I Hadn't Meant to Tell You This

I Hadn't Meant To Tell You This

Author: Jacqueline Woodson

Publisher: Penguin Group (1994)

ISBN: 0142405558

4.5 (out of 5) STARS

Summary: Maria, a popular girl in her rich black suburb and Lena, a poor white girl, forge a unlikely friendship. Both girls have lost their mothers. Yet that is where the similarities end.

Review: Maria lives alone with her father. Her mother left the family a few years back to find yourself and air to breathe. Over time Maria and her father are able to heal and get on with their lives. But at first it is nearly impossible. “I crept through the house listening, wanting to hear how people grieved when the absence they were hurting over wasn’t caused by death” (pg. 24).

Lena lives with her younger sister and father. Lena’s mother died from breast cancer a few years ago. After Lena’s mother’s death her father starts sexually abusing her. Lena is torn between two bad choices: stay with her father but get to be with her sister or report her father and most likely get separated from her sister in foster care.

“’Blood is like an accident,’ she whispered. ‘People think just ‘cause somebody’s your blood relative, you have to love them’” (pg. 71).

“Outside, rain beat softly against my bedroom window. I watched for a while, wondering why this world was so stupid. We were helpless, Lena and Dion, and me. It was like someone gave us our dumb lives and said, ‘Sorry, this is the best we can do.’ I pulled my knees up to my chin and wrapped my arms around them. How come this stupid world couldn’t just let us go through life being little girls? Why did people have to come along and mess things up for us?” (pg. 77).

This book was very poignant, although a difficult read. I thought the subject matter was handled very well and appropriately for this age group. Although sex abuse is always difficult to read about.