“Another Brooklyn,” by Jacqueline Woodson, reads like a post-apocalyptic, dystopian thriller, except that it is close to reality in the haunting streets of Brooklyn, New York, growing up in the 1970s. This book is pretty short (under 200 pages), but packs a powerful punch of grief, fear, loss and a general sense of a lost feeling when it feels like everything is falling apart around you.

Woodson narrates the story from the perspective of a grown woman, looking back at herself as a child, the fear of danger lurking all about her, the loss of her mother, the coming and going of her father’s lovers, her father’s religion of Islam, and becoming an adult, but still being frozen in time in a childhood without the ability to process the horrors besieging her.

The writing was beautiful, descriptiveness that transports the reader into that time and place. The pain was real and heartbreaking. This book was memorable for all the right reasons.

Get a copy of “Another Brooklyn” by Jacqueline Woodson on Amazon here.