American Street

Reviewed by: Elizabeth Andersen - Westbrook High School, Westbrook, Southern Maine Library District

Review Date: July 18, 2017

Review

Fabiola and her mother are leaving Haiti to reunite with family in Detroit. Fabiola’s mother is detained by ICE and only Fabiola is able to enter the US. Fabiola’s cousins and aunt embrace her and bring her to live at their house on the crossroads of American Street and Joy Road. Although it seems on the surface they are living the “American Dream”, Fabiola soon discovers their lives are filled with many complications. The author, like Fabiola, is a Haitian immigrant and the challenges of entering a new culture and the spirituality of the Haitian Creole culture were the most intriguing and authentic elements of the story. It seemed that this book was going to focus on Fabiola’s efforts to free her mother from detainment, but unfortunately it does not spend much time on this, instead the story rapidly tackles many other issues such as young love, urban violence, drugs, and abusive relationships without digging deeply enough into any of them. Overall, many readers will still be compelled by Fabiola’s journey and there is much to discuss about the choices she makes.

Overall Book Score: very good