After Tupac and D Foster

This books, guys. Oh, this book. Emotions. Emotions.

Obviously, the title of said book is After Tupac and D Foster, written by the lovely Jacqueline Woodson. The book is narrated by a young girl living in Queens, right across the street from her best friend, Neeka. And one day, when she and Neeka are sitting on a stoop, D Foster turns the corner and enters their lives. And then, well. Nothing is the same.

The girls become close friends, sharing stories, experiences, and, of course, music. Specifically, the music of Tupac Shakur, a songwriter and rapper who seems to understand them. But D is a puzzle–she “roams,” as she likes to call it, walking the streets of New York City. “I saw all the trees and got off the bus and just starting roaming over this way,” she says when she first meets them.

Neeka and her friend don’t even know her real name.

As the story progresses, the girls grow. They turn into teenagers. They get into arguments, they laugh, they listen to Tupac. They worry together when Tupac is shot. And then he’s shot again–just a little while after D disappears, spirited away by a mother who’s ready to try again. And the first time our narrator talks to D in ages, it’s when D calls, saying, “Hey, girl. Our boy ain’t gonna make it.”

The characters in this book. God, I loved the characters. I just want to make everything better. I want to give Neeka’s brother Tash a guy he’ll love and who’ll love him back. I want to erase his jail time, because he shouldn’t have been imprisoned in the first place. I want to help Neeka to be the somebody she so badly wants to be. I want to protect Tash’s brothers–when he tells them never to end up where he is, it just hurts. Tash knows some people are going to judge them before they even open their mouths. And finally, I want to put the two halves of the nameless narrator together, for her to find herself in all those books she’s reading all the time.

And God, D. I want to hug D. I want to wrap up the life she should have had and put a bow on it and give it to her for her birthday. D is awesome, and she’s been through a lot. When she tells her friends about her mom wanting to try again, I felt a physical something in my gut. Jacqueline Woodson’s characters are so well-written and real, and I love them so much. They’re strong, and they’re human.

I also love THE WRITING. Trust me when I say that this author is a GREAT writer. Her prose flows and the voice of the narrator is so strong. I feel like I should post like five quotes or something, just to show you. So if there’s more than one quote at the end of this post, you’ll know why. The writing is freaking awesome.

Tupac and D Foster is definitely a book I recommend. It’s a fairly quick read, but it packs a lot of feeling and awesomeness into those 100 and something pages. It’s a truly great book, and I intend on checking out more of Jacqueline Woodson’s books soon.

Also, because it would be a sin to write a review of this book and not to link to some of Tupac’s music, here’s one of the two songs mentioned in the beginning of the book:

Have a wonderful Mother’s Day everybody!

Bookish Quotes of the Day:

“It’s like he sees stuff, you know? And he knows stuff. And he be thinking stuff that only somebody who knows that kinda living deep and true could know and think.”

“It’s because we black and we kids and he’s black and he’s just a kid–even though he’s twenty-three–and every single song he be singing is telling us a little bit more about what could happen to us and how the world don’t really care . . .”

“The summer before D Foster’s  real mama came and took her away, Tupac wasn’t dead yet.”

P.S. The part with Tash and his brothers also made me think of this amazing poem by Javon Jones: