BLACK GIRL UNLIMITED The Remarkable Story of a Teenage Wizard

Echo Brown is an excellent narrator of her semiautobiographical story about a young girl wizard from the East Side. Echo, the protagonist, splits her time between two worlds. Brown uses the metaphor of magic and wizardry to explore black womanhood and the freedoms and dangers of leaving the place that "made you." The audiobook sings with complexity and themes that are a step above many YA novels, and has a narration to match. Echo grapples with the complexities of black oppression and how it differs by gender, something rarely discussed in literature. Structurally, Brown intercuts certain scenes, which is very cinematic and hard to pull off in audiobook form, yet she masters it skillfully. Themes of mother-daughter connection, forgiveness, and both biological and created family make for a moving, vital story. S.N. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine [Published: APRIL 2020]