
American Street
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Narrated by:
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Robin Miles
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By:
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Ibi Zoboi
A National Book Award Finalist with five starred reviews!
A New York Times Notable Book * Publishers Weekly Flying Start * Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year * ALA Booklist Editors' Choice of 2017 (Top of the List winner) * School Library Journal Best Book of the Year * Kirkus Best Book of the Year * BookPage Best YA Book of the Year
American Street is an evocative and powerful coming-of-age story perfect for fans of Everything, Everything; Bone Gap; and All American Boys.
In this stunning debut novel, Pushcart-nominated author Ibi Zoboi draws on her own experience as a young Haitian immigrant, infusing this lyrical exploration of America with magical realism and vodou culture.
On the corner of American Street and Joy Road, Fabiola Toussaint thought she would finally find une belle vie—a good life.
But after they leave Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Fabiola’s mother is detained by U.S. immigration, leaving Fabiola to navigate her loud American cousins, Chantal, Donna, and Princess; the grittiness of Detroit’s west side; a new school; and a surprising romance, all on her own.
Just as she finds her footing in this strange new world, a dangerous proposition presents itself, and Fabiola soon realizes that freedom comes at a cost. Trapped at the crossroads of an impossible choice, will she pay the price for the American dream?
©2017 Ibi Zoboi (P)2017 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...




















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A.M.A.Z.I.N.G
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Hidden Gem!!
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Slow start, deeply empathic and lovely storytellin
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AMAZING BOOK
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American Street was a great book
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WELL DONE!
Not what I expected
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Story Draws You in Little by Little
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outstanding performance
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Accessible
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American Street is named after the street where the house that Fabiola come to live, the one where she was born. It is right on the corner of Joy and American streets, which is the reason that the house was purchased by new immigrants to the US. When her mother is detained by ICE as they go through customs in New York City (Fabiola’s mother overstayed her visa on the previous trip so that Fabiola would be born in the US), Fabiola is left to go on to Detroit and meet cousins and an aunt that she has talked to, but not met.
Fabiola’s life in Haiti, with her good English schools and her hard work, has not truly prepared her for Detroit. She is also not prepared for the realities of street life without the guidance of her mother.
American Street has significant thread of magical realism. I started American Street not long after I finished Laurus, about a 15th century doctor and holy man. Both used magical realism to communicate the belief in religious faith in remarkably similar ways. Both Laurus and Fabiola were true believers, in Christianity for Laurus and Voodoo for Fabiola. But I cannot describe the presentation in any other way than magical realism, which I have only really encountered in Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead and Song Yet Sung by James McBride.
I knew nothing about Voodoo before this book, but I did not need any background to understand the story. Fabiola, as she attempts to understand this foreign world, makes sense of the world around her through the ‘social imaginary’ (as Charles Taylor calls it) of the Haitian/Voodoo world. The Voodoo is real, in a very similar way to the way that Christianity is real in Laurus. But the difference between Christianity and Voodoo (I think) what is asked for and revealed is not always what is desired here.
Ultimately this is a tragedy. A tragedy that you understand much more of as different perspectives are shared. But an understood tragedy is still tragic. This is well worth reading. Especially for the current reality of separated immigrant families and the tragic ways that people make decisions when pressed to their limits.
This is a good reminder of why fiction is so important and why I keep needing to force myself to read it, even when I am sometimes reluctant to break away from the ‘important books’.
A immigrant tragedy
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