Angel & Hannah by Ishle Yi Park
Published by Random House on May 2021Genres: Verse
Pages: 192
Format: eBook
Source: Publisher
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Hannah, a Korean American girl from Queens, New York, and Angel, a Puerto Rican boy from Brooklyn, fall in love in the spring of 1993 at a quinceañera:
under a torn pink streamer
loose as a tendril of hair—lush—his eyes. Darkluminous. Warm. A blush
floods her. Hannah sucks in her breath, but
can’t pull back. Music fades. A hush ~
he’s a young buck in the underbrush,still in a disco ball dance of shadow & light
Their forbidden love instantly and wildly blooms along the Jackie Robinson Expressway.
Told across the changing seasons, Angel & Hannah holds all of the tension and cadence of blank verse while adding dynamic and expressive language rooted in a long tradition of hip-hop and spoken word, creating new and magnetic forms. The poetry of Angel and Hannah’s relationship is dynamic, arresting, observant, and magical, conveying the intimacies and sacrifices of love and family and the devastating realities of struggle and loss
A love story told in verse, Angel & Hannah is a realistic, gritty and yet totally romantic story of two teens from different worlds finding love.
The writing is lyrical and mesmerizing, each part introduced by an overview of events like a Greek chorus. The writing was solid and rhythmic, ebbing and flowing as if someone was beside me speaking. I like how different Angel and Hannah are, how they see their differences as strengths and how each’s foreign world shows different challenges they must face.
The overall tone of the book is tragic and sad, with glimmers of hope and lines of strength woven in. It was hard for me to read, heartbreaking and anxious as the teens struggle with sex, love, drugs and racism. I can’t say I enjoyed the book because for me, it was pretty hard to read and I grew frustrated with the characters very early on. That said, it could be a very updated and organic account of teens and the problems many face. I love the setting and how the setting played such a major character in the story. There are a lot of beautiful nuances about race, culture, poverty and class. I love the raw and powerful language and incredible strength the author displayed in the characters.
Angel & Hannah is a good discussion book to read, one that should be digested with friends. I like how the author didn’t shy away from hard topics, how circumstances play a bigger role in relationships, how sometimes love isn’t the end of the story.
Kimberly majored in Songwriting and currently works full time in the music industry. When she's not listening to music, knitting or writing, you can find her outside reading her favorite genres: Young Adult, Adult Fiction, Mystery, and Romance.
