Disgruntled

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Malletts Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / General / Solomon, Asali	4-week checkout	In transit

"An elegant, vibrant, startling coming-of-age novel, for anyone who's ever felt the shame of being alive Kenya Curtis is only eight years old, but she knows that she's different, even if she can't put her finger on how or why. It's not because she's Black--most of the other students in the fourth-grade class at her West Philadelphia elementary school are too. Maybe it's because she celebrates Kwanzaa, or because she's forbidden from reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Maybe it's because she calls her father--a housepainter-slash-philosopher--"Baba" instead of "Daddy," or because her parents' friends gather to pour out libations "from the Creator, for the Martyrs" and discuss "the community." Kenya does know that it's connected to what her Baba calls "the shame of being alive"--a shame that only grows deeper and more complex over the course of Asali Solomon's long-awaited debut novel. Disgruntled, effortlessly funny and achingly poignant, follows Kenya from West Philadelphia to the suburbs, from public school to private, from childhood through adolescence, as she grows increasingly disgruntled by her inability to find any place or thing or person that feels like home. A coming-of-age tale, a portrait of Philadelphia in the late eighties and early nineties, an examination of the impossible double-binds of race, Disgruntled is a novel about the desire to rise above the limitations of the narratives we're given and the painful struggle to craft fresh ones we can call our own"-- Provided by publisher.
"Novel about a young black girl coming of age in Philadelphia in the late '80s and early '90s"-- Provided by publisher.

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

Library Journal Review
Booklist Review
Publishers Weekly Review
Summary / Annotation
Fiction Profile
Author Notes

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Story of an Outsider submitted by sdunav on June 12, 2015, 4:45pm Kind of dark but funny and compelling coming-of-age story about a young African-American girl in Philadelphia in the late 1980's-early 90's. It's hard to know how much of it is autobiographical - but regardless, it's a great story with really interesting characters. I want a sequel now!

So relevant submitted by Lucy S on June 26, 2015, 4:27am Though this story takes place in the 1980s and 90s it really resonates with current events. Very readable. I couldn't put it down.

Acted upon, rarely an actor submitted by Susan4Pax -prev. sueij- on July 15, 2017, 9:23am I didn't love this book. It's a coming-of-age story that explores the childhood to young adulthood of a Black girl in Philadelphia whose parents are part of the Black separatist movement. She ends up going to a prestigious White school, however, and so the story had so much potential for exploring identity. It does, in some ways. My biggest struggle with it is that the main character is almost entirely "acted upon" and only perhaps ever twice noticeably an actor. Even with her friends, she is swayed and buffeted by the winds of others. I hardly find that to be a story.

I read once that "a story is when something happens, and therefore something changes." Since the main character never makes anything happen, she never makes anything change (but the twice), and I didn't find that compelling much at all.