Book, In the flesh[LS]

Language: Brazilian Portuguese. The story of this novel begins in 2001, on the night of Melody's coming-of-age ceremony, then sixteen years old, at her grandparents' house in Brooklyn, New York. Watched lovingly by her relatives and friends, and entering to the sounds of Prince's vibrant music, she wears a special custom-made dress. But the event is not devoid of poignancy. Sixteen years earlier, that same dress was measured and sewn for a different body: that of Iris, Melody's mother, for a celebration that ultimately never happened. In the Raw focuses on two black families who came together when Iris and Aubrey, a couple of teenagers still in high school, discovered they were going to be parents. By revealing Melody's family history — and going back to the Tulsa race massacre of 1921 — Jacqueline Woodson shows how all the characters arrived at this moment, and directs the focus not only to their ambitions and successes, but also to the price of choices they made in order to exceed expectations and escape the traps of African-American history. As it explores sexual desire, identity, ambition, gentrification, education, class and status, and the life changes that come with parenthood, this stunning novel looks at the fact that young people often must make lasting decisions about their lives. — even before they start to discover who they are.