Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson

Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson by – 196 pages

Book Blurb:

Moving forward and backward in time, Jacqueline Woodson’s taut and powerful new novel uncovers the role that history and community have played in the experiences, decisions, and relationships of these families, and in the life of the new child. As the book opens in 2001, it is the evening of sixteen-year-old Melody’s coming of age ceremony in her grandparents’ Brooklyn brownstone. Watched lovingly by her relatives and friends, making her entrance to the music of Prince, she wears a special custom-made dress. But the event is not without poignancy. Sixteen years earlier, that very dress was measured and sewn for a different wearer: Melody’s mother, for her own ceremony– a celebration that ultimately never took place.

Unfurling the history of Melody’s parents and grandparents to show how they all arrived at this moment, Woodson considers not just their ambitions and successes but also the costs, the tolls they’ve paid for striving to overcome expectations and escape the pull of history. As it explores sexual desire and identity, ambition, gentrification, education, class and status, and the life-altering facts of parenthood, Red at the Bone most strikingly looks at the ways in which young people must so often make long-lasting decisions

about their lives–even before they have begun to figure out who they are and what they want to be. 

My Review: 4 stars

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Red at the Bone was chosen as my local library’s 2021 community read. I purchased the book after its release in 2019, but with time running amok, it got set on a shelf and forgotten. I’m grateful that my library selected this book as it was a reading experience.

In the most graceful and melodic way of storytelling, this book read like a poem. The language gave this book tempo; it read with a special sort of cadence. In truth, it took a bit to get used to, however once it did, the story flew by.

Although the book focuses on racism, class, second chances and unplanned pregnancy, the heartbeat comes from the cyclical generations of motherhood and the multi-generational points of view. Each person’s history brought with it a different lens to look through.

There is brevity to this tale, which works well, based on the way it was told. There is a lot to digest in this slim book, which makes it an excellent pick for book clubs.

Quotes I liked:

Does it sound crazy to say I looked at her and saw the world falling into some kind of order that I didn’t even know it was out of?”

“Look how beautifully black we are. And as we dance, I am not Melody who is sixteen, I am not my parents’ once illegitimate daughter—I am a narrative, someone’s almost forgotten story. Remembered.”

“She felt red at the bone—like there was something inside of her undone and bleeding.”