Vinyl Moon

** spoiler alert ** This book really reminded me of Elizabeth Acevedo's "The Poet X" but with less poetry but a lot of prose. Unfortunately, it wasn't as riveting. This ending also reminds me of "Breathing Underwater" by Alex Flinn, which is another book about teenage domestic abuse that I liked more than this one. This is the story of a young high school girl who escapes an abusive relationship. After a terrible attack happens, she's sent to live with her uncle in New York (the main character, Angel, is from California). Angel joins a reading program at her school called H.E.R. where she reads classic Black literature from authors like Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Maya Angelou, Jason Reynolds, and more. Angel finds comfort in these author's words. In this program, Angel meets other young women who are going through various issues. This story seems like it's a letter to young Black people who are survivors. Even though we don't explicitly see Angel during the attack, we know that it happened, and I think this is a good way to deal with trauma in fiction stories. Implied abuse is enough. All the terrible details don't need to be shared. The main character and some of the other characters were involved in dangerous situations like gun violence or domestic violence, but those scenes or situations weren't described in too much detail. I think all the popular music references in this book means it could be very relatable to young adults, the target audience. The main character at one point looks to music to help her through her emotional issues.