Taja Brown is playing hooky from church in favor of a spiritual awakening. \u201cThere\u2019s something moving inside \u2026 my body,\u201d she tells us, \u201ctiptoeing across the high arches of my feet, break-dancing on my kneecaps, running figure eights around my hips \u2026 skipping up my sides, and climbing up to my shoulders\u2019 peaks.\u201d Taja has awakened this morning to the miracle of autonomy\u2014the breathtaking realization that she is a separate being from her parents and siblings\u2014and the knowledge that God is inside her, so much sweeter than \u201cthe tasteless lessons [she] swallows in Sunday school.\u201d We follow Taja through first bras and first periods, boys, peer pressure, ambition, loss, and the longing for \u201cspace for mystery and mistakes.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Taja regards the future apprehensively as she witnesses the disappointments and failures of the adults around her, and the death of her great-grandmother. She tests boundaries, eyeing freedom but not quite ready to try; she\u2019s practicing, but still needs the reassuring, safe harbor of home.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Calling My Name<\/em> is finely wrought young-adult fiction by Houston\u2019s Liara Tamani. Her debut novel about an African American girl coming-of-age in the 1980s in Texas is powerfully reminiscent of, and compares favorably with, Judy Blume\u2019s seminal Are You There, God? It\u2019s Me, Margaret<\/em> (Random House, 1970). Calling My Name<\/em> is a sensory experience, beginning with the beautifully designed jacket; tendrils of climbing roses, delicate yet strong, curl across it and throughout the pages. Tamani structures Calling My Name<\/em> in instructive vignettes representative of her journey from middle school through high-school graduation.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tamani\u2019s writing is lyrical and tactile. A thunderstorm approaches and \u201ca hungry growl rolls through the clouds\u2019 dark bellies.\u201d When Taja\u2019s parents produce a chastity contract for her and her first boyfriend, we feel acutely her humiliation. Tamani uses a father\u2019s job loss to illustrate the singular, selfish focus of teenagers. When Taja\u2019s family visits great-grandmother Gigi, sick with cancer, Taja contemplates the railing on the apartment balcony, \u201cthe black paint peeling \u2026 the red rust underneath, taking over.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Passages resonate with the frisson of recognition. \u201cThere\u2019s something wrong with my walk when I\u2019m alone and have to walk past a group of boys,\u201d Taja thinks. \u201cThey\u2019re everywhere, these stupid, ugly boys. Judging me. Making everywhere I walk feel like a runway.\u201d The exquisite surprise at the first touch of a boy \u201cpulsing and rising and pulsing and rising from a low, untouched place,\u201d and the confusion at the realization that this sensation and love are not the same thing.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Religion features strongly in Taja\u2019s life. Her parents are evangelical Christians, and Taja begins to chafe under the restrictions and to question differing standards of conduct and liberty applied to her and her older brother. God is a source of power and comfort for Taja, as is the memory of her great-grandmother Gigi, a more pagan source.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Taja\u2019s first-person narration is a joy\u2014sensitive, observant, smart, funny, and vulnerable. Taja\u2019s interior voice matures in nuance as she grows from a pubescent girl into a young woman, as she discovers and attempts to sort the many diverse things of this wide world that call her name. Learning to integrate the inside and the out, she tells us, \u201cI\u2019m busy noticing I\u2019m alive.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I can\u2019t wait to read what Tamani gifts to us next.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Review of debut YA fiction Calling My Name by Houston’s Liara Tamani<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[817,830,812,823],"class_list":["post-1038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-lone-star-review","tag-lonestarliterarycom","tag-texas-author","tag-ya-fiction"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1038\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}