Patina

Track series Book 2

By: Jason Reynolds

paperback free shelf 233 pages

Published: 2017

Genre: YA realistic fiction

Reynolds is such a good author! I like book 1 Ghost better, but Patina's story was worth reading. She runs partly because her mother lost her feet, then legs due to diabetes. She and her sister Maddy live with their aunt ("Momly") and uncle Tony. She also starts learning to run relays in this book.

I like Reynolds' dedication "For those who've been passed the baton too young." 

 

I love that the story opened with what happened at Ghost's race! Now I want to read the rest of the series. 

Patina is such a loving big sister. She braids Maddy's hair every week.

 

Page 8:  "I picked up the can of beads and shook them in her ear like one of them Spanish shaker things."

The language choices are jarring at times, but seem authentic to the character. I love that she gets Maddy to sit still for their braiding sessions. And she uses ninety red beads, which fall out as the week goes on.

Page 22: "Lord, please bless them with some soap. Some perfume. Anything. Make a miracle happen, or What have I done to deserve this? Father, why hath thou forsaken me?"

This made me laugh. Her mom makes the girls attend church with her each week. Patina describes the Thomases, their pew mates, as "smelling like they just puked up mothballs" as she prays for them.

Page 30: "The other thing about these girls is that it seems like they ain't never been told they can't do nothing. Never. I mean, they be wearing full faces of makeup and everything. Do you know what my mother would do if she saw me with my whole face made up for school like I was about to go on some kinda fashion photo shoot or something? She'd probably try to run over me with that wheelchair."

Again, the language choices challenge this teacher. But the observation that some girls (and boys) act as though they can do whatever they want to do rings true.

Page 36: "After school I never waste time at my locker. I scurry down to the end of the main corridor, eyes darting from forward to floor, through the mess of hair flippers, the wrath-letes (kids who feel like it's a sport to make everyone's life miserable), the know-it-alls, the know-nothins, the hush-hushes (super quiet, super shy), the YMBCs (You Might be Cuckoo) . . . "

She goes on, but I found her description of the different cliques to be interesting. I did make a note on a later page though with "YMBC?" . . . because I had forgotten that it stood for goth-type kids.

Page 85: "Like his dramatic voice is gonna make the poem any less wack. But hot sauce on cardboard is still cardboard."

She's talking about her English teacher, Mr. Winston, reading "The Charge of the Light Brigade" in a theatrical manner. The last comment made me laugh.

Page 166: "These things that I hadn't really thought about because Momly always just . . . did them. Which I also never . . . really . . . thought about."

 

Patina's realization that her aunt had been doing so many things for everyone in the household shows how this already mature girl is still growing up. The car accident that kept Momly in hospital, then home, affected everyone.

 

Page 203: "Let them know that I ain't gonna be buffing the floor by myself anymore. That I ain't no junk. . . . Maybe math actually was good for something. Somehow convincing yourself to stand up to hair flippers . . . "

 

I like that Patina found an inner strength and rose above the pettiness of the other girls. This story ends with a question about the end of the race. On to book three!