--- description: Find out why "Chrome Valley" By Mahogany L. Browne is on TIME's list of the must-read books of the year. title: 'Chrome Valley' Is One of the 100 Must-Read Books of 2023 image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt54d60b915a84db0b/698a42010116820bf49839c3/ChromeValley.jpg?branch=production&width=1920&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Nov 14, 2023 # Chrome Valley By Mahogany L. Browne by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close  Exploring girlhood to motherhood, Mahogany L. Browne’s poetry collection, _Chrome Valley,_ offers an intimate portrait of what it means to be a Black woman in America. Using her own coming of age in Oakland, Calif., as inspiration, the YA author and poet looks at the pleasure and pain that comes with being a teenage girl: “You ain’t had freedom / ’til you climb on a bus 62 / & head to the closest mall / for a girl fight.” She often transitions from writing about the simple joys to tackling the larger battle being waged against her community. “I think ‘God! Is this the fight?/ To be Black and beautiful and breathing.’” Death is omnipresent in this collection because, as Browne explains in its opening pages, “When you are a black writer in America:/it gets harder to ignore the bodies.” Throughout _Chrome Valley,_ she grapples with generational trauma while paying tribute to a long history of resistance. She delves into the anxieties that come with being a mother to a Black child by evoking the names of women—[Mamie Till](https://time.com/4399793/emmett-till-civil-rights-photography/ "undefined"), Kadiatou Diallo, [Sybrina Fulton](https://time.com/6229128/sybrina-fulton-trayvon-martin-mamie-till-mobley-movie/ "undefined")—who have lost their sons to police violence. With great compassion and fury, Browne shows how survival has become an act of defiance. —_Shannon Carlin_ **Buy Now:** _Chrome Valley_ on [Bookshop](https://bookshop.org/a/4973/9781324092278 "undefined") | [Amazon](https://amzn.to/3QOyiXC "undefined") Chrome Valley: 100 Must-Read Books of 2023 ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/must-read-books-2023/6332715/chrome-valley/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/must-read-books-2023/6332715/chrome-valley/"},"headline":"Chrome Valley","datePublished":"2023-11-14T12:30:40.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-03T00:26:00.845Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/must-read-books-2023/6332715/chrome-valley/","keywords":["Books","list","best books"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt54d60b915a84db0b/698a42010116820bf49839c3/ChromeValley.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt54d60b915a84db0b/698a42010116820bf49839c3/ChromeValley.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/must-read-books-2023/6332715/chrome-valley/","name":"Chrome Valley"}}]}] ```