OCTOBER 2018 - AudioFile
Narrator Elizabeth Acevedo’s bold vocals and lyrical style take this contemporary retelling of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE to amazing heights. For years Zuri Benitez and her four sisters have been watching their tight-knit Bushwick neighborhood succumb to gentrification. When Darius Darcy and his wealthy family move in across the street, Zuri and Darius make snap judgments about each other. Zuri is an aspiring poet, and her poetry maps her emotional journey; Acevedo—an award-winning slam poet—gives these introspective verses the perfect flow, displaying her mastery and skills as a performer. Overall, Acevedo’s performance is soulful and rhythmic, bringing a tone of intensity and uncertainty to Zuri’s struggles with saying farewell to her neighborhood and going after the future she desires. J.E.C. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
The New York Times Book Review - MJ Franklin
…charming…The more compelling and unexpected romance of the novel is not the courtship between Zuri and Darius: It's the love story between Zuri and her home, a neighborhood threatened by gentrification. Rather than simply say gentrification is bad, Pride holds a nuanced conversation about the ways that an influx of wealth can dismantle a neighborhood and help it at the same time, as seen through the eyes of a girl who must navigate that change…It is that story—the story of an ambitious girl struggling to cherish her home, even in the face of change—that gives Pride its spark and its heart.
Publishers Weekly
★ 08/13/2018
“It’s a truth universally acknowledged that when rich people move into the hood... the first thing they want to do is clean it up,” begins this Pride and Prejudice retelling that stands solidly on its own while cleverly paralleling Austen’s classic about five economically challenged sisters. In the role of sharp-tongued Lizzie Bennett is Zuri Benitez, who loves her family, her Haitian-Dominican heritage, and her ethnically diverse neighborhood: Brooklyn’s Bushwick. She’s less excited about the prospect of the neighborhood gentrifying, but the arrival of the handsome, wealthy black Darcy brothers, who move into a newly renovated mini-mansion on her block, catalyzes a plot studded with detailed nuances of culture clash. An ambitious poet with dreams of Howard University, Zuri (the family’s “hard candy shell, the protector”) fights her attraction to the younger Darius as her older sister, Janae, is swept up in Ainsley’s attentions. Zoboi (American Street) skillfully depicts the vicissitudes of teenage relationships, and Zuri’s outsize pride and poetic sensibility make her a sympathetic teenager in a contemporary story about race, gentrification, and young love. Ages 13–up. Agent: Ammi-Joan Paquette, Erin Murphy Literary. (Sept.)
From the Publisher
★ “This Bushwick-set, contemporary retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice tackles gentriciation, Blackness, and romance with honesty, humor, and heart. This excellent coming-of-age take on a classic belongs on all YA shelves.” — School Library Journal (starred review)
★ “Stands solidly on its own while cleverly paralleling Austen’s classic… in a contemporary story about race, gentrification, and young love” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“A razor-sharp remix of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice that deals in gentrification, racism, love, culture, and heritage, all helmed by intelligent teens in New York’s Bushwick neighborhood.” — Booklist
“[A] lively and innovative Pride and Prejudice retelling (starring a fully rounded Afro-Latinx YA character)” — The Horn Book
“Jane Austen’s piercing comedy of manners provides the ideal template for Ibi Zoboi’s shrewd, timely second novel...” — Chicago Tribune
“Brooklyn’s gentrifying Bushwick neighborhood offers the vivid backdrop for this entertaining update, adding complicating factors of cultural identity and racism to Austen’s classic tale.” — Buffalo News
Praise for AMERICAN STREET: “Mixing gritty street life with the tenderness of first love, Haitian Vodou, and family bonds, the book is at once chilling, evocative, and reaffirming.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Praise for AMERICAN STREET: “Filling her pages with magic, humanity, tragedy, and hope, Zoboi builds up, takes apart, and then rebuilds an unforgettable story. This book will take root in readers’ hearts.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Praise for AMERICAN STREET: “Zoboi urges us to examine the American dream to see if there is room within it to hold the ones we love.” — Ebony Magazine
Praise for AMERICAN STREET: “Zoboi’s stunning debut intertwines mysticism and love with grit and violence…Fierce and beautiful.” — Booklist (starred review)
Praise for AMERICAN STREET: “Will reach young readers regardless of their background.” — Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books (starred review)
Praise for AMERICAN STREET: “A breathtaking story about contemporary America that will serve as a mirror to some and a window for others, and it will stay with anyone who reads it.” — School Library Journal (starred review)
Praise for AMERICAN STREET: “A poignant meditation on one girl’s struggle to find her way in a new world.” — Nicola Yoon, New York Times bestselling author of The Sun is Also a Star and Everything, Everything
Praise for AMERICAN STREET: “Brimming with culture, magic, warmth, and unabashed rawness, “American Street” is ultimately a blistering tale of humanity. This is “Manchild in the Promised Land,” for a new generation, and a remarkable debut from Zoboi, who without question is an inevitable force in storytelling.” — Jason Reynolds, award-winning co-author of All American Boys
Praise for AMERICAN STREET: “Zoboi’s nascent storytelling gifts ensnare from page one. To this spellbinding voice of the next generation, I bow.” — Rita Williams-Garcia, New York Times bestselling author and three-time winner of the Coretta Scott King Award
Buffalo News
Brooklyn’s gentrifying Bushwick neighborhood offers the vivid backdrop for this entertaining update, adding complicating factors of cultural identity and racism to Austen’s classic tale.
Booklist (starred review)
Praise for AMERICAN STREET: “Zoboi’s stunning debut intertwines mysticism and love with grit and violence…Fierce and beautiful.
Booklist
A razor-sharp remix of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice that deals in gentrification, racism, love, culture, and heritage, all helmed by intelligent teens in New York’s Bushwick neighborhood.
Ebony Magazine
Praise for AMERICAN STREET: “Zoboi urges us to examine the American dream to see if there is room within it to hold the ones we love.
The Horn Book
[A] lively and innovative Pride and Prejudice retelling (starring a fully rounded Afro-Latinx YA character)
Chicago Tribune
Jane Austen’s piercing comedy of manners provides the ideal template for Ibi Zoboi’s shrewd, timely second novel...
Chicago Tribune
Jane Austen’s piercing comedy of manners provides the ideal template for Ibi Zoboi’s shrewd, timely second novel...
Booklist
A razor-sharp remix of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice that deals in gentrification, racism, love, culture, and heritage, all helmed by intelligent teens in New York’s Bushwick neighborhood.
Jason Reynolds
Praise for AMERICAN STREET: “Brimming with culture, magic, warmth, and unabashed rawness, “American Street” is ultimately a blistering tale of humanity. This is “Manchild in the Promised Land,” for a new generation, and a remarkable debut from Zoboi, who without question is an inevitable force in storytelling.
Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books (starred review)
Praise for AMERICAN STREET: “Will reach young readers regardless of their background.
Rita Williams-Garcia
Praise for AMERICAN STREET: “Zoboi’s nascent storytelling gifts ensnare from page one. To this spellbinding voice of the next generation, I bow.
Nicola Yoon
Praise for AMERICAN STREET: “A poignant meditation on one girl’s struggle to find her way in a new world.
Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (starred review)
Praise for AMERICAN STREET: “Will reach young readers regardless of their background.
School Library Journal
★ 07/01/2018
Gr 8 Up—This Bushwick-set, contemporary retelling of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice tackles gentrification, Blackness, and romance with honesty, humor, and heart. Afro-Latina Zuri Benitez is proud of her Dominican and Haitian heritage, close-knit family, and bustling block. However, the teen knows that the renovation of the abandoned house across the street into a mansion portends a gentrifying trend that she's not quite ready for. It also ushers in the arrival of the wealthy Darcy brothers—Ainsley, the charming and friendly college boy who is possibly striking up a romance with Janae, Zuri's college freshman sister; and Darius, the too-cool-for-school younger brother, who is as handsome as he is snooty. Zoboi follows her novel American Street with this send-up of Austen's classic, an insightful commentary on socioeconomic class, changing neighborhoods, and the pressures of growing up and falling in love as a second-generation immigrant. Janeites will appreciate the nods to the original: Mr. Collins is the nephew of the Benitezs' Oshun-worshipping godmother and apartment building owner; the Wickham character likes to sweet-talk younger girls into taking revealing selfies; and the five sisters' dynamic is just as memorable. But those unfamiliar with Austen's work will also be enamored with the warmth that permeates the characters, the spellbinding storytelling, and the tender but bittersweet love letter to Brooklyn. Teens will cheer for the protagonist as she finds her passion for poetry and hesitantly falls love. VERDICT This excellent coming-of-age take on a classic belongs on all YA shelves.—Shelley M. Diaz, School Library Journal
Kirkus Reviews
2018-06-18
Seventeen-year-old Zuri Benitez deals with gentrification in her Brooklyn neighborhood and her own bias in this Pride and Prejudice remix.Zuri, or ZZ from the Block, loves her big, loud Haitian-Dominican family. She loves her Bushwick neighborhood. She doesn't love the gentrification changing her hood, "like my face and body when I was in middle school—familiar but changing right before my eyes." So when the rich Darcy family moves into the expensive renovated house across the street, she's skeptical even though they're also black. The Darcy brothers are handsome, but Zuri thinks Darius Darcy's a snob. She opts instead for Warren, the brothers' classmate and a boy who feels familiar. Austen fans will guess his true colors. When poet Zuri unexpectedly runs into Darius at an open mic, she begins to rethink her assessment of him, and the two, as expected, fall for each other. While Darius' attraction to Zuri makes sense, Zuri's doesn't seem to move beyond his physical attractiveness—odd for a character who's otherwise thoughtful and complex. The ending, both realistic and bittersweet, is a culmination of the book's examination of the costs of gentrification. The plot moves too fast for substantial character growth on Zuri's part, and some elements feel contrived, but these flaws don't spoil a book which is not only a retelling, but an examination of timely issues, including class, blackness, and intraracial prejudice.Legit. (Fiction. 14-adult)
