Black Girl Unlimited | Book Review

My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Title: Black Girl Unlimited – The Remarkable Story of a Teenage Wizard

Author: Echo Brown

Format: eBook (borrowed)

Pages: 304

Publisher: Holt/Ottaviano

Categories: Young Adult, Coming of Age, Racism, Misogyny, Socioeconomic, Drug Abuse, Mental Illness, Sexual Abuse, Magical Realism, Own Voices, Violence

Echo Brown is a wizard from the East Side, where apartments are small and parents suffer addictions to the white rocks. Yet there is magic . . . everywhere. New portals begin to open when Echo transfers to the rich school on the West Side, and an insightful teacher becomes a pivotal mentor. Each day, Echo travels between two worlds, leaving her brothers, her friends, and a piece of herself behind on the East Side. There are dangers to leaving behind the place that made you. Echo soon realizes there is pain flowing through everyone around her, and a black veil of depression threatens to undo everything she’s worked for.

Heavily autobiographical and infused with magical realism, Black Girl Unlimited fearlessly explores the intersections of poverty, sexual violence, depression, racism, and sexism—all through the arc of a transcendent coming-of-age.

My Attention: it had my full attention but I had to read it in sessions to process what I was reading

World Building: this is contemporary, set in the early 90’s, but with magical realism

Writing Style: so poetic and unconventional – there are times when author is writing about an even and it jumps (connects) to another event in her mind

Bringing the Heat: there is heat for the character as she processes new sexual feelings 

Crazy in Love: nothing romantic, Echo has a few crushes in her life

Creativity: Echo and it seems most females in this book are wizards! She lists the wizard rules in this book as she tells you her story. The rules are more like a guideline on how to survive challenges in your life.

Mood: Absolutely inspired!

Triggers: rape, beating, abuse, drug use, thoughts of suicide

My Takeaway: We are wizards and we can get through our hardships!

• This story cover some hard topics. It is Echo’s story and her parents use drug users, they live in poverty, and she feels ugly because she is black. Echo is also sexual abused, raped, bullied, beaten and yet she is a wizard and she recognizes this darkness that descends upon people who have internal struggles which is almost everyone around her. She learns to defeat the darkness.
• This story has a lot going on. It explores…everything from drug abuse, racism, poverty, self-esteem, rape, sexual molestation, parenting, religion, oppression, it covered so much! But for me it worked, it made the conclusion so powerful when Echo perseveres over her dark times.
• The author wrote this book in a way at first jarred me and I had to wonder if it was a mistake because I was reading an ebook. So I thought the formatting was WAY off..but nope – Echo would talk about something and slip into another memory, as they were connected in some way that you didn’t think it would be! I thought it was fantastic after realizing it wasn’t a mistake.
• The writing is so powerful and strong, I was highlighting so many sentences or phrases in the book!
• Echo’s voice is so strong. Her life shocked me – the sexual abuse, how she was living and surviving, and still being the smartest and most accomplished kid in school. I felt her fear, her anguish and pain. I felt her joy too. But I loved her speech in the end and the notes she and her friends wrote as well! No matter what Echo went through, I’m glad she had her friends beside her and she did have help. But this wasn’t only about Echo, it was about her friends, and her family too!

• The magical realism was interesting, I don’t know that it fully worked and that my belief was suspended enough to believe Echo and some of her friends and family were wizards. I actually thought it was a metaphor or that Echo and her mom had a mental illness and being a wizard was the way to explain it but they are wizards. I think the wizard rules was an awesome guideline of survival though and that it applies to wizards and non-wizards alike.
• There are so many topics and themes that arise in this story, I thought it would be too much but honestly, I thought it made for an impactful reading experience that I won’t ever forget.

Echo’s personal coming of age story is absolutely powerful, fearless, important, and inspirational. It is poetic, and raw. I cheered Echo on as she struggled through events that killed the light in her but what doesn’t kill her made her oh so much stronger. I admired her determination, strength and capacity to forgive. This is an amazing story full of despair but also full of hope, friendship, forgiveness and yes, wizards.