Red at the Bone (Woodson) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
Woodson manages to remember what cannot be documented, to suggest what cannot be said.
Washington Post


Woodson does for young black girls what short story master Alice Munroe does for poor rural ones: She imbues their everyday lives with significance.
Elle


Woodson writes lyrically about what it means to be a girl in America, and what it means to be black in America. Each sentence is taut with potential energy, but the story never bursts into tragic flames; it stays strong and subtle throughout.
Huffington Post


Emotionally transfixing.
Entertainment Weekly


A slim novel with tremendous emotional power.
Real Simple
 

Red at the Bone is fall’s hottest novel.
Town & Country
 

[A]s teenage Melody takes part in a coming-of-age ceremony, the history of her New York family unfurls, and three generations of longing and ambition come into razor-sharp focus.
Vanity Fair


Slender miracle of a novel [that] performs a magic trick with time…. Woodson skips back and forth between the decades so deftly that it feels like it all happens in a heartbeat.
Family Circle


(Starred review) [A] beautifully imagined novel.… Woodson’s nuanced voice evokes the complexities of race, class, religion, and sexuality in fluid prose and a series of telling details. This is a wise, powerful, and compassionate novel.
Publishers Weekly


Oft-crowned children's/YA author Woodson… [offers] a tale of two families separated by class, ambition, gentrification, sexual desire, and unexpected parenthood.
Library Journal


(Starred review) [E]motionally rich…. Woodson channels deeply true-feeling characters, and [i]n spare, lean prose, she reveals rich histories and moments in swirling eddies, while also leaving many fateful details for readers to divine. —Annie Bostrom
Booklist


(Starred review) [E]motionally rich…. Woodson channels deeply true-feeling characters, all of whom read Woodson famously nails the adolescent voice. But so, too, she burnishes all her characters' perspectives…. In Woodson, at the height of her powers, readers hear the blues: "beneath that joy, such a sadness."
Kirkus Reviews