Search This Blog







2025 Cover Lovers Reading Challenge (hosted by Yours Truly)

2025 Literary Escapes Challenge


2025 POPSUGAR Reading Challenge



2025 Build Your Library Reading Challenge









Standing Against the Wind A Get-Up-And-Cheer Kind of Novel

Patrice Williams has smarts, just not the kind she needs to survive on the mean streets of inner-city Chicago. All the A's in the world won't be enough to make the 13-year-old fit in - they can't make her poofy hair settle down, they can't erase her Southern accent, they can't turn her pretty or glamorous or even tough enough to stand up to her tormentors. And they certainly can't shuttle her back in time, back to Georgia, where she used to live happily with her grandmother. All the A's in the world can't change her grim reality. Except maybe they can.
When Patrice's principal urges her to apply for a scholarship to a prestigious African-American boarding school in Mississippi, Patrice feels a twinge of hope. She knows she couldn't really go. If she took off, who would watch her young cousins, not to mention do their laundry, cook their food, and help them with their homework while their mom does double shifts to make rent? Certainly not Patrice's 18-year-old sister, who's too busy working or hunting down Mr. Right to pay an ounce of attention to what's going on with Patrice. Still, Patrice has to try.
Unexpected help comes in the form of her suave classmate, Monty Freeman. Although he seems eager to help Patrice, she's not really sure if she can trust him. School gossip pegs him for a drug dealer. Besides, the more she relies on him, the more of a problem he's becoming - she's not sure she can leave Monty any more than she can leave her cousins and Aunt Mae. And then there's the little problem of completing the application. Exactly when is she going to have time to do that?
Standing Against the Wind by Traci L. Jones is a get-up-and-cheer kind of novel, one that makes you root hard for the plucky heroine who, you just know, is going to triumph over all her troubles. Although it takes a hard, unsentimental look at inner-city life, the story gathers warmth and heart from its strong, engaging characters. Hopeful and touching, Standing Against the Wind had me laughing, crying, and running to Amazon to purchase a copy for myself. Would it be redundant to say I loved it? Probably. But still ... I loved it.
(Readalikes: Reminded me of Silhouetted By the Blue by Traci L. Jones; What Can't Wait by Ashley Hope Perez and a little of With the Might of Angels by Andrea Davis Pinkney)
Grade: B+
If this were a movie, it would be rated: PG-13 for language (no F-bombs), sexual innuendo/content, and mature themes
To the FTC, with love: Another library fine find


Reading
Finlay Donovan Is Killing It by Elle Cosimano

Listening
If Walls Could Talk by Juliet Blackwell


Followin' with Bloglovin'

-
-
Nowhere Girl By Cheryl Diamond3 hours ago
-
-
Nonfiction Books on BookTV9 hours ago
-
-
Sunday Post #56611 hours ago
-
-
84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff14 hours ago
-
One Word Titles A-to-Z17 hours ago
-
-
Book Quotes21 hours ago
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
A Review of Nor Gloom of Night2 days ago
-
-
-
Audiobook: Kate & Frida2 days ago
-
-
-
-
Books I DNFed in 20244 days ago
-
Isola by Allegra Goodman5 days ago
-
I have been reading...1 week ago
-
-
February 2025 Reading Wrap Up2 weeks ago
-
-
-
One Big Happy Family by Susan Mallery4 weeks ago
-
-
-
-
I'm Still Reading - This Was My October4 months ago
-
Review: The Duke and I7 months ago
-
Girl Plus Books: On Hiatus8 months ago
-
-
-
What Happened to Summer?1 year ago
-
-
-
-
-
-
Are you looking for Pretty Books?2 years ago
-
-
-
-
-
-

Grab my Button!


Blog Archive
- ► 2021 (159)
- ► 2020 (205)
- ► 2019 (197)
- ► 2018 (223)
- ► 2017 (157)
- ► 2016 (157)
- ► 2015 (188)
- ► 2014 (133)
- ► 2013 (183)
- ► 2012 (193)
- ▼ 2011 (232)
- ► 2010 (257)
- ► 2009 (211)
- ► 2008 (192)


2025 Goodreads Reading Challenge
2024 - Elementary/Middle Grade Nonfiction
2023 - Middle Grade Fiction
2022 - Middle Grade Fiction
2021 - Middle Grade Fiction

2020 - Middle Grade Fiction
