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Every Body Looking by Candace Iloh
As the oldest daughter, Ada bears the weight and expectations of her entire family. So when she begins college at a Historically Black College, it's the first time in Ada's life that she is allowed to make her own choices. There, she starts to explore the world of dance and her sexuality. She must come to terms with the destiny that has been laid out for her and the one she wants to have.
Review from School Library Journal:
Ada, pronounced Aah-dah!, means "first daughter" in Igbo and, as Ada shares, such a name carries the heavy weight of expectations. Written in verse, Ada's narrative unfurls from her high school graduation, then jumps around in time while she navigates her early college days at an HBCU, dipping in and out of scenes from first, second, and sixth grades. Pivotal and sometimes wrenching episodes are seared into each of these time periods, from sexual abuse in first grade to a betrayal of her privacy by an aunty who arrives from Nigeria in sixth grade. Iloh poignantly captures the tension and jagged emotion required for Ada to juggle her needy and absent mother with the heavy expectations of her father, all while trying to figure out who she really wants to be. Amidst all this uncertainty and seeking lies dance. While Dad is the one to introduce Ada to dance lessons to connect her to his home country, it is the deep desire for movement that consumes Ada and begins to pull her in the opposite direction of his more practical aspirations for her.
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