He rescues her, covers her nakedness, and takes her home, although she fights him every step of the way. Ever since his mother suddenly returned to their Jamaican home to die four years ago, Thulani, 16, has withdrawn from the brother and sister-in-law who have raised him and who want to "man him up." Thulani spends long hours on the roof of their brownstone alone with his beloved doves, and school is to him "simply the sitting place." One day he hears a scream and looks over the parapet to see a young woman being raped in the alley below. With simplicity and a masterful control of pacing, Williams-Garcia builds a story that aches with the longing of two young lovers in a dance of tentative approach and defensive retreat, and eventual trust and healing.īoth Thulani and his girlfriend Ysa have an isolating spiritual wound. This book, with a strong lyrical voice, fulfills the promise the author showed in her widely acclaimed earlier novel, Like Sisters on the Homefront. In a love story that glows like the many-colored silk skirt that is its symbolic centerpiece, Rita Williams-Garcia takes her place as a major young-adult novelist.
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