Her quest becomes a question of who she can allow herself and others around her to become in spite of a complicated past.
You understand that certain moments have to be underlined.Įmoni does this in tiny doses, though, offering us her big heart alongside her willfulness and talent. The narrative of “With the Fire on High” is a common, shared one - the story of a multifaceted, brilliant brown woman who will not be victimized by other people’s projections of shame on black and brown young mothers - but Acevedo elevates it in a way that feels new. Acevedo shows us Emoni’s world rather than telling us what to think about it, with a few slight exceptions. This passage could also describe the shape and pace of the book, written in sharp, nimble prose instead of verse. “Information ain’t free, so my daughter’s name wasn’t going to tell anybody any information they didn’t earn.” “Because nobody ever met a white girl named Emoni, and as soon as they see my name on a résumé or college application they think they know exactly what kind of girl they getting.” She knows her own name is a signifier of her Afro-Latinx identity “Emma,” on the other hand, “is the kind of name that didn’t tell you too much before you met her, the way mine does,” Emoni tells us. The nomenclature theme nods to Emoni’s maturity and integrity, and her attention to detail.
Anchored by her baby girl, Emma, and her grandmother Gloria (whom she calls ‘Buela), Emoni is sure of everything except whom she can trust as she chases her dream of running her own kitchen. A talented aspiring chef and unapologetic teenage mother, Emoni is as stubbornly committed to following her dreams as Xiomara is, but she cares less about other people’s perceptions. Xiomara is like the more subdued fictive kin of Emoni Santiago, the self-possessed heroine of Acevedo’s second novel, WITH THE FIRE ON HIGH (HarperTeen, 400 pp., $17.99 ages 13 and up). With her yearning and aspiration, Xiomara is a distinctly Latina narrator who nonetheless speaks in the universal voice of a tender young spirit’s unfolding. Few contemporary coming-of-age stories compare to the one that unfolds around Xiomara Batiste, the defiant, emerging writer at the center of Elizabeth Acevedo’s best-selling, National Book Award-winning debut, “The Poet X,” a novel in verse about a rebellious girl we root for as she carves a path away from her family’s religious stoicism and toward her own artistic future.
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