Leaving Atlanta ★★★★★

Leaving Atlanta (Click Here To Buy)

★★★★★

Leaving Atlanta by Tayari Jones is the story of three fifth graders growing up in Atlanta in the late 1970s while a serial kidnapper abducts and murders children in the area.

I read this on my Kindle on loan from the library.

The story is broken down into 3 parts and each part is told from a different child's perspective as well as a different literary point of view. Part One accounts Tasha from a third person perspective. Tasha is primarily focused on her parent's separation and trying to figure out whether she wants to be mean or nice to Jashante when she first learns of the kidnappings while the family watches the news during dinner. Part Two centers around Rodney and is a second person perspective. Rodney struggles to fit-in in school and does not know how to relate to his overly strict father which cause him to get into the car with a stranger. Part Three ends with Octavia and is written in first person. Octavia lives across the streets from the projects and struggles deeply when her closest friend is kidnapped and then murdered leaving us with an ending that does nothing less than live up to its title.

Jones is a master at character development and details those moments that come to define the end of innocence. A funny side note: Jones has a tertiary character who is named Tayari Jones, as this book was inspired by Jones' childhood experience of the Atlanta Child Murders of 1979. Jones' inclusion of herself as a minor character was so clever and so subtle.

I have also read An American Marriage and Silver Sparrow by this author. Jones is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors and you can bet that I will read The Untelling later this year.

If you liked Leaving Atlanta, I also recommend The Body by Stephen King, Pet by Awaeke Emezi, The Whisper Man by Alex North, and Room by Emma Donoghue.

Happy reading -

Ms.Bjork