Candice Iloh

"This is a story about the sometimes toxic and heavy expectations set on the backs of first generation children, the pressures woven into the family dynamic, culturally and socially. About childhood secrets with sharp teeth. And ultimately, about a liberation that taunts every young person."-New York Times bestselling author Jason Reynolds Every Body Looking is a heavily autobiographical novel of a young woman's struggle to carve a place for herself-for her black female body-in a world of deeply conflicting messages. Told entirely in verse, Ada's story encompasses her earliest memories as a child, including her abuse at the hands of a young cousin, her mother's rejection and descent into addiction, and her father's attempts to create a home for his American daughter more like the one he knew in Nigeria. The present-tense of the book is Ada's first year at Howard University in Washington DC, where she must finally confront the fundamental conflict between who her family says she should be and what her body tells her she must be.

Every Body Looking

From Printz honoree and National Book Award Finalist Candice Iloh, a prose novel about a teenager reckoning with her family's--and her home town's--secrets. Yaminah Okar left Obsidian and the wreckage of her family years ago. She and her father have made lives for themselves in Brooklyn. She thinks she's moved on to bigger and better things. She thinks she's finally left behind that city she would rather forget. But when a Facebook message about her estranged mother pierces Yaminah's new bubble, memories of everything that happened before her parents' divorce come roaring back. Now, Yaminah must finally reckon with the truth about her mother and the growing collapse of a place she once called home.

Break This House

Cerulean Gene is free everywhere except school, where they’re known for repeatedly challenging authority. Raised in a free-spirited home by two loving parents who encourage Cerulean to be their full self, they’ve got big dreams of moving cross-country to live off the grid with their friends after graduation. But a fight with a teacher spirals out of control, and Cerulean impulsively drops out to avoid the punishment they fear is coming. Why wait for graduation to leave an oppressive capitalist system and live their dreams? Cerulean is truly brilliant, but their sheltered upbringing hasn’t prepared them for the consequences of their choice — especially not when it’s compounded by a family emergency that puts a parent out of work. Suddenly the money they’d been stacking with their friends is a resource that the family needs to stay afloat. Salt the Water is a book about dreaming in a world that has other plans for your time, your youth, and your future. It asks, what does it look like when a bunch of queer Black kids are allowed to dream? And what does it look like for them to confront the present circumstances of the people they love while still pursuing a wildly different future of their own?

Salt the Water

A Finalist for the National Book Award When Ada leaves home for her freshmanyear at a Historically Black College, it's the first time she's ever been so far from her family-and the first time that she's been able to make her own choices and to seek her place in this new world. As she stumbles deeper into the world of dance and explores her sexuality, she also begins to wrestle with her past-her mother's struggle with addiction, her Nigerian father's attempts to make a home for her. Ultimately, Ada discovers she needs to brush off the destiny others have chosen for her and claim full ownership of her body and her future. "Candice Iloh's beautifully crafted narrative about family, belonging, sexuality, and telling our deepest truths in order to be whole is at once immensely readable and ultimately healing."-Jacqueline Woodson, New York Times Bestselling Author of Brown Girl Dreaming "An essential-and emotionally gripping and masterfully written and compulsively readable-addition to the coming-of-age canon."-Nic Stone, New York Times Bestselling Author of Dear Martin "This is a story about the sometimes toxic and heavy expectations set onthe backs of first-generation children, the pressures woven into the familydynamic, culturally and socially. About childhood secrets with sharp teeth.And ultimately, about a liberation that taunts every young person."-Jason Reynolds, New York Times Bestselling Author of Long Way Down

From Printz honoree and National Book Award Finalist Candice Iloh, a prose novel about a teenager reckoning with her family’s--and her home town's--secrets. Yaminah Okar left Obsidian and the wreckage of her family years ago. She and her father have made lives for themselves in Brooklyn. She thinks she’s moved on to bigger and better things. She thinks she's finally left behind that city she would rather forget. But when a Facebook message about her estranged mother pierces Yaminah’s new bubble, memories of everything that happened before her parents' divorce come roaring back. Now, Yaminah must finally reckon with the truth about her mother and the growing collapse of a place she once called home.

Candice Iloh

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