Compelling from the first chapter. I applaud the magical realism and the hopefulness. I am waiting to see how it circulates.

thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the eARC of this book I received in exchange for a fair and honest review.

This was a really haunting and beautiful book. Echo Brown's writing style somehow magnifies the story so that every scene feels like a dream sequence. The overall effect is a ethereal, heartbreaking tale of a curious and precocious young black girl trying to overcome the legacy handed down to her. Or perhaps, even more than overcoming, trying to navigate and translate the legacy. She struggles to parse through her mother's stories, tinged by both hope and trauma. Overall, just a lovely book that I absolutely will add to my course reading list.

Black Girl Unlimited is one of the most intense journeys I have taken with a book in a long time. The raw emotion throughout will captivate any reader and bring them inside the world of the characters in a way they makes a person forget where they are.

3.5 stars

**Special Thanks to NetGalley and Henry Holt and Company for an electronic Advance Reader's Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.**

Giving a rating to an #ownvoices book is difficult for me. I am not this author. I have not lived her experience. I do not share her skin color or her hair texture or her family demographic. I do not share her difficulties in life or her struggles. I love the exposure that all #ownvoices books bring to me and the way they make me think deeply about the systems I have benefited from as a white woman. In that regard, this book is no different. It will definitely provoke conversations about racial and gender inequality, both in the larger sense and in the "every day" sense of shades of skin color, prejudice in education and in the housing market, and a million other every day experiences for black people.

Magical realism is NOT my thing. If I had realized that about this book before picking it up, I probably would not have read it. This book does a decent job of magic its magical realism believable. At first I had a hard time believing Echo could be "quantum wizard". The name "quantum wizard" sounded ridiculous to me, but it grew on me over time. It was definitely not something in my reading comfort zone. It took time for me to get into the idea, but I liked it by the end of the book.

My only (and unfortunately sizable) complaint about this book is the constant skipping around of timeline and mergers of events. The author would often tell two or three events simultaneously, skipping only an extra line to indicate that she was not describing in a linear fashion. Sometimes I wouldn't notice the extra space and it would take me two or three sentences to realize that Echo was no longer describing the same thing as she was a few lines before. I actually like the IDEA of this technique, but I'm unsure of the execution. Sometimes these separate-but-smashed-together events were connected by an easily apparent common theme. There were the times that Echo's technique and risk paid off. Other times, though, these events were not so clearly connected and I was left slightly confused. I'm older than the target audience of for this book, and probably significantly more versed in literary technique than the target audience, so I recognized what was happening and pushed through any "hmmm" moments. I'm not sure your average teen reader would do that. I think the parallel events all told at once would most often turn into a confusing jumble.

This book tackled some HUGE ideas. It had wonderful things to say about them all. Usually I want a book to pick one or two major issues to address, but this one really tackled the intersectionality of these gender/social/racial/economic issues and I really appreciated that.

Overall, I couldn't believe this was a debut novel. Echo Brown has a talent for crafting a plot and a story. I look forward to what she writes in the future.

Oh, my God, this book is excellent. The prose, the characters, the plots are amazing. I would 100% recommend for everyone.

In this semi-autobiographical debut, Echo Brown confronts themes of drug addiction, sexual abuse, and depression within an evocative framework of magical realism, and cements herself as a brilliant new literary voice at the same time.

This book absolutely floored me. I loved the combination of extreme reality with a spiritual kind of magic much different from the kind usually seen in YA, especially in fantasy. Brown skillfully explores the tragedies and traumas of urban life, and how complex relationships borne from close quarters are formed, destroyed, and reformed. I plan to buy several copies for my students!

This book is different than the typical books I read. Echo (the character, and the author, I suppose) has a great voice that's easy to read and easy to root for. The book is heavy, and it shouldn't be taken on for light reading. I definitely suggest it be for older teens and teens who are emotionally mature enough to handle the brutal nature of some of the topics.

This is such a cool book. I appreciate the use of magical realism to navigate difficult and very real problems that teens face. It is a great diverse read, but it is not for the faint of heart. Other reviewers have noted that this title should have a content warning for rape. While I would recommend this to readers, I would not do so without proper warning. I would likely recommended it to older teens who are avid readers and can critically analyze what this book is doing.

I have to admit that a lot of my disappointment with this one comes from the fact that I went in thinking it was fantasy featuring POC (which there is just not enough of). Instead it's a non-linear journey of magical realism (not really my cup of tea) wherein I THINK magic is a metaphor for resiliency, bravery, and dealing with trauma.

There are important issues here, for sure: prejudice and discrimination of African Americans, the inequality in housing and education based on race, the added challenges faced by black women, rape and sexual assault, drug use, colorism, and so much more. The characters here come from backgrounds and families and situations much like those of many of my students, and their voices are important and authentic.

BUT. The magic part--for me--just really distracted from those story lines. As I said before, it felt almost as if the magic were metaphorical...but it definitely existed in the story. Female wizards can slow down/stop time, view black "veils" that hold an individual's darkness, and visit an afterlife-like place while still on Earth (among other things). I guess I just would have rather read a straight-up version of Echo surviving and persevering (or a straight-up magical fantasy featuring POC) instead of story that jumps around a timeline, varies between the real and the fantastic, and will be hard for my students to grasp.

An interesting mix of <i>A Tree Grows in Brooklyn</i> by way of Toni Morrison set in the 1990s and early 2000s, the narrative takes on serious issues with both realism and love. I will say that I've never been the biggest fan of magical realism so I found myself wishing there were either more fantasy content or none at all, but I'm sure there will be those who find that style appealing. I also think that the blending of time/scene shifts might work better in print: in ebook form I found it confusing, particularly at the beginning.

Echo Brown is determined to rise above her circumstances. She focuses on school and her wizard skills to escape from her family's poverty and parents' addictions.

Black Girl Unlimited has a lot of uplifting messages, but I think they will be lost in the magical realism. The writing makes the timeline difficult to follow, and unfortunately, many students will give up before they reach the positive ending.

WOW this book was intense. I loved the magical realism and all the aspects surrounding that. It was a bit choppy and hard to read at some points. There is some rape and self-blame and with the main character having the same name as the author I believe this is based on some real experiences.
It's hard to really put this book into words. Intense, dramatic, magical, all of the above.