Leaving Atlanta: A Novel

Rating:
Summary: Powerful and Touching
Review: Leaving Atlanta is an absolutely awesome reading experience. Who can forget the child abductions and murders in Atlanta in 1979? It was a fearful and trying time for all, but for the children, who lived in Atlanta, it had to be one of the most frightening things they experienced. The author Tayari Jones does an excellent job of getting into the minds and thoughts of the children as they try to process what was happening to these children, and more so when the victim was someone they knew.

For the children in this book, Tasha, Rodney and Octavia, being in the fifth grade is hard. They surely had enough on their minds just with trying to fit in, make friends, puberty, and pleasing their parents. All the parents are talking about the child murders and trying to figure out how to keep their children safe.

Each child story is unique, each living environment different, but with each child there is that vulnerability which made you just want to wrap your arms around them and shelter them from all that was bad. This moving novel is one that I will be highly recommending. I will be on the lookout for future books by this author.

Rating:
Summary: Emotional
Review: Tayari Jones tells the story through the eyes and ears of three children. Tasha, Rodney and Octavia are the fithgraders coming of age during the time of the Atlanta child murders. Each tell of the trials and tribulations at home, school and during their personal time. There is sadness, fear and tears especially when children they know start disapearing! It was fun to read what the children thought about their parents and teachers, it took me back to my own childhood. Octavia is my favorite out of the three. She seemed wise beyond her years. Tayari Jones did a great job but I felt the story could have gone on for a while longer. I got emotionally attached to the kids and wanted to know how their lives turn out. Over all this book was very good.

Rating:
Summary: In times of turmoil
Review: Told from the vantage points of three youngsters living and playing in Atlanta during the time of the heinous Atlanta Child Murders, Leaving Atlanta reels you in with its natural language and profound realism. The year is 1979. Black children are disappearing from the streets of Atlanta and turning up dead. Our three protagonists, Tasha, Rodney, and Octavia relate to us their emotions and experiences in such times of turmoil.

The book not only tells us of the circumstances surrounding the murders, but also of the daily routines, battles, and struggles these three children undergo. Jones addresses familial, social, and societal issues within the pages of Leaving Atlanta. She does this by allowing us to remember a time when juvenile concerns become adult concerns. Hats off to this talented new writer for composing such a masterful interpretation of childhood, Atlanta, and emotions in general.

~ Reviewed by CandaceK