This goes on the pile of that very small number of books which have almost made me cry on the Tube. The Poet X is a gorgeous, heartbreaking look at the contradictions teenage girls face in their lives, particularly those girls who look a certain way, which makes society see them as open for judgment and criticism.

Xiomara is fifteen years old, and because of how she looks, people think they have the right to touch her and catcall her on the street. She's learning to navigate a world full of assumptions about her and the expectations that people, particularly her mother, have for her. And in amongst all of that, she finds poetry, she meets a boy, and she learns her brother's deepest secret. 

There were parts of this book which made me so, so angry. Xiomara's experiences are rendered in painful detail, and each time she was faced with an ignorant teenager or a grown-up who believed themselves superior, I was so angry on her behalf. Acevedo does an incredible job of relating the everyday nature of these events, and the way they can build up and grind you down.

The secondary characters are all richly drawn. Xiomara's mother, with whom Xiomara has such a difficult relationship, is at once understandable and incredibly frustrating, as she watches her daughter through the lens of religion and her own experiences. Xavier, Xiomara's twin, is going through his own problems, but he still wants to help his sister. Xiomara's English teacher, Ms Galiano, proves herself to be a truly great teacher, one for whom pastoral responsibility is as important as academic. I also liked the fact that all the characters grew and changed over the course of the book. Often, it feels like the main character changes but no-one else does but in The Poet X, Xiomara changes and her twin changes and their parents change and Father Sean changes - it's wonderful.

The one downside of reading the e-ARC I had is that some of the formatting didn't quite work, and as this book is written in verse, it made the experience a little frustrating for me. Xiomara's poetry is the way we learn about her life, and there were passages I found myself stopping to read out loud to get the full experience when the formatting was off. But all that means is that I'll need to buy a hard copy when the book comes out, and that's no bad thing!

The Poet X is a gorgeous addition to the 2018 YA canon. Xiomara is a wonderful main character, and Acevedo's first foray into YA fiction is masterful. I would recommend it to anyone who likes their YA realistic, wonderfully rich, and full of heart.

I don't read a lot of teen/young adult fiction anymore, so I was apprehensive about this book at first but the blurb and cover intrigued me enough to try it anyway. And I'm glad I did! I think this book proves that it's not that I suddenly stopped liking the young adult genre as I grew older, but rather got tired from the bad writing that's relatively common in the genre. But this! I loved Poet X.

The book follows Xiomara, a girl juggling her first love, her first dream and a very religious mother. I loved X's relationship with her twin, although I wish we would've seen more. And I get that this story focused on X as narrator and not her twin, but the way his storyline ended felt a bit rushed and wasn't explored enough! It was probably mostly meant as juxtaposition of Xiomara's own struggles with love, but I felt the story lacked there.

Xiomara's relationship with her mother however was very much central to the story, and was dealt with beautifully imo. /That/ scene near the end? I could not stop reading, and felt the pain X must have been feeling. Seeing your dream go up in flames... But rising from those ashes and discovering you can do it on your own (but not alone).

I loved this!!! It was a really emotional and beautiful story of one girl struggling to make her passions work alongside her family. It has so many different layers, and I loved how it was in verse. It was so easy to read, and it really added to the story. I loved how it centred on spoken word. It really is an amazing thing, and I loved the difficulties between religion and how you want to live your life. 10/10 would recommend.

This small but mighty novel packs a punch both moving and memorable. The format is so engaging, the writing so skilful that the whole experience of reading is addictive and exhilarating. Xiomara is a fantastic character with a unique voice that she uses to navigate the emotional obstacles of her life. I absolutely adored her - her spirit, her resilience, her intelligence. Her relationship with her mother was in equal parts heart breaking, infuriating, redemptive. There were scenes that were so evocative of being 16 and feeling adrift in the world that I was transported back to that time of my own life. This is definitely an emotional wringer of a story! So well done, so relevant, so vital - this is a book not to be missed. A future classic, I don't think it needs my approval to be a huge success! Thank you NetGalley for my copy.

This is going to be such an important book to so many people, i can tell. I loved it in so many different ways i don't quite know where to start. The characters and their emotions were so vivid and i felt it deeply. I love, love, love this!

This book is beautiful, powerful, and wrecked me in the best way possible. I cannot recommend it highly enough. I will be eagerly keeping an eye out for Acevedo's books in the future.

This book intrigued me from just reading the synopsis and when I found out the book was written completely in poetic form, I knew I had to read this as soon as possible. Reminiscent of a combination of writers such as Junot Diaz in it’s honesty and writers such as Jacqueline Woodson, The Poet X is an incredible story.

This is a book that as soon as you’re in, you will not get out until the end. Explosive, real and a great reflection of the society we live in today, The Poet X shows how the world works for a teenage girl growing up now and that’s both sad, maddening and touching throughout this book, particularly the moments with her family and the impact they have on her life.

However it’s the use of different forms of poetry in how this story is told that makes this book draw you in, they reflect how Xiomara’s mind works, whether it’s racing thoughts when talking about falling in love or mellow moments contemplating how she feels writing, this books emotions are displayed in how each page is written and it strikes you throughout this book with such perfection.

A unique and brilliant read, it’s probably the best book I’ve read this year so far.

Unique, timely and important. This is a beautiful story and a quick read too. Would thoroughly recommend.

This book is beautiful, fierce, heartbreaking and joyful. Written in verse it is the coming-of-age story of Xiomara Batista, a teenage girl living in Harlem. Her parents emigrated from the Dominican Republic and have retained traditional (religious) values, which don't quite gel with those of Xio and her twin brother. This is the story of how Xio struggles to find her voice, and balance the conflict that arises from having a strict Catholic mother and being a red-blooded teenage girl in the grip of first love.

The way Xio questions her faith is very sensitively handled, and her battle against boys (and men) sexualising her developing figure will strike a chord with anyone who is or has been a teenage girl. I mean this as the highest compliment when I say The Poet X should take its place in the cannon of classic teenage girl literature. This is Forever for a new generation, and dare I say it - it may even surpass Forever.

This isn't the type of book I'd normally choose and I'm shocked by how much I enjoyed it. Novels told in verse are usually not my kind of thing at all -- if I find out a novel is in verse, it's usually one of my deal breakers that pushes a book from my Want To Read to my Nope list.

But this one...the fact that it was in verse just worked.It didn't feel like the book was less because it was told in verse, it felt like more and like no other written format would've made as much sense for this story and this character. Like poetry was Xiomara's voice and anything else wouldn't have felt as genuine for her.

I struggled to put the book down once I got into it. It's definitely more of a character driven story than plot driven, but that worked out too because I loved the characters. It takes real talent to show such complex family dynamics in so few words but Elizabeth Acevedo managed it perfectly and she had me hooked on her words and the lives of these characters. I kept telling myself just one more poem over and over until I'd reached the last one.

I don't know what it's like to be a woman of colour. I don't know what it's like to grow up with strict religious parents. I don't know what it's like to grow up and find myself questioning the religion I'd been brought up with. I don't know what it's like to have a twin.

Basically, that's the case for so much of what this book was about: I can relate to some things, but for a lot of it, I just don't know what it's like. And reading this doesn't change that--it's not for me, I'm not supposed to see myself reflected perfectly in these characters--but it did give me a glimpse into lives so different from my own and hopefully made me a bit less ignorant and helped me understand some things a bit better.

And hopefully it'll be much needed representation for the teenagers who do know what it's like to be like Xiomara or her brother or to grow up in a family just like theirs.

I'd rate the book 4.5 out of 5 stars.

What makes this book truly powerful and unique is that the entire story is written in verse. I’ve read books that have a heavy poetry influence (The Beginning of the World in the Middle of the Night springs to mind) but often those books feel excessively flowery and get boring very quickly. This kind of verse has a bite to it and never gets dull, it grabs hold of you on the first page and doesn’t let you go even after you’re finished reading.

This book spoke to me in a lot of different ways, for one thing, I have a profound love for slam poetry, if I start watching videos on YouTube it can be a few hours before I pull myself back to reality again. I also related to the religious upbringing Xiomara has and struggles with (though mine was far less extreme than hers!). If I ended up relating so strongly to Xiomara I can only imagine how others will find her.

The plot of this book is wonderful, heart-warming as well as heart-breaking, with powerful emotion at its core, perfect for this medium. I foolishly decided to finish reading this at my desk first thing in the morning and had to awkwardly sniffle and hide the fact that I was in floods of tears from my colleagues (bookworm problems).

This book is significant, it’s heavy and it’s powerful but at the same time it has a lightness to it, it’s a breath of fresh air for those caught in a reading slump (or any kind of slump if I’m honest). It is a call to follow your dreams tied up completely with the understanding that sometimes that is a tall order.
I can’t wait to see what other people think of this book. I want to read about teens falling in love with Xiomara and with poetry and getting inspired.

My rating: 5/5 stars

I received a digital advanced review copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Wow! I don’t really know where to start. The poet x was an easy yet intense read. I found a true connection with xiomara considering I am not religious, but she made me question my beliefs. While I have always believed in some sort of god or maker of the universe, she showed me the different views of him/her/whoever and religion itself.
*
I loved that Elizabeth Acevedo (the author) introduced how a teenager is told to view her body and what she is can and can’t do with it. I liked how strong the character was when she opposed to people who offended her. It was very good how she managed to show what society had to say about xiomara’s actions and how it showed how people can be when it comes to another’s choices in their life.
*
A character that I very much disliked was xiomara’s mother and the effect she had on her daughter. Though this was intended, I hated that her mother was very controlling and judgemental of her daughter and expected her to image herself. Also the character showed quite a negative impact to religion, so this may not be to some readers likings but I thought that was quite clever of the author by showing different attitudes.
*
Overall I think it showed many perspectives of the characters feelings and what they are struggling with. However I expected their to be more poetry especially towards the end at the poet recital. I noticed how the author managed to make it seem so intense and heartbreaking at times yet showed remorse for characters that had done wrong. This is a story will be stored in my heart forever. X

I love poetry and I was really taken with how this book was written. I’ve not read any of the author’s poetry but I feel I’ll have to look out for it now. This was a beautiful, compelling and honest look at issues facing many teen girls today. I am so on board for honest discussions about body image, rape culture, religion and parental abuse. Despite the hard hitting topics, the MC is endearingly vulnerable as she struggles to find her own voice. The romance is sweet. And it never feels as if the book is preaching to you. I’m very hit and miss with YA contemporary since so much is written to fill trends of the moment without any emotional honesty. Not the case here at all. A wonderful book. I read it in one sitting.

Striking coming of age story with strong, compelling characters & a vivid sense of place. Verse format is clever but accessible. Ending feels a little neat but overall it's an engaging, memorable read.

This novel was amazing.
Being from a small town in the UK there isn't a wide range of diversity for me to see how different cultures and religions work but this novel has helped me see.

I loved characters Xio is such a strong minded character that you can't help but enjoy reading about her life and how she sees things. I loved the fact that it included drafts of homework assignments, final drafts and poems to move the story along.

The prose had me gripped having such a unique way of telling the story made it more of a fun read. It was fun and different to everything else on the market for YA and the fact that it is written by a poet makes the poems even better.

I honestly would recommend this book to all of my friends.

Thanks to Electric Monkey for providing a free copy of the ARC via NetGalley.

I don't read a lot of verse fiction but I found THE POET X to be a gripping read - Xiomara is a very realistic, complex heroine whose story you will be engrossed in. A Dominican-American girl who just wants to write poetry and sort her feelings for a cute boy at school, she frequently butts heads with her more traditional mother. The family drama feels real, and her relationship with her brother (who she refers to as "Twin") is sweet, and they have their great share of secrets and support for each other.

As it's written in verse, it's a quick read, but you'll want to savour the poems for a lot longer.

Actual rating 4.5/5 stars.

The Poet X follows teen, Xiomara Batista, as she uses her own poetry, and enters into the world of slam poetry, in an attempt to understand her divorced feelings from her religion, her tumultuous relationship with her family, and her own identity and place in this world.

My first book written in verse has proven to me that it can compete with wordier or lengthier pieces of prose for emotional impact and how deeply it could resonate with me. I found line after line that I wanted to jot down and remember for ever, I found whole sections that felt like they were penned by my own soul, and found I read much of this through tear-filled eyes, at the raw emotion that each and every poem portrayed. I have always been certain of my love for classic poetry, but this has confirmed that my feelings for modern poetry are exactly the same.

My only source of contention was that this did not deliver any more than the synopsis told you it would. There were no narrative twists or sub-plots to interfere with the dogged progression of the story-line. This book set out and delivered exactly what it needed to, and it did so magnificently, but there was also no shock about where the protagonist would be at the ending. It did not devalue the important message or the the powerful wording used to deliver it, but I think this would have been a five-star read, for me, if a vaguer synopsis had been provided.

Powerful, emotional and dramatic story of the young (15/16 year old)) daughter of parents from the Dominican Republic. The mother is staunchly religious, highly controlling, sometimes frighteningly stifling in her beliefs and rule over her children Xiomara (the poet of the title) and Xavier (called Twin by his sister).
Written in short sections of poetic prose throughout, an interesting and apt style which only adds impact to this wonderfully well told story of teenagers, family, sexuality, gender, religion....and of course slam poetry.
Highly recommended for both young adults and also older readers - particularly those like myself who may have memories of similar relationships and issues in their youth and for whom the outcome of X's story can be emotionally cathartic.

This is a brilliantly crafted story. I think the nature of the plot really was portrayed well by being told in verse - it allows the emotions to come out in a pure, raw form that’s intense and gritty. To have it told in verse makes it feel like we’re reading someone’s stream of consciousness and their own intricate thoughts. It feels more personal this way, and the way the verse flows from one moment to another is truly exquisite.

This tells us a story of the powers of religion (good and bad), the necessity to show your love in every ounce in which you feel it, the importance of honesty and the brilliant outlet that is slam poetry, and how it can help you find your strength and truly come into oneself. Following the story of a young girl who feels totally out of her family because of her differing beliefs was intensely emotional. She had so much to give but not much of a voice to give it with - so she turned to poetry to help her find her voice, and the portrayal of that was absolutely outstanding.

I loved the hints at sexuality throughout this - how people’s differing opinions can cause people to be silent about the things that are closest to them, ie their relationships. This was a fantastic addition to the story, and a necessary one at that, and I think it was really enlightening to see two twins so different from one another but with an undeniable, ferocious bond. Seeing them be together and openly love one another was an enjoyable touch and different to what I normally read - it was refreshing to not see raw sibling rivalry and to see two people stuck in essentially the same tough position sticking together to get through it.

The theme of sexuality is prominent in this book. We find a young girl who has been raised in a heavily religious family surrounded by prejudice and stereotypes. We read as she goes through some of the toughest moments of her life - moments that many of us take for granted. She grapples with desire, lust, her first relationship, and all the emotions that come with it that she’s not used to feeling and has no one to talk to about them. This truly does give a remarkable insight to the prejudice that young girls who live in areas like where this one is set go through. It’s an intensely stark truth and something that desperately needs discussing.

The characters are heavily lovable, the plot is intense (and oftentimes upsetting), the themes are handled with excellent care, caution and it is clear that the author took a lot of effort to craft them in the right way. The theme of slam poetry is fantastic here, and the way that poetry is portrayed as being an outlet which can truly save young lives is perfect. I absolutely loved this - the writing it astounding, it’s brilliantly put together and the author managed to tell a novel-length plot in verse and it didn’t feel like anything was missing or lacking! It was truly a fantastic read and I can thoroughly recommend it!

This is the story of Xiomara, a young poet coming of age in a Dominican family living in Harlem. Her mother is controlling, her father is absent and Catholicism looms large over her life. The book is beautifully written and I love to see more books from underrepresented voices making a splash. On the downside this novel-in-verse suffers from some of the issues I often have with verse novels, namely plot threads are under developed and it can be difficult to connect with the characters when you spend such a short time with them. However it is powerful, unique and sure to be a big hit with my students.