ALA Booklist (Mon Oct 07 00:00:00 CDT 2024)

Even if you turn your back on the world you left, you're still pulled toward it, you're still turning around--always--to look behind you. To make sure everyone's o.k., says teenage Jeremiah, who first appeared in Woodson's If You Come Softly (1998). In this moving sequel, Jeremiah is dead, killed by New York City police bullets. Like the main character in Gary Soto's After life (2003), Jeremiah watches over the people he has left behind--his girlfriend, Ellie; his friends; his divorced parents--as each struggles through grief and tries to keep doing what the living do, ultimately finding new connections with one another and themselves. Softly alternates between Jeremiah and Ellie's voices. Here Woodson includes the first-person perspectives of several other characters, and with so many different voices, the narrative becomes crowded, diluting each character's story. Still, Woodson writes with impressive poetry about race, love, death, and what grief feels like--the things that snap the heart--and her characters' open strength and wary optimism will resonate with many teens.

Horn Book (Mon Oct 07 00:00:00 CDT 2024)

Black teen Miah was tragically killed at the end of If You Come Softly; with this sequel, it's as if Woodson couldn't bear to leave her characters without seeing them through the aftermath. Not ready to let go, Miah keeps tabs on the living; in the end, as his family and friends comfort one another, Miah is there watching, whispering in the wind that they are loved.

Kirkus Reviews (Mon Oct 07 00:00:00 CDT 2024)

A sequel to Woodson's If You Come Softly (1998), in which Miah was mistakenly shot to death by police. Each of Miah's friends and family, especially his girlfriend Ellie and mother Nelia, are isolated in grief. Miah himself is a shadow in the afterworld (and the story). His dead grandmother urges him to enjoy the pleasant afterlife, as she does, but he can't let go of the people he left behind while they are hollowed by mourning. By end, they have been knit together, doubtless by Miah, in such a way that they find strength in their unity—an ability to survive together. Nelia will resume writing. Ellie has made connections with Miah's friends. Miah is ready to continue without them towards his own new world. Written with Woodson's characteristic focus on telling detail (the buttery quality of light in a kitchen), this is a tender, existential meditation on grief, interior in nature that will nevertheless touch readers who enjoyed (and wept over) the first. (Fiction. YA)

School Library Journal (Mon Oct 07 00:00:00 CDT 2024)

Gr 8-10-In this poignant, stand-alone sequel to the wrenching romance, If You Come Softly (Putnam, 1998), Woodson's characters are dealing with grief and picking up the pieces of their lives after the death of 15-year-old Jeremiah (Miah) Roselind. The impact of their loss is revealed through the alternating voices of his white girlfriend, Ellie; basketball teammate, Kennedy; childhood friend, Carlton; and his separated parents. As a year passes and these characters take "a step deeper into their world-. The world they're learning to live in without you," Miah's spiritual voice searches for a final, parting moment to whisper that they are loved so that they can move on into their own futures. With tenderness and compassion, the author exposes the characters' vulnerabilities and offers the hope that they will emerge and grow from this tragic loss. Although the voices are distinct, a quiet, reflective tone pervades the story. Interestingly, each character opens up and changes in some way except Ellie's parents, who espouse liberal views but never accepted their daughter's African-American boyfriend or his friends. Readers who savor tough reality stories as much as happy endings will appreciate this thought-provoking, satisfying novel that offers hope but no easy answers.-Gerry Larson, Durham School of the Arts, NC Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.