American Street

A young woman considers both her emerging adulthood and the so-called “American Dream” in American Street, Ibi Zoboi’s coming-of-age tale about a young Haitian woman navigating her place in the world. Sixteen-year-old Fabiola Toussaint was born in America but has grown up in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. When she moves to Detroit to reunite with her extended family, her mother is detained at customs, leaving Fabiola to fend for herself in a strange country with a family she barely knows. In the book, a 2017 National Book Award Finalist that combines a timeless immigrant story with magical realism and Afro-Caribbean influences, Fabiola comes into her own at a new school. Flanked by her boisterous American cousins and a surprising love interest, the teen gleans insights into what she has gained—and lost—in her new home. —Cady Lang

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