what a book. a beautiful treatise on being yourself, a love letter to hip hop and harlem, with lyric writing and immersive characters.

she talks about moving through the world as a black person, a woman, a big woman, a black woman, a big black woman. how she is seen or not seen, how her identity is formed by all of that. it's so well done.

"Sometimes Malaya thought back on the sun-dappled apartment days and wondered if that could really have been the same family - the same parents, the same her. Other times, she wondered if those memories could be real, and, if they were, what else in life could change without explanation."

"She recalled the relief she felt when she let herself be full of Shaniece, how her whole weight seemed to double and disappear at once, how she became an ocean, her body formless and invulnerable, a tiny part of a gorgeous moment. She recalled Shaniece's bottom lip against hers. She imagined sealing it in her mouth, holding it there between her tongue and her teeth like a candy, or a good meal, or a sentence too true to say."

"She wanted to say, What good has shame done you?"

"'...if you're a certain kind of person, you'll always hope. If you're a certain kind of person, you can always be naive. Your father and I are both that way. I guess it's a good thing in a sense. We saw all this change for the neighborhood, you couldn't have told us it wouldn't be for us. We never thought it would be for white folks moving in, as much as we know about the world. They don't even see it. They move in because they love Harlem - what they think Harlem is - and then they erase it. That's the story of black culture. We make magic, they consume it, make it theirs. We have to start over, and we do. Over and over again.'" ( )

2022. Malaya is a fat 8 year old at the start of the book. Her mother takes her to weightwatchers meetings. They give her a stationary bike for Christmas. Still she compulsively overeats. Her grandmother suggests gastric bypass surgery.

This coming of age novel about a fat, black, lesbian in Harlem really gets you into her head and into the feel of Harlem.

Her parents and her grandmother are particularly well drawn too.

Malaya comes to accept herself and not choose to get surgery. She follows her passion for art. She doesn’t have to have it all figured out and be in love at the end, but she has hope. ( )

I found myself struggling with this book. While I was impressed with the writing and the way the author brought Harlem to life, the food descriptions kind of kept me a little unnerved...which may have been the point. ( )