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Summary
Summary
Thesweeping, unforgettablestory of an interracial couple in 1990s New York City who are determined to protect their love against all odds-areimagining of Romeo and Juliet
"Triumphant . . .sensuous, tender, and faceted like cut glass."-Cathy Park Hong, award-winning author of Minor Feelings
Hannah, a Korean American girl from Queens, New York, and Angel, a Puerto Rican boy from Brooklyn, fall in love in the spring of 1993 at a quinceanera-
under a torn pink streamer
loose as a tendril of hair-lush-
his eyes. Darkluminous. Warm. A blush
floods her. Hannah sucks in her breath, but
can't pull back. Music fades. A hush -
he's a young buck in the underbrush,
still in a disco ball dance of shadow & light
Their forbidden love instantly and wildly blooms along the Jackie Robinson Expressway.
Told across the changing seasons, Angel & Hannah holds all of the tension and cadence of blank verse while adding dynamic and expressive language rooted in a long tradition of hip-hop and spoken word, creating new and magnetic forms. The poetry of Angel and Hannah's relationship is dynamic, arresting, observant, and magical, conveying the intimacies and sacrifices of love and family and the devastating realities of struggle and loss.
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 9 Up--Hannah, the daughter of Korean immigrants in Queens, meets Angel, a Puerto Rican boy in Brooklyn, and "It was shock at first sight, loud as lightning, da charge/between them nearly stopped traffic." Facing discrimination from both of their communities and the larger world, they feel like Romeo and Juliet as they embark on the first love of their lives. Dreams of a future together are ground down by poverty, racism, addiction, and the impacts of the AIDS epidemic in the early 1990s. Divided into four sections, this novel in verse moves from spring through winter, following the blossoming of their young love and its gradual withering under the reality that you cannot save someone else, only yourself. Angel and Hannah's tale asks "Would we/altar their love higher, deem it Epic" if they weren't poor people of color. VERDICT A realistic love story for fans of Elizabeth Acevedo or James Baldwin. A good general purchase for high schools.--Tamara Saarinen, Pierce Cty. Lib., WA
Publisher's Weekly Review
Poet Park (The Temperature of This Water) reimagines Romeo & Juliet in her wrenching debut novel in verse, set in early 1990s New York City. The story follows two 16-year-olds: Queens girl Hannah, the daughter of Korean immigrants and a straight-A student who spends her nights defending her mother from Hannah's father's physical abuse, and Angel, a boy of Puerto Rican descent who lives in Brooklyn and dreams of becoming a pilot. After meeting in the spring at a Queens quinceañera, the two quickly fall in love, and resolve to preserve their bond and defend it from the judgments of their parents and respective communities. By summer break, Hannah's parents disown her over the relationship and she moves into a cramped Bushwick apartment with Angel. Hannah's ethnic and family background is given somewhat richer, more nuanced descriptions than Angel's, but Park's precise, vivid verse lends a unifying consistency, blending vernacular and poetic expressions and song lyrics ("He sighs & sings a Nas lyric--like a blue smoke ~ ring, it halos the air") as she explores how the complicated natures of love, betrayal, poverty, and cultural identity affect Angel and Hannah's relationship. Readers will find this tender and realistic portrait of first love hard to forget. Agent: Clare Mao, Europa Content. (May)
Kirkus Review
A passionate novel in verse about the love between two New York City teenagers whose cultural and economic expectations eventually turn their relationship to dust. The book's poems, most just a page or two, are tied together in four sections named for the seasons, beginning with spring, when the flowers of all beginnings bud. We first meet Hannah and Angel separately; the first two poems introduce them in second grade, then the book leaps to high school, setting the stage for abrupt chronological disconnections throughout the narrative. Bookish and school-smart Hannah from Queens, the daughter of Korean immigrants, meets Boricua Angel, a young dealer from the streets of Bushwick, at a party and they immediately fall into a dark, heedless romance. Hannah, who chafes at her father's violent, controlling ways, eventually moves in with Angel and begins a different dance--one of poverty, Angel's drug addiction and infidelity, and her own burgeoning outbursts of rage. The richest parts of the book are the tantalizing glimpses of Hannah's culture--often seen through Hannah's thoughts of her mother and the Korean comfort food she would cook--and her yearning to not become her parents. Though Angel's character is well developed at first, we lose the thread of who he is beyond Nuyorican clichés as he starts to unravel from drug addiction. Ultimately, his humanity becomes rooted in his younger brother, Rafi, who was born with HIV and whom both Angel and Hannah fiercely love. A tender and honest story of young love striving to survive the streets. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
In this contemporary take on the story of Romeo and Juliet in the form of a novel-in-verse, singer and poet Park reimagines the roles and transports the action to New York City in 1993. Hannah is a Korean teen from the borough of Queens who finds herself enrapt with Angel, a Puerto Rican boy from Brooklyn. The two fall in love in the springtime, and this playful tale follows their entwined fates through the four seasons. While most readers know how the story goes, what stands out is Park's devotion to building each character and the uniquely vibrant world around them. At the fateful quinceañera where the star-crossed lovers meet, for example, the night is alive with Nike sneakers, early 1990s rap, Philly Blunts, and of loads of malt liquor. Likewise, Park's intermingling of slang with fragments of Spanish and Korean electrify the free-verse lyrics that dance and slide across the pages. With an energy and attitude closer to Lin Manuel Miranda's In the Heights than West Side Story, the spoken-word style of Park's wildly creative rendition will entrance readers.
Library Journal Review
In Park's spin on Romeo and Juliet, two star-crossed teenagers lock eyes at a quinceañera in a church basement in early-'90s Jamaica, NY. Hannah, from Queens, is a studious child of Korean immigrants who tries to protect her mother from her abusive father. Angel, from Brooklyn, is of Puerto Rican descent, dreams of flying planes, and deals drugs, partly to support his siblings and sick mother. Hannah and Angel's relationship is complicated by resistance from family; friends' skepticism ("Yo, she's gonna leave you, son, / Ariel slurs"; "Ay, he's a street rat, Wanda says"); the AIDS epidemic; betrayals; and each character's familial struggles. Yet the intensity of their connection prevails ("Why are they in love, you ask? Why does / water love sky?"). One of the book's great delights is its mix of language and form. Park intertwines 1990s slang, rhyming couplets, Spanish, and Korean, and nods to Shakespearean language. The result is a vivid, complex portrait of neighborhoods, cultures, and first love, told over the course of four seasons. VERDICT Though Hannah and Angel's story is not pure tragedy, their love's inability to transcend the accumulated weight of history, poverty, and family will wrench readers' hearts. A moving novel in verse, filled with energy and raw emotion.--Amy Dickinson, Montrose Regional Lib. District, CO