Review: 'With the Fire on High'

With the Fire on High
By Elizabeth Acevedo
YA fiction
May 2019
Harper Teen
ISBN: 978-0062662835

In The Poet X, Elizabeth Acevedo crafted a novel in verse that expressed the wonder, questioning and determination a young woman feels. In her sophomore novel, With the Fire on High, Acevedo brings to vivid life another young woman who infuses her life and those around her with joy, pride and fierce love.

Emoni is in her senior year, a good but not great student who is more interested in her family and creating magic in the kitchen than studying. It's a focus Emoni needs. She's been raised by her grandmother in Philly. Her father went back to Puerto Rico when her mother died. Emoni and her grandmother are now raising Emoni's daughter. When not caring for Babygirl, hanging with her great friend Angelica, or appreciating her grandmother, Emoni also keeps her cool when her ex-boyfriend (a generous term) picks her three-year-old up for visitation. Even Tyrone's snooty mother doesn't knock Emoni's balance. All the irritations fade into the background when Emoni gets to be her best, true self -- creating food in the kitchen the way a musical genius might improvise a symphony.

Even with a plate this full, our heroine is about to see if she can handle more. There is a transfer student this year -- a fine young man who sees Emoni's beauty and strength straight away. And there is a new elective class, about restaurant food and service, taught by a real chef. Emoni makes the cut for the class, as does the new guy, Malachi. But it is no cake walk. Chef Ayden recognizes her ability. But he does not appreciate her last-second improvisations. He teaches her that you need to know the rules in order to break them.

For someone who has weathered her circumstances with aplomb, Emoni remains unsure if she can reach out higher, wider and deeper. A class trip to Spain, to be able to work for a professional chef, is her chance to find out if she has limits beyond what she has placed on herself. This is especially true considering the cost of being able to go.

The wisdom, grounded in reality, and the joy that are the essence of Emoni's story, along with the poetic flow of Acevedo's writing, make With the Fire on High a reading experience as filling as a grand meal prepared with love and a secret ingredient or two. It's also a grand inspiration to have a blast in the kitchen, making one's own music.

©2019 All Rights Reserved TheLitForum.com Reviews and posted with permission