Muted (Hardcover)For seventeen year old Denver, music is everything. Writing, performing, and her ultimate goal: escaping her very small, very white hometown. So Denver is more than ready on the day she and her best friends Dali and Shak sing their way into the orbit of the biggest R&B star in the world, Sean Mercury Ellis. Merc gives them everything: parties, perks, wild nights plus hours and hours in the recording studio. Even the painful sacrifices and the lies the

where her mother's family has lived since their ancestors arrived from Africa in bondage

Barbara Smith

razor-sharp and slyly comic

I've sometimes had to feel like I have to contort myself to fit into some of your words

as I looked back at a long and complicated life

toy boats sail against the waves

though she hesitates to confess that this is also her day job

How do you take the armor off in a country where you're not physically or emotionally safe

On a rainy day when the house smells like cinnamon and Papa and Luca are still asleep

But many readers will identify with Blade's struggle to find his place in a family where he feels like an outsider

Master of the Art of Ninja Dancing

and sexual violence