“I got my notebook and figured out
when you start to write a poem
you don’t know where it might go.”
My Book of Life by Angel is a captivating narration of life on the streets of Vancouver for a teenage runaway forced into prostitution and her subsequent alienation from her family. Unlike “Go Ask Alice” which reads as more of an afterschool special, Leavitt has created a novel whose characters resonate with the reader. It is set in Vancouver among the backdrop of missing women, many of whom worked as prostitutes. The painful truth that their disappearances were not regarded as worthy of extensive police time and effort is clear in her work. In fact it took a long time for their disappearance to be investigated and as one who participated in the campaign to have the police investigate, it was incredibly frustrating that no one cared about the disappearance of so many women, simply because of their profession. Leavitt’s discussion of this issue outlines how alone these young girls and women truly are.
“Now Angel, you ask yourself, dig
down deep,
what kind of life did those women
have anyway?”
The novel is written in verse, instead of prose, and the lyrical quality of the verse creates a powerful narration. As a reader, I really enjoy narrations that deviate from “normal”, such as the diary entries of Louise Rennison’s Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging or the letters and notes found in Jaclyn Moriarty’s Feeling Sorry for Celia. However, I had not read any other novels in full verse, other than Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad, which shares many traits with this novel. It took about twenty pages for me to adjust to the style and then I could not put the book down. The verse draws you in and the flowing nature keeps the story going as it feels like a conversation between Angel and the reader. In fact I found the next book I read to be rather jarring and distant with its (seemingly) constant interruptions of sentence structure and chapters.
“It’s an act of faith to write a book of you,
to believe a poem is something you could do.”
It felt very appropriate to read this book during Freedom to Read week as so often YA novels that discuss issues such as teenage runaways and prostitution. However, Leavitt discusses these issues with little sensationalism, instead the novel provides a clear examination of what life on the streets really is like and how easy it can be to disappear on them. The most compelling aspect of this novel is that the readers does not pity Angel, but commiserates and hopes with her. Her realization of her own strength and determination, something she thinks is lost to her, is incredibly moving and inspirational. Angel’s book of life demonstrates that even when we think there is no hope or possibility of moving forward, there is always a chance. What makes this book so interesting and worthy of reading and rereading is Leavitt’s unflinching portrayal of life on the streets and the will to survive even when there is no support or guidance from the adults who betray instead of protect.
Martine Leavitt has written two other novels concerning homelessness and teens Tom Finder and Heck, Superhero that will appeal to readers of My Book of Life by Angel.
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