me. I regret being so blind to the point where I didn't even truly know who my best friend was.