Novel choice: Imani All Mine

                                                 

                                                           Imani All Mine

The book I chose to read is Imani all Mine a fictional novel by Connie Porter. Porter grew up in Buffalo NY, and is the second youngest out of nine brother and sisters. She graduated from Louisiana State, and later attended the bread loaf writer’s conference. She has taught English and creative writing at Milton academy and Emerson College. Her six Addy books have sold over 3 million copies!

Imani all Mine is a story of a brave, smart but naive 14 year old black girl named Tasha. Her

neighborhood is full of trouble, it is gang affiliated, there is nonstop drug deals, shootings, and is overall a typical ghetto suburb. She’s raising a newborn baby all alone. Throughout the book, she faces many challenges of caring for her daughter. She does great in School and gives her all. She’s not one as many minorities would portray her as. There’s a lot of drama throughout the book, a very sad and shocking ending, it made me tear up. Although this book is fictional it gives you a good idea of young single mothers raising another being while barely financially making it themselves. It’s an eye opener to realize that you should really appreciate life even at the hardest times, never portray yourself negatively as others would. Do what you have to do to get by without caring about judgments from others, always try and keep faith, if not, work on finding faith, and always jeep going.

Two quotes that really stuck out have great explanation behind them, one quote stated:

“Anybody seeing me could think I was just some ordinary girl doing nothing but keeping one eye for the bus and one eye for the dealers.”

These typical stereotype are given to the blacks in tasha’s neighborhood, they see her as another careless, ignorant, drug dealer, who cares nothing about school, or other people. But realistically, she does great in school, makes it every day, she never gave up on her baby, and she’s never touched drugs.

Another quote that stuck out was:

“When I was empty and I was filled, and them people helped me up. Helped me rise and walk. Like I was walking on water. Like Jesus touch my hand. Like I had faith that’s all mine.”

Imani is the name of tashas baby, in Swahili Imani translates to faith. This was the last quote on the last page of the book, I just loved how she worded “like I had faiths that’s all mine” meaning she had Imani (her baby) that’s all hers.

I loved the book, I couldn’t put it down, it left me thinking a lot. There are very vivid scenes where you could picture yourself in certain situations. I would say this is definitely more of a female associated book, but hey for all you men out there who need to let some emotion out, this book could be for you!