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The co-op bookstore for avid readers
Big Girl
Critic Reviews
Great
Based on 6 reviews on
Finalist:Gotham Book Prize - (2023)
Shortlist:Center for Fiction First Novel Prize - (2022)
"Alive with delicious prose and the cacophony of '90s Harlem, Big Girl gifts us a heroine carrying the weight of worn-out ideas, who dares to defy the compulsion to shrink, and in turn teaches us to pursue our fullest, most desirous selves without shame." --Janet Mock
Malaya Clondon hates when her mother drags her to Weight Watchers meetings in the church's stuffy basement community center. A quietly inquisitive eight-year-old struggling to suppress her insatiable longing, she would much rather paint alone in her bedroom, or sneak out with her father for a sampling of Harlem's forbidden street foods.
For Malaya, the pressures of going to a predominantly white Upper East Side prep school are compounded by the high expectations passed down over generations from her sharp-tongued grandmother and her mother, Nyela, a painfully proper professor struggling to earn tenure at a prestigious university. But their relentless prescriptions--fad diets of cottage-cheese and sugar-free Jell-O, high-cardio African dance classes, endless doctors' appointments--don't work on Malaya.
As Malaya comes of age in a rapidly gentrifying 1990s Harlem, she strains to understand "ladyness" and fit neatly within the suffocating confines of a so-called "femininity" that holds no room for her body. She finds solace in the lyrical riffs of Biggie Smalls and Aaliyah, and in the support of her sensitive father, Percy; still, tensions at home mount as rapidly as Malaya's weight. Nothing seems to help--until a family tragedy forces her to finally face the source of her hunger on her own terms.
Exquisitely compassionate and clever, Big Girl is "filled with everyday people who, in Mecca Jamilah Sullivan's gifted hands, show us the love and struggle of what it means to be inside bodies that don't always fit with the outside world" (Jacqueline Woodson). In tracing the perils and pleasures of the inheritance that comes with being born, Sullivan pushes boundaries and creates an unforgettable portrait of Black womanhood in America.
Malaya Clondon hates when her mother drags her to Weight Watchers meetings in the church's stuffy basement community center. A quietly inquisitive eight-year-old struggling to suppress her insatiable longing, she would much rather paint alone in her bedroom, or sneak out with her father for a sampling of Harlem's forbidden street foods.
For Malaya, the pressures of going to a predominantly white Upper East Side prep school are compounded by the high expectations passed down over generations from her sharp-tongued grandmother and her mother, Nyela, a painfully proper professor struggling to earn tenure at a prestigious university. But their relentless prescriptions--fad diets of cottage-cheese and sugar-free Jell-O, high-cardio African dance classes, endless doctors' appointments--don't work on Malaya.
As Malaya comes of age in a rapidly gentrifying 1990s Harlem, she strains to understand "ladyness" and fit neatly within the suffocating confines of a so-called "femininity" that holds no room for her body. She finds solace in the lyrical riffs of Biggie Smalls and Aaliyah, and in the support of her sensitive father, Percy; still, tensions at home mount as rapidly as Malaya's weight. Nothing seems to help--until a family tragedy forces her to finally face the source of her hunger on her own terms.
Exquisitely compassionate and clever, Big Girl is "filled with everyday people who, in Mecca Jamilah Sullivan's gifted hands, show us the love and struggle of what it means to be inside bodies that don't always fit with the outside world" (Jacqueline Woodson). In tracing the perils and pleasures of the inheritance that comes with being born, Sullivan pushes boundaries and creates an unforgettable portrait of Black womanhood in America.
Book Details
- Publisher: Liveright Publishing Corporation
- Publish Date: Jul 12nd, 2022
- Pages: 288
- Language: English
- Edition: undefined - undefined
- Dimensions: 9.26in - 6.26in - 1.11in - 1.02lb
- EAN: 9781324091417
- Categories: • Coming of Age• African American & Black - Women• Feminist
About the Author
Sullivan, Mecca Jamilah: - A native of Harlem, Mecca Jamilah Sullivan is the author of Blue Talk and Love, winner of the Judith A. Markowitz Award from Lambda Literary. She is an associate professor of English at Georgetown University and lives in Washington, DC.
More books by Mecca Jamilah Sullivan
What people are saying
BOMB Magazine
1 year
"Sullivan writes joyfully about bodies, the city, youth, culture, music, extended family, and food…all with vivid, carnal detail. Against this backdrop, she unflinchingly examines what we do to Black girls and women: how even our best intentions squeeze them into small shapes."
– Annie Liontas is a writer.
Cuss Whisperer
2 years
Kiese Laymon is an author.
All the feels. All the chills. All the genius like a mug.
The New York Times
2 years
"Achingly beautiful ... “Big Girl” triumphs as a love letter to Black girls who are forced to enter womanhood too early — and to a version of Harlem that no longer exists."
– Cleyvis Natera is an author.
Show more
Critics’ reviews
Praise for this book
[A] young girl learns--and redefines--what it means to take up space . . . Sullivan writes with tenderness and uses the language of poetry to communicate her protagonist's inner life . . . A lyrical and important coming-of-age novel.-- "Kirkus Reviews"
Sullivan (the collection Blue Talk and Love) charms in her stunning debut novel about a Black girl's coming-of-age.... All of Sullivan's characters--even the cruel ones--brim with humanity, and the author shines when conveying the details of Malaya's comforts, such as Biggie Smalls lyrics, the portraits she paints in her room, the colors she braids into her hair, and the sweet-smelling dulce de coco candies she eats with a classmate with whom she shares a close and sexually charged friendship. This is a treasure.--Publishers Weekly, starred review
In Mecca Jamilah Sullivan's achingly beautiful coming-of-age debut novel, Big Girl, this body carries the weight of an entire neighborhood.... Big Girl triumphs as a love letter to the Black girls who are forced to enter womanhood too early -- and to a version of Harlem that no longer exists. In this novel, gentrification means a violent thinning of the true beauty of Black and immigrant cultures and tightknit communities that have been nearly erased in service of commercialism and whiteness.--Cleyvis Natera "New York Times Book Review"
Can something be both a love letter and a take-down? Big Girl is that: a love letter to 90s culture (shout-out to Biggie Smalls and Aaliyah) and a take-down of 90s culture (looking at you, Weight Watchers) . . . a coming-of-age story with a capacious lens. For readers interested in a sharp look at Black womanhood, 90s Harlem, and the toxicity of body shame, Big Girl is a sure bet.--Electric Literature, "Favorite Novels of 2022"
Mecca Jamilah Sullivan's debut novel weaves Malaya's joyful friendships and discovery of hip-hop with a measured look at the injuries and shame passed down through generations.--Emma Alpern "Vulture"
I loved Malaya because I love stories about girls pushing back against societal expectations. This novel is about so many things--gentrification, intergenerational trauma, Black womanhood, love in all forms--but it's Sullivan's heart-rending observations about her character's sense of disconnect in her body that kept a lump in my throat.--Laura Warrell "The Millions"
[Big Girl is] a painful, intimate, and ultimately celebratory book about one girl's determination to claim space. What's especially breathtaking is the way Sullivan writes about queerness as reprieve and refugee. It is through moments of queer love and desire that Malaya begins to imagine a life lived on her own terms.--Laura Sackton "Book Riot"
Bountiful and biting, Sullivan's debut is a crucial meditation on indulgence, identity, and inheritance, a story for those whose desire for self-determination and bodily autonomy cannot be satiated by the rations of a rapacious world.--Jordan Taliha McDonald, Vulture, "49 Books We Can't Wait to Read in 2022"
What people are saying
BOMB Magazine
1 year
"Sullivan writes joyfully about bodies, the city, youth, culture, music, extended family, and food…all with vivid, carnal detail. Against this backdrop, she unflinchingly examines what we do to Black girls and women: how even our best intentions squeeze them into small shapes."
– Annie Liontas is a writer.