book Archives - Wear Your Voice

Radically Accepting Myself According to Chani Nicholas

Chani Nicholas takes her empowering words of affirmation to the next level, arming us with the knowledge we need to embody the best versions of ourselves. It didn’t take me long to smash that pre-order button when beloved online astrologer

Jan 17, 2020

Summer of Sex

‘Pleasure Activism’ Delves Into The Politics of Sex and Desire

adrienne maree brown’s "Pleasure Activism" offers its readers so much to think about and grapple with. by Josie Pickens Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good is a collection of essays, interviews, manifestos and other musings, and its author adrienne maree brown

May 24, 2019

Culture and Entertainment

Cora Harrington’s ‘In Intimate Detail’ Is The Inclusive Book On Lingerie We Deserve

“In Intimate Detail” is thorough, thoughtful and inclusive. Like many other people, I’ve had a complicated relationship to my body and undergarments. I felt out of place in my own skin, consistently made to feel as if my limbs, my

Sep 17, 2018

Culture and Entertainment

Elizabeth Acevedo’s Debut Novel, ‘The Poet X’ is a Masterpiece

Elizabeth Acevedo's "The Poet X" brings to light the beauty and nuances of teenage Afro-Latinx experiences.

By Ruby Mora Literature was a pivotal part of my upbringing. My mother read books to me and planted this love early on in my life. I read mostly young adult fiction and poetry in high school, but I’ve realized over the last five years or so that most of the YA literature I grew up reading was not only written primarily by white authors, but also had main characters that were white, and if there were people of color, they ended up being severely stereotypical sidekicks to the main characters. Even years after my time in high school, the lack of work written by marginalized voices in the literary world is still an unfortunate trend, but there has been a progressive movement, especially in 2017 and this year, where there were many significant works released by women authors of color: “Her Body and Other Parties” by Carmen Maria Machado, “Peluda” by Melissa Lozada-Oliva, and “Don’t Call Us Dead” by Danez Smith, just to name a few. One book, specifically a novel-in-verse, and its March release is already sparking such progressive changes in the literary world. “The Poet X” by author and immaculate poet Elizabeth Acevedo provides a unique form of storytelling through poetry, while centering the story around Xiomara Batista, a Dominican teen living in Harlem who processes her surroundings and occurences within her family and outside of it through poetry, in an environment where she states she feels unseen and unheard.