Candice Iloh's Salt the Water is another lyrical coming-of-age novel in verse, following the success of Every Body Looking, a 2020 National Book Award finalist.
Cerulean is a Black, nonbinary high school senior in the Bronx, N.Y., counting the months until graduation. They're tired of being "stuck in stiff-ass classrooms" and "staring down out-of-touch white men/ who don't care if i really learn." Mr. Schlauss, who's "only got to survive one more year teaching/ inner-city youth" for Teach for America, relentlessly targets them, restricting even their ability to use the restroom during class.
Cerulean envies their brother, Airyn, who's able "to go to an Afrocentric Montessori school," because their hardworking parents could afford private education by the time he was born a decade after Cerulean. Still, their nurturing parents have created a welcoming home environment in which "all of us could have whatever/ we needed to keep becoming/... / ourselves." Cerulean is also blessed with a loving partner and a pair of best friends. The foursome dream of someday "living off the grid" together in California--until a tragedy shatters their plans, and Cerulean is forced to make impossible choices between family and autonomy.
Iloh writes with raw vulnerability, their sparse verses moving around the pages, as if refusing--like Cerulean--to follow unnecessary rules and expectations. While Iloh grants Cerulean priority, they deftly fill in (to an extent) what Cerulean has left unsaid or couldn't know through the voices of those who love them best. Iloh scathingly, affectingly indicts failing educational and societal systems that damage even the most resilient individuals. --Terry Hong, BookDragon