by Liara Tamani
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Publication Date: October 24, 2017
Taja Brown, an African American girl living in Houston, Texas, narrates CALLING MY NAME by Liara Tamani. Throughout this coming of age novel, Taja grapples with the expectations of her parents, her relationship with God, her sexuality, and her own personal aspirations.
Because the novel begins when Taja is in middle school and ends after she finishes high school, it felt as though I was growing up alongside her, instead of reading her stories as an outsider. Taja beautifully develops her narrative voice over the course of the story, which was a rewarding process for me to experience as a reader. This immediately personal relationship with the main character, along with Tamani’s subdued (while still powerful) writing style, makes CALLING MY NAME easy to connect to for any teenager.
Readers who enjoyed the vignette-like structure and poetic language of Sandra Cisneros’s THE HOUSE ON MANGO STREET will want to give CALLING MY NAME a try.
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