This was a really powerful novel about a young Black girl trying to find her own way in the world. Working through her own trauma of her mother being gone, while caring for her infant brother and upholding her father's strict rules. She loves her family, but she also believes her mother wanted something else for her (and that is why she enrolls herself in school). She could see in the way her mother was constantly at odds with her father in the end, how her mother was beginning to fade into the background of the Movement, how it was inching away from what it had began as and was becoming more cult like. Her father wants to protect Nigeria from a racist world, but unfortunately he has protected her so much that she is fully unprepared when she leaves the protection of their commune. The Philadelphia Friends School has a small amount of Black students, even as they espouse their diversity, and Nigeria's lack of experience around white people and the very real history she has learned in regards to what white supremacy has done to her family and ancestors, leads her to have a panic attack. The book is also honest about how some of Nigeria's fears of the outside world are unfounded and over dramaticized by her father, but many of the things she was taught are accurate and reflected quite clearly at the school she ends up attending. Due to the school existing within a system built on white supremacy, it upholds the societal constructs which continue to belittle and condone violence against Black people. Specifically seen in the way Nigeria's teacher talks to her and the way in which the Principle does not stand up for her. Nigeria must face all of this while working through very real trauma of the night her brother was born. Seeing her mother in so much pain, her father almost being arrested for simply driving a little too fast to follow his wife in labor, entering a hospital for the first time. All of that has clouded her memories and has made her distance herself from a truth that could tear her apart. This all is going on while she is coming to terms with the fact her father's beliefs no longer align with her own and she feels trapped not only by white supremacy, but by her controlling father and his outdated beliefs about women. Because while her father wants to destroy the systems that control and destroy Black lives, he still upholds the patriarchy. Nigeria notices this most when she realizes her mother wrote most of her father's books and gained no recognition for it, all while trying to write her own book for Black women. It was nice to see Nigeria owning her own life, while also confronting her father but still showing how much she loves and respects him. While her life diverges from him, she still wants him to know her and be there for her. It is not a story about bad father's, but about a flawed father trying to do his best for all those in his life while not considering the harm he can be doing with how strict he is and not considering Nigeria's choice to be in the Movement. The formatting of this novel also added to the book and to Nigeria's character. With the quotes chosen and the way in which the chapters are set up as a charter of rights for Nigeria you could really grasp her wanting to change, to adapt, to form her own person amidst her father's Movement and her mother's wishes for her. Thank you so much to Frenzy Books (HarperCollins) for providing me with a copy to read in exchange for an honest review.
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