Book Review
Title: Miles from Motown by Lisa Sukenic
Genre: Verse, Family, Drama
Rating: 3 Stars
I have read a few novels in verse but I am have had mixed reactions with them but Miles from Motown seemed interesting. We are introduced to Georgia who is entering a poetry contest but only Detroit residents only but her parents are making her move so she lies about the address and uses her aunt Birdie’s address instead, we also learn early on that her older brother, Ty has deployed to Vietnam and for the first time in her life the following year she won’t be in a class with her friend Ceci. Georgia isn’t happy about the move and this is made worse when her parents refuses to tell her the reason for the move but I have a feeling it isn’t a good one. We know from history that the war in Vietnam cost a lot of lives and I have this sinking feeling that Ty might be one of them.
Georgia is horrified at the fact that she needs to go to what is essentially a day care in the mornings while her mother is at work when she was supposed to be babysitting to kids from her old neighbourhood over the summer. This is also made worse when Jerome, Georgia’s other brother was supposed to be scouted for a baseball team but that has been ruined as well. It seems the move isn’t really working out for anyone but Georgia meets Naomi who like her is one of the older kids at the day care and they becomes sort of friends, but Naomi seems to have more in common with Jerome as they both play baseball which only makes Georgia miss Ty more than ever. Georgia is also worried about the poetry contest since she knows she has broken the rules of the competition by using her aunt’s address but she is eager to find out if she has won. So far, the premise is interesting and I can’t wait to see how this family dynamic develops over the course of the novel.
Georgia still isn’t coping well with the move but she tries to make a friend out of Naomi which helps even though she misses Ceci. When Jerome is heading back on the weekend, Georgia begs to go with him and he agrees as long as she doesn’t mention anything about the trip to their parents and she agrees. I can tell even with the little information provided that it seems like Jerome is signing up for the army possibly to go to Vietnam where Ty is. During this trip Georgia checks her aunt’s mailbox but it is too early to have heard back about the competition yet and meets with Ceci. By the time Jerome returns to take her home, Georgia doesn’t want to come back and this makes her pain resonate with me even more. They hear occasionally from Ty but her parents try and shield her from the horrors of Vietnam being reported on the news but we can see that Georgia knows about them as she writes about them in her poems. Shortly after this Georgia is invited to spend the night at her aunt’s house so she can visit Ceci and she is really excited but this turns to disappointment when Ceci brings Wanda with her and Georgia is being to feel like she is being replaced and that her old life, the life she loves is slowly being erased and nobody seems to notice this.
Georgia loves the fact Ceci is coming over and even tells her that she lied about her address for the poetry competition so only she, Ceci and Naomi know this now. Georgia also seems to be developing a friendship with Naomi as she stands up for Georgia when some boys are picking on her and she also stands up for Ceci when they are bullied at the public pool. Naomi and Georgia also make the trip back to Detroit on more than one occasion to see if there has been a letter about the poetry competition. On their second visit back, Georgia finds a letter saying she has been made a finalist and it has instructions on where she needs to go and when and she immediately rushes over to Ceci’s to invite her. However, Wanda who didn’t even want to enter the competition is also a finalist and Ceci has agreed to go with her which pushes Georgia over the edge where she screams at Ceci to uninvite herself from going with Wanda as she was Georgia’s friend first. However, in doing this she realises that she has hurt Naomi’s feelings and tries to make up for it by inviting her to the competition but this doesn’t work and Georgia feels so alone that she write a letter to Ty even though she knows her parents won’t send it because it costs too much money to send several letters overseas.
At the meeting, Georgia learns she and a boy are the finalist and they need to go City Hall on another day to find out who is the winner, however, she needs to be accompanied by an adult who also needs to sign her permission slip. Since she hasn’t told her parents about the competition she asks Jerome but it is the same day as the Little League play offs but he eventually does it for his sister but warns her they needs to leave straight afterwards. At City Hall, Georgia is crowned the winner of the competition but she feels really bad about lying and goes back to return her prize. However, the officials tells her she was born in Detroit and wrote the poem while she lived there and that she will always be a Detroit girl and the burden she has carried with her about lying is suddenly lifted. Jerome’s team featuring Naomi also wins the play off and while his parents are worried about him enlisting they don’t mention as it is meant to be a happy day. Afterwards, Georgia finds a birdhouse Ty made for them with his army ID number and they decide to hang it on the tree and she finally comes clean to her mother about the competition, the lying and how everything is alright now. Overall, Miles from Motown was a good novel in verse but there wasn’t anything overly exciting to keep the story going so it did feel a little bland. Maybe if Ty had come home at the end of the novel or Jerome had been enlisted it would have added a lot more drama to the novel but it was decent.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
I received this review copy from Edelweiss
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