Keeping It Real audiobook

Keeping It Real is a riveting upper middle grade about family, privilege, and conformity in the Black community. With a perfect in-between voice, this book is perfect for older tweens and younger teens in the eighth grade and older. Kids who enjoy stories about fashion, the arts, friendships, and family drama will enjoy this one.Read my full review on my blog.Many thanks to the publisher for an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

What it's about: Marigold Johnson attends the Flowers Academy, an elite private school. Her parents insist that she get the best education they can provide for her - and thanks to their incredibly popular fashion company Flexx Unlimited, the Johnsons can provide a lot. Mari loves designing fashion as a hobby, but she doesn't pay much attention to her family's business - she's more concerned with doing well in school. Mari's friend and classmate Justice attends Flo-A on a basketball scholarship; he's one of the best players in the league, and he's one of the most popular kids in the school. But while Justice may have incredible skills on the court, his passion is hip-hop fashion. So when he's chosen to be one of the three teens to participate in a special summer-long style internship at Flexx Unlimited, he is over the moon. Justice is also surprised that Mari didn't know about the program, but Mari is not, since she rarely pays attention to her parents' business, and generally is "allergic" to anything that seems like working for her folks.The idea of working with Justice, and getting to continue her hobby as part of the internship, captures her interest. She manages to talk her parents into giving her a shot.But her parents warn her that she has to give the other kids in the program plenty of space to do their thing, because they're not from the same kind of privileged background as Mari. As the summer unfurls, Mari finds herself caught between expectations - Justice's, the other interns, her parents, and her own. And when Mari starts to feel left out, she has no one to turn to to help her figure out what to do about it. No one ever said fashion, friendship, or family is easy. What I thought: One of the things I enjoy most about Chase's books is that they are grounded in the everyday experiences of the characters. While they have conflicts to deal with and obstacles to overcome, those difficulties are ones that young teens face regularly - fitting in, figuring out who they are, pursuing their interests and polishing their abilities, trying to see a path to their future, maintaining friendships, dealing with the changes that come as part of growing up. These are universal issues that middle grades readers can relate to. I hate to make the pun, but Chase is really good at keeping it real!This book is a little different than Chase's So Done books, in a few dimensions. Most immediately noticeable to me, there is only one perspective provided (as opposed to alternating every chapter between two main characters). It completely makes sense for the story Chase is telling here - if readers had other sides of this story, it would undercut some of the reveals. Still, it would have been fascinating to see this story unfolding from the perspective of one of the other three teens in the book. This book is also dealing with a very different type of character. The So Done books focus on a set of characters living in Del Rio Cove, a lower income area. Marigold is coming at the world from a very different place than those kids, and it's interesting to see the ways in which her family's affluence giver her a different experience than the kids from the Cove - and even more interesting to see the ways in which it doesn't. Mari finds herself constantly being shut out of situations. At school, she's one of the only Black kids, and she's had to deal with some racist ignorance. At the internship, she's both the "rich kid" and the boss's daughter, making her feel like a double outcast. I appreciate that Mari is dealing with difficulties, even though on paper her life is wonderful. It's a great reminder that it doesn't matter how much "stuff" you have, it's how you relate to - and connect with - the people around you that really matters. Mari is also a very thoughtful child. She frequently looks to the family's live-in friend/nanny/housekeeper, Ms. Sadie. Ms. Sadie helped to raise Mari's father when his mother wasn't able to, and has become like a third parent to Mari. Mari has multiple moments throughout the book where she is consciously thinking about Ms. Sadie's age, and considering that Ms. Sadie will not be around forever, no matter how much Mari and the Johnsons love her. This is pretty deep for a middle schooler, but it's a great little thread that's woven into the story. While this makes Mari sad, she pivots to focus on the here and now and enjoying having Ms. Sadie in her life, rather than focusing on the darker aspects of her future. I think teen readers could stand the reminder of mortality, as well as the lesson in not taking their loved ones for granted and trying to enjoy the present. As thoughtful as Mari is in certain areas, she's also a typical clueless teen in others. Not only do I love the realism of that idea, that people can be strong in one dimension but weak in the next one over, but it provides lots of great chances for conversations among readers. As an impartial third party, the readers can see that although Mari thinks her actions make sense, she is actually creating several of her own problems because although she cares about others, she's not great at seeing things from their perspective unless someone is leading her through it step by step. Again, I love this very regular-teen detail. Why I rated it like I did: As a writer, I'd put Chase on par with the best of the realistic fiction middle grades authors: Jason Reynolds, Kelly Yang, Barbara Dee, Jewell Parker Rhodes, Kate DiCamillo. She is a master of characterization, giving each of her protagonists depth and heft. She is also gifted at taking the everyday events teens deal with and turning them into engaging stories that provide middle grades readers with lessons, without hitting them over the head. This book is an engaging piece of realistic fiction that has lots of fun elements that are regular life for some people, but almost fantastical for most of us - and it's great to get to explore that world a bit from the inside. This book deserves a place in every middle grades book collection in school and public libraries. Students will enjoy the story and might even learn a thing or two along the way.

*I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.I haven't read anything by Paula Chase before, but I fell in love with this one. I really enjoyed that this is more of an upper middle grade age, which is something that you don't see a lot. The writing style and overall narrative voice were well crafted and had a really good flow, I didn't really have any spots where I felt like the pace slowed down. The characters were also well crafted and I really enjoyed the portrayal of different aspects of familial and friend relationships, different youth experiences based on class regardless of friendships and the cultural aspects in the novel. While there were definitely parts of this story that I personally couldn't identify with, it was still a beneficial story for me to read and experience. Overall this was a great story, with a few twists that were heart wrenching, but so wonderful to read. I will definitely be checking out more of Chase's writing in the future.

3.5 stars Mari and her best friend Justice are both go-getters who come from different sides of the tracks. Mari's family owns a business, Flexx Unlimited, which leaves Mari set for life; whereas, with Justice the only way he's going to make it out after they graduate is through scholarships and opportunities. Which when one arises at Flexx, an internship, Mari finds herself wanting to be doing something as well this summer since all of her friends seem to be working. Mari finds a way to get into her parents business to help out, but they are insistent she WORK - it won't be fun or all sunshine and rainbows just because of who she is. The other interns aren't thrilled with the work they've been given at first, but as time goes on some start to open up to the ideas of what they are doing. The only problem is, one girl, Kara, does not have a soft spot for Mari at all - then a big family secret drops that might change Mari's whole life trajectory.. or does it?

This middle-grade novel is about Marigold Johnson. Her parents run a fashion business called Flexx Unlimited and she works for their summer program. Once she's there she meets two girls and her best friend Justice is in the program also. She doesn't realize she is about to get the shock of her life. I really enjoyed this book. The characters were realistic, serious, and funny. I recommend this book to Middle graders. I give this book five stars.#harpercollins#harpercollinschildrens

I really liked this a lot! The only thing I couldn’t fully wrap my head around was that these characters were not even in high school yet, but they had this summer program/job. I thought Marigold was very realistic in how she handled everything. I’m glad I checked it out for sure and I would love to read more from this author in the future.

Enjoyed this book. A really good read. Characters and story were solid.

On a summer internship for Black teens, the boss's daughter struggles to fit in with her peers while a family secret challenges her worldview, resilience, and capacity for forgiveness.I received an Advance Reader Copy of this book from the publisher in order to write this review.This hard-hitting (but fun) middle grade novel explores the complex dynamics of privilege and class within a Black community. Mari's authentic and realistic pre-teen voice will be accessible to middle school readers, who will see their own struggles to fit in reflected through her experiences. A must-buy for middle grade fiction collections and middle school book clubs!