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STACKED

books

  • STACKED
  • About Us
  • Categories
    • Audiobooks
    • Book Lists
      • Debut YA Novels
      • Get Genrefied
      • On The Radar
    • Cover Designs
      • Cover Doubles
      • Cover Redesigns
      • Cover Trends
    • Feminism
      • Feminism For The Real World Anthology
      • Size Acceptance
    • In The Library
      • Challenges & Censorship
      • Collection Development
      • Discussion and Resource Guides
      • Readers Advisory
    • Professional Development
      • Book Awards
      • Conferences
    • The Publishing World
      • Data & Stats
    • Reading Life and Habits
    • Romance
    • Young Adult
  • Reviews + Features
    • About The Girls Series
    • Author Interviews
    • Contemporary YA Series
      • Contemporary Week 2012
      • Contemporary Week 2013
      • Contemporary Week 2014
    • Guest Posts
    • Link Round-Ups
      • Book Riot
    • Readers Advisory Week
    • Reviews
      • Adult
      • Audiobooks
      • Graphic Novels
      • Non-Fiction
      • Picture Books
      • YA Fiction
    • So You Want to Read YA Series
  • Review Policy

CLICK, CLICK, SEE: Revisioning the Verse Novel as a Genre, a Guest Post from Author Cordelia Jensen

March 26, 2018 |

I’m really excited to share this fascinating and insightful piece from YA (and middle grade!) author Cordelia Jensen. Jensen’s debut novel, Skyscraping is one I adored, and when I heard she had another verse novel coming, I couldn’t wait to read it.

Earlier this month, you might remember poet Amanda Lovelace sharing some of her favorite YA novels in verse. This essay digs into how those verse novels are structured, and offers up a wealth of additional verse novels for your reading needs. It will also pique your interest about The Way The Light Bends, out tomorrow, March 27.

But without further ado, Cordelia!

 

 

There is a wide debate about what makes a verse novel a verse novel. Generally, verse novels incorporate some conventions of poetry while telling a story. The most common poetic conventions used are: an increased use of white space and line breaks, an emphasis on imagery and on a playfulness with words, for instance by using repetition, alliteration or rhyme. However, something freeing about the verse novel is that each author essentially gets to decide how much poetic convention they might incorporate into their book. For example, some verse novelists tell a story in individual poems like in Melanie Crowder’s Audacity, whereas others use more of a stream-of-consciousness format such as Martine Leavitt’s My Book of Life By Angel, which is broken up only with lines from Milton’s Paradise Lost. How do these poetic choices then come to inform their story construction? What do verse novels have to do to make a story work? What do they get to bypass? How do the poetry conventions actually work to reveal story and lend themselves to creating a stronger novel?

For Skyscraping’s debut I wrote a post on imagery construction for E. Kristin Anderson’s blog Write All the Words! The post outlines the way Thanhaa Lai uses the image of the papaya to reflect the emotional growth of Hà in Inside Out & Back Again. I did my graduate work at Vermont College of Fine Arts on how authors can use imagery to reflect the psychosocial developmental stage and changing identity of the main character. Verse novels, because of their hybrid nature, have the ability to do this more than poetry or story. Skyscraping uses celestial imagery throughout the book because Mira, the main character, is studying astronomy and this pursuit helps her reflect upon the changing constellation of her family. In The Way the Light Bends, Linc is a photographer and, therefore, photography is used as the lens through which she sees the world and ultimately fuels her emotional growth. When writing verse novels, it is important to ground your image system in the reality of the main character. For example, in Home of the Brave, Kek’s emotional state is reflected in the weather since there is such a stark contrast between the weather where he lived in the Sudan versus the weather in Minnesota. The imagery makes sense because it describes what is on that character’s mind. This is often not true in poetry itself—a poet may skip from image connection to image connection because poetry does not need to be grounded in context or character. In fact, it is often purposefully not. However, in verse novels, imagery construction is as much reliant on poetic convention as it is on story convention.

As a verse novelist, having the ability to play with white space freely is great fun. In The Way the Light Bends, the main character is a gifted artist and this allowed me to play more with white space—to see myself as a sculptor—more so than I ever had before. Sometimes the play was just about the word itself, such as the word “up” being up a line from the word that precedes it. But, often, the interplay with white space doubled in meaning because of the story. So, for example, in the beginning of the book Linc sees herself as alone and as the rest of the world partnered around her, therefore she describes herself this way:

 

 

Here, the white space is used in a poetic way but it is a testament again to character and context that gives the lines their emotional depth. If this poem was read without the rest of the story you may not understand why Linc is feeling isolated. Read in context, you not only understand this but there is also a story promise set up that Linc will find a sense of belonging.

There are a few aspects of verse novels that make storytelling different than writing a conventional novel. The first is less emphasis on, and more creative freedom with regards to, dialogue. For example, in Skyscraping, I used recorded conversations between the main character and her father to give readers more access to the father’s voice. But no matter what, there will be less dialogue in a verse novel than a conventional novel because of the poetic form. This often presents a challenge to the author: How do you create fully fleshed out secondary characters with minimal dialogue? Even more challenging, how do you do this without having the lengthy narrative description you might in a novel? There are a number of ways verse novelists deal with this. The first might be to use multiple points of view that are stylistically different. This is something I explored in Every Shiny Thing, the co-authored Middle Grade book I have coming out in April. In this story, my character’s point of view is in verse, whereas my co-author, Laurie Morrison’s, character is in prose. Often, she was able to round out characters in her sections—through dialogue and description—that I, writing in verse, could not. There are other verse novels that span the thoughts of many characters, such as The Last Fifth Grade at Emerson Elementary by Laura Shovan, which incorporates eighteen points of view. But what about in a singular point-of-view verse novel? Can you show a secondary character’s emotional growth without including their point of view?

The answer is yes, but it is harder. One way to do this is to go back to a poetry device—imagery. In Caminar by Skila Brown, Carlos describes animal spirits as a way for us to see people in his life. And this comparison allows for the reader to see people as “proud” roosters or “smooth and fast” jaguars, giving us a deeper vision of that character. Another way to give more information about a secondary character can be if this character takes up a lot of room in the main character’s head. If so, the character will often speak to the point of view of this character in their minds, and, if there is a great sense of longing, come back in flashbacks, as in Jacqueline Woodson’s Locomotion.

Another storytelling difference in verse novels is the fact that you don’t need to transition the reader from scene to scene as much as you might in a novel. So, for example, you might begin a poem “the next day…” without having to write a whole paragraph about what happened between one day and the next. While this can sometimes feel jarring to the reader, linking imagery from one poem to the next, or keeping the tone of the poems similar, may help build connective tissue throughout and establish a more fluid and continuous narrative. Of course, it’s all a matter of personal preference, and some readers say the white space itself makes a verse novel more readable because it offers time to breathe, time to transition.  

When I am writing verse novels, I often think of poems not as scenes but as moments or snapshots. In fact, one “scene” might be comprised of 3-4 overlapping poems or, just as often, one “scene” might be just one poem. Regardless, each of these “scenes” needs to bring your reader somewhere new. And, in addition, each scene must use white space, and incorporate some poetic language while developing character and story. That is quite a lot to do.

There are some poets and some novelists who look down on the verse novel form as something that doesn’t match the standards of their genre. I believe verse novels are their own genre and ought to be seen as both defying and incorporating the “rules” of poetry and the “rules” of storytelling. In an article for the ALAN review entitled “Verse Novels and the Question of Genre,” author Michael Cadden shows the verse novel in the center with its genre influences around it: novel, poetry and drama. He argues the drama genre is also an influence over the genre in as much as the verse itself can be seen as a sort of inner-monologue. Cadden argues that the modern verse novel is a great starting point to teach all three of these traditional genres plus teaching students about the creative strengths of the verse novel itself. Cadden says: “What the verse novel lacks in description and extended narration, it makes up for in its insistence that the reader provide those things on his or her own, both demanding and enabling the reader to imagine appropriate and personally satisfying images that match the context of the soliloquy and/or dialogue-driven narrative. By using the verse novel as touchstone text to learn more about three distinct genres, we would be learning how the verse novel itself is its own thing rather than a failed version of something else.”  

Maybe more useful than thinking about what a verse novel isn’t, we might think about what it is: a highly-readable, emotional journey of a character(s) undergoing life-changing events as shown in a series of image-driven moments.

As photographer, Linc in The Way the Light Bends would say, we might envision the experience of reading or writing a verse novel this way: “Click/Click/See.”

 

***

 

 

Cordelia Jensen holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and teaches creative writing in Philadelphia, where she lives with her husband and children. She is also the author of Skyscraping. Follow her on Twitter @cordeliajensen.

 

About The Way The Light Bends

 

A powerful novel in verse about fitting in, standing out, defining your own self-worth, and what it takes to keep a fracturing family whole.

Virtual twins Linc and Holly were once extremely close. But while artistic, creative Linc is her parents’ daughter biologically, it’s smart, popular Holly, adopted from Ghana as a baby, who exemplifies the family’s high-achieving model of academic success.

Linc is desperate to pursue photography, to find a place of belonging, and for her family to accept her for who she is, despite her surgeon mother’s constant disapproval and her growing distance from Holly. So when she comes up with a plan to use her photography interests and skills to do better in school–via a project based on Seneca Village, a long-gone village in the space that now holds Central Park, where all inhabitants, regardless of race, lived together harmoniously–Linc is excited and determined to prove that her differences are assets, that she has what it takes to make her mother proud. But when a long-buried family secret comes to light, Linc must decide whether her mother’s love is worth obtaining.

A novel in verse that challenges the way we think about family and belonging.

Filed Under: Guest Post, Verse, verse novels, writing, yalsa, Young Adult, young adult fiction

Poet Amanda Lovelace Recommends Great YA Novels in Verse

March 5, 2018 |

I’m really excited to share a guest post today from none other than Amanda Lovelace. You may know her as the author of the Goodreads award winning poetry collection the princess saves herself in this one. Her next book of poetry, the witch doesn’t burn in this one, hits shelves tomorrow (March 6). Amanda loves YA lit and I’m thrilled she’s here to share some of her favorite YA verse novels — and as much as it’s a format I read a lot of, Amanda’s offered up a selection of books I needed to add to my TBR myself.

Without further ado, welcome Amanda!

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In the wake of Rupi Kaur’s two massively successful poetry collections, milk and honey and the sun and her flowers, the world has decided it’s ravenous for more poetry. One of the many reasons why Kaur’s collections resonate with so many is because they both tell a tale, from beginning to end, in what some might consider a series of poem vignettes. Unfortunately, these types of poetry collections don’t seem to be too common (yet!), but you’re in luck, because novels told in the verse style get the same job done, and there’s plenty of them out there for you to devour while you wait for your next poetry fix!

 

Here are 5 of my favorites (all descriptions from Goodreads), in no particular order:

 

 

1) Blood Water Paint by Joy McCullough (March 6th) (YA) – “Her mother died when she was twelve, and suddenly Artemisia Gentileschi had a stark choice: a life as a nun in a convent or a life grinding pigment for her father’s paint.

She chose paint.

By the time she was seventeen, Artemisia did more than grind pigment. She was one of Rome’s most talented painters, even if no one knew her name. But Rome in 1610 was a city where men took what they wanted from women, and in the aftermath of rape Artemisia faced another terrible choice: a life of silence or a life of truth, no matter the cost.”

 

 

 

 

2) The Lightning Dreamer by Margarita Engle (YA) – “Opposing slavery in Cuba in the nineteenth century was dangerous. The most daring abolitionists were poets who veiled their work in metaphor. Of these, the boldest was Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, nicknamed Tula. In passionate, accessible verses of her own, Engle evokes the voice of this book-loving feminist and abolitionist who bravely resisted an arranged marriage at the age of fourteen, and was ultimately courageous enough to fight against injustice. Historical notes, excerpts, and source notes round out this exceptional tribute.”

 

 

3) A Time to Dance by Padma Venkatraman (YA) – “Veda, a classical dance prodigy in India, lives and breathes dance—so when an accident leaves her a below-knee amputee, her dreams are shattered. For a girl who’s grown used to receiving applause for her dance prowess and flexibility, adjusting to a prosthetic leg is painful and humbling. But Veda refuses to let her disability rob her of her dreams, and she starts all over again, taking beginner classes with the youngest dancers. Then Veda meets Govinda, a young man who approaches dance as a spiritual pursuit. As their relationship deepens, Veda reconnects with the world around her, and begins to discover who she is and what dance truly means to her.”

 

 

 

 

4) Paper Hearts by Meg Wiviott (YA) – “A novel in verse, Paper Hearts is the story of survival, defiance, and friendship. Based on historical events about a group of girls who were slave laborers at the munitions factory in Auschwitz.”

 

 

 

 

5) Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson (MG) – “Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and emotionally charged, each line a glimpse into a child’s soul as she searches for her place in the world. Woodson’s eloquent poetry also reflects the joy of finding her voice through writing stories, despite the fact that she struggled with reading as a child. Her love of stories inspired her and stayed with her, creating the first sparks of the gifted writer she was to become.”

 

 

growing up a word-devourer & avid fairy tale lover, it was only natural that amanda lovelace began writing books of her own, & so she did. when she isn’t reading or writing, she can be found waiting for pumpkin spice coffee to come back into season & binge-watching gilmore girls. (before you ask: team jess all the way.) the lifelong poetess & storyteller currently lives in new jersey with her husband, their bunnycat, & a combined book collection so large it will soon need its own home. she has her B.A. in english literature with a minor in sociology. her first collection, the princess saves herself in this one, won the goodreads choice award for best poetry of 2016.

Filed Under: book lists, Guest Post, Verse, verse novels, ya, ya fiction, Young Adult, young adult fiction

Guest Post: Girls of the Apocalypse by Samantha Mabry

October 9, 2017 |

I’m excited to share this really great post from Samantha Mabry. Her new book, All the Wind in the World, is out tomorrow, October 10, and it’s one that should absolutely be on your to-be-read list. It was long listed for the National Book Award in Young People’s Literature, and it was one of the Book Expo America Buzz titles — both honors for good reason.

Samantha is here to talk about the genre she writes and what, exactly, sparked her connection with the label “disaster realism.”

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At last spring’s Association of Writers and Writing Programs conference in Washington, D.C., I attended a panel that was called “Girls of the Apocalypse.” Mostly, I wanted to see Claire Vaye Watkins, author of the stunning novel from 2015, Gold Fame Citrus. If you’re not familiar with it, Gold Fame Citrus takes place in the near future when things have pretty much gone to hell because of climate change. California is basically uninhabitable, and much of the West has been transformed into sand dunes. The main character (her name is Luz; she’s 25) and her boyfriend leave Los Angeles, where they’ve been squatting in an abandoned mansion, head out into the dunes, and eventually fall in with a cult, the members of which are scraping out a living in this dusty new world. 

During this panel –which was composed of Watkins and others –the moderator asked a question that I still can’t stop thinking about. It was something along the lines of, “Is ‘apocalyptic’ even the right word for what you’re writing or would a term like ‘disaster realism’ be more apt?” Picture me gasping audibly, because that’s exactly what I did.  

Moderator, I’m sorry that I don’t remember your name, but I have stolen your term “disaster realism,” and am clinging to it. Many readers –myself included –are drawn to stories about life in a lifeless place. We think that perhaps, if and when disaster becomes real, we can become the heroes we always believed we were, or, at the very least, survive despite all terrible odds. Or there may a part of each of us that simply gravitates, zombie-like, toward disaster.

 

My latest novel All the Wind in the World could fall under the category of “disaster realism.” It’s about a determined survivor: seventeen year-old Sarah Jacqueline Crow. She’s among a group of people who live as migrant workers in the American Southwest after a gradual environmental collapse. She’s not particularly concerned with the details of this collapse. She knows it happened, and she believes she has the grit and ability to survive in the environment it has produced. What I set out to do, sort of like what Claire Vaye Watkins did, was create a future vision of the West that didn’t seem like too big of leap from the West with which I’m familiar and that currently exists. While there are elements of fabulism woven throughout, much of the world of the Real Marvelous was created by compiling natural events that have happened/are happening in Texas, such as freak swarms of killer bees, water that’s become too salty to drink, and out-of-nowhere dust storms. Again, this isn’t such a far-fetched vision of the future because it’s basically what’s happening now.

It would be hard not to see that the worldwide natural disasters we’re currently watching on the news and witnessing in our neighborhoods rival or surpass the disasters that can be plucked from our imagination, and this has led me to think more and more about the role and responsibilities of storytellers –about my role and responsibility as a storyteller. In my first novel, A Fierce and Subtle Poison, which was set in Puerto Rico, I used a hurricane as a plot device, and when I think about that now after seeing the pain and devastation Hurricane Maria has wrought, it makes me cringe. If we as writers use natural disasters as plot devices or backdrops, I’m wondering if we need to be more mindful or start to ask and answer different kinds of questions in our stories. One of those questions might be, “Now what?” The world has fundamentally changed, now what? Things will never be the same, now what? Young people are survivors, now what? I’m not trying to be prescriptive here and tell writers what to do and what to consider. I’m just trying to articulate what I myself have been considering. I write fiction, but the world is so full of true disasters, and I’m trying to find ways to honor the scars of the real while still exploring hope and magic.  

 

***

 

Samantha Mabry grew up in Texas playing bass guitar along to vinyl records, writing fan letters to rock stars, and reading big, big books, and credits her tendency toward magical thinking to her Grandmother Garcia, who would wash money in the kitchen sink to rinse off any bad spirits. She teaches writing and Latino literature at a community college in Dallas, Texas, where she lives with her husband, a historian, and her pets, including a cat named Mouse. She is the author of the novels A Fierce and Subtle Poison and All the Wind in the World. Visit her online at samanthamabry.com or on Twitter: @samanthamabry.

Filed Under: Guest Post, ya, ya fiction, Young Adult, young adult fiction

Girls Can Be Anything: Guest Post from Megan McCafferty for #HereWeAre

March 16, 2017 |

About The Girls 2017 Logo

 

Today’s guest post for “About The Girls”/#HereWeAre is from one of my long-time favorite authors, from wayyy back into my own teen hood: Megan McCafferty!

 

megheadshot

 

Megan McCafferty has written about adolescence for two decades. The author of of ten novels, she’s best known for the Jessica Darling series. She’s currently adapting SLOPPY FIRSTS into a stage play that will debut in spring 2018.

 

 

 

____________________

I was a 10-year-old Junior Girl Scout in 1983. It was my second year with the organization and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to stick around for a third. At my young age I was already wary of any group that required conformity, especially the form of an actual uniform. And I hated knocking on strangers’ doors to sell Thin Mints and Samoas. What was the point of sticking with Scouts when my sash would always have more blank space than badges?

foreverI liked our Troop Leader though. Mrs. Henderson was the divorced-and-remarried mom of Kim Hartmann, my only friend with a different last name from her parents. I liked Mrs. Henderson mostly because she bought Kim a copy of FOREVER… and let her daughter read it even after she discovered it was all about sexy sexy sex.

Still, I was pretty determined to de-enlist from the Scouts when Mrs. Henderson made an exciting announcement at our weekly meeting.

“Troop 10 is participating in a show! On stage! In front of an audience!”

I loved being in shows! On stage! In front of an audience!

The theme of the show was “Singing and Dancing Through the Decades” and each Troop was randomly assigned a specific time period to celebrate in skit, song and dance. I wasn’t much of a dancer, but I was one hell of a singer/actress double threat. No 10-year-old Annie wannabe could out-vibrato me.  For a blissful ten seconds, I imagined myself at center stage… I was the 30s in a red dress and curly wig singing “Tomorrow.” I was the 40s in a swingy skirt and army cap harmonizing all three Andrews sisters’ parts in “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.” I was the 1950s in a Pink Ladies jacket, belting Rizzo’s tour de force “There Are Worse Things I Can Do.” Nevermind that my historical references were mostly anachronistic and all from movie musicals. For the first time since I put on my Junior green beret, I was excited to be a Scout.

This excitement lasted for about five seconds, when Mrs. Henderson informed us that Troop 10 would present the E.R.A. era.

The what what?

“The Equal Rights Amendment era.”

I had no idea what this was. And if I didn’t know, none of us did.

Mrs. Henderson devoted the rest of the meeting trying to convince us of the great entertainment value to be mined from second-wave feminism of the early 1970s. And the more we heard about inequality, Congress and constitutional amendments, the less enthusiastic we all were. Mrs. Henderson, however, remained optimistic.

“One of you will be the first female President of the United States!”

“In the show?” I asked.

I knew a juicy part when I heard it.

“In the show! And in real life!”

Mrs. Henderson lost me again.

GIRLS CAN BE ANYTHING by Norma KleinA few years earlier, my beloved first grade teacher Mrs. Mohr had introduced me to the book GIRLS CAN BE ANYTHING by Norma Klein.* In it, six-year-old kindergartner Marina pushes back against her boysplaining best friend Adam. He says she can’t be a doctor (she can be a nurse!) or a pilot (she can be a stewardess!) or President of the United States (she can be his wife!). Marina isn’t having any of this sexist nonsense. If other countries elected Golda Maier and Margaret Thatcher, why couldn’t the United States elect Marina? I loved the book but was disappointed by the realization that it was probably already too late for Marina and for me. I did the math: I’d turn 35 years old just in time for the 2008 election. Surely the first female President would be elected before then.

Mrs. Henderson needed me on her side. If I didn’t muster any enthusiasm for the ERA era, no girl in the Troop would.

“Why are we making big deal about girls being able to do all the same stuff as boys?” I asked her. “This E.R.A. stuff should have been settled a million years ago already.”

“You’re right, but it’s not.” Mrs. Henderson said. “And until it is? We keep making a big deal.”

Mrs. Henderson’s vision was simple, maybe even inspired by Klein’s book. All girls in Troop 10 would dress up as just a few of the many jobs women could do as well as men. We had a doctor and a pilot, as well as a construction worker, a teacher, a scientist and a mother. We held a special vote to determine who would be Troop 10’s First Female President of the United States.

I won the election in a landslide.

On show day, I dressed in a wool blazer and pleated skirt. The outfit was itchy and uncomfortable but commanded respect. I wore it that one time and never again. I marched in circles holding a poster saying “VOTE FOR MEGAN FOR PRESIDENT AND VOTE FOR ERA.” It wasn’t as glamorous as the razzle-dazzle song-and-dance numbers in my head, but I was proud to be chosen by my peers to represent the most powerful person in the world. I couldn’t help but wonder about the girl out there somewhere who would eventually grow up to be the real first female President of the United States.

I still wonder about that girl.

And until we know who she is, I guess we all need to keep making a big deal.

 

norma klein

 
*Norma Klein deserves her own post. She wrote groundbreaking YA books throughout the 70s and 80s featuring fiercely feminist teenage girls who had lots and lots of sex with–and sometimes without–consequences. She died at 50 in 1989, a premature end that perhaps explains why she isn’t worshipped on the same scale as her kick-ass contemporary, The Goddess Judy Blume. All of Klein’s books are out of print.

Filed Under: about the girls, female characters, feminism, feminism for the real world, Guest Post

“I Push That Voice Down”: Lilliam Rivera on Body Image & Appearance for Latinas #HereWeAre

March 14, 2017 |

About The Girls 2017 Logo

 

Welcome to the week-long celebration of feminism! This series, which began its life as “About The Girls,” has expanded this year to highlight broader issues of feminism and social justice. Guest writers are sharing their insights into their own life and writing experiences with feminism.

Today, we welcome Lilliam Rivera, author of the recently-released YA title The Education of Margot Sanchez, to talk about clothing, the Latina body, and more.

LilliamRivera-HiRes2

 

Lilliam Rivera is an award-winning writer and author of The Education of Margot Sanchez, a contemporary young adult novel available now from Simon & Schuster. Recently named a “2017 Face to Watch” by the Los Angeles Times, Lilliam’s work has appeared in Tin House, Los Angeles Times, and Latina, to name a few. She lives in Los Angeles with her family where she’s completing her second novel.

 

 

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“They say I’m a beast.
And feast on it. When all along
I thought that’s what a woman was.”

“Loose Woman” by Sandra Cisneros

 

Mami tells me to cover up. The oversized t-shirt I wear reaches just above my knees. It’s early Saturday morning and I’m ready to sink in to some Saturday morning cartoons but apparently that’s not going to be the case.

“Put something decent on,” she says.

I glance over to the kitchen. My younger brother sits at our kitchen table, loudly slurping the milk from his bowl of cereal. He wears a t-shirt and boxers, his regular pajamas. I look down at what I’m wearing. We’re dressed fairly similar. I can’t find a difference.

“But I’m not going anywhere right now,” I say. “I’m having breakfast.”

Mami shakes her head.

I reluctantly go to my bedroom and put on jogging pants and a bra. The message my mother was sending was clear: My body is meant to be hidden. Exposing my legs and not wearing bra, even to my own family, was considered wrong. Even in an innocent shirt, I was projecting some sort of sexual overture. I’m twelve years old.

Mami is a very soft-spoken person. She rarely yells. When she tells me to do something I usually do as she says. At that time, I didn’t have the words to form a valid argument on why I should be allowed to relax in my home like my brother. Instead I was left with this deep feeling that somehow my body was dangerous and dirty.

According to a study conducted by Brandon L. Velez, Irma D. Campos, and Bonnie Moradi in regards to the relations of sexual objectification and racist discrimination with Latina’s body image, “greater internalization may lead women to self objectify by focusing on how their body appears to others rather than on how it feels or what it can do.” The study continues to state, “Self-objectification manifests behaviorally as body surveillance, or habitual monitoring of one’s appearance.”

Throughout my teenage years, I wore oversized clothing that never showed off my curves. There are very few pictures of me as a teenager. Constant voices in my head told me that I was ugly. My parents never said those words to me. Still, the subtle signs from my mother helped contribute to this low self-esteem. I struggled to understand why my body needed to be policed, why it was so important to wear a certain outfit, to cover up my growing chest, for my body to be controlled by my parents.

It would take many years, and therapy, to finally overcome this distorted view of myself. I know I look good and I love to dress up accentuating what I like about myself. But even as I sit to type those words there is a slight strangeness that creeps in, reminding me that I need to cover up. I push that voice down.

My daughter is twelve years old. I try to teach her to have a better understanding of her body and to cultivate a more positive body image. It’s not an easy task. She still suffers from the many ailments that I did. We live in Los Angeles where celebrities are worshipped. She notices how certain classmates are “popular” and why she isn’t. Television and movies continue to perpetuate the same aspirational messages that thin and white is the only beauty allowed. But unlike my upbringing, I try not to shy away from the uncomfortable conversations that my mother would never allow us to have. I don’t blame my mother for this. This low self-esteem spiral was passed down from her mother and so on. I just hope to stop the cycle.

 

Research:

“Relations of Sexual Objectification and Racist Discrimination with Latina Women’s Body Image and Mental Health”

Brandon L. Velez, Irma D. Campos, Bonnie Moradi

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/cc66/c02aeaaf828a56535175e2a18a3216f039e5.pdf 

Filed Under: about the girls, feminism, feminism for the real world, Guest Post

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