Fefe, Precious, Stacia, and Tonya are characters that will stay with me for quite some time. Racism, drug addiction, and having to grow up way before time. Last Summer on State Street brings up a variety of issues. Fefe, being a bit closed off to the world and danger around her, makes for the perfect guide as her eyes are slowly opened to injustices, poverty, and anguish around her. Family and friends are turning into strangers. Buildings are being torn down and residents are being forced to move. Felicia ‘Fefe’ Stevens is twelve years old and we follow her point of view for the majority of the book.
The way in which this story was told was almost like reading someone’s memoir.
Set in the backdrop of Chicago’s Robert Taylor Housing projects in the late 1990’s,this coming-of-age novel is about four friends and the summer that changes everything. Last Summer on State Street is Toya Wolfe’s debut novel, and it definitely packs a punch. Interweaving moments of reckoning and sustaining grace, debut author Toya Wolfe has crafted an era-defining story of finding a home - both in one’s history and in one’s self.” Profound, reverent, and uplifting, Landmarks explores the risk of connection against the backdrop of racist institutions, the restorative power of knowing and claiming one’s own past, and those defining relationships which form the heartbeat of our lives. Decades later, as she remembers that fateful summer–just before her home was demolished, her life uprooted, and community forever changed–Fe Fe tries to make sense of the grief and fraught bonds that still haunt her and attempts to reclaim the love that never left. Fe Fe must make the painful decision of whom she can trust and whom she must let go. But when Fe Fe welcomes a mysterious new friend, Tonya, into their fold, the dynamics shift, upending the lives of all four girls.Īs their beloved neighborhood falls down around them, so too do their friendships and the structures of the four girls’ families. She, with the devout Precious Brown and Stacia Buchanan, daughter of a Gangster Disciple Queen-Pin, form a tentative trio and, for a brief moment, carve out for themselves a simple life of Double Dutch and innocence. It’s the summer of 1999, and her high-rise is next in line to be torn down by the Chicago Housing Authority. “ For fans of Jacqueline Woodson and Brit Bennett, a striking coming-of-age debut about friendship, community, and resilience, set in the housing projects of Chicago during one life-changing summer.Įven when we lose it all, we find the strength to rebuild.įelicia “Fe Fe” Stevens is living with her vigilantly loving mother and older teenaged brother, whom she adores, in building 4950 of Chicago’s Robert Taylor Homes.
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