last summer on state street by toya wolfe

❀ blog ❀ thestorygraph ❀ letterboxd ❀ tumblr ❀ ko-fi ❀ I enjoyed reading this moving story and felt for what Fe Fe, her family, and other residents had to endure. While Last Summer on State Street is fictional, it felt like a memoir - Debut author Toya Wolfe grew up in the Robert Taylor Homes. The story, set in 1999, is mostly told through Fe Fe’s perspective as a 12 year old then but I enjoyed the adult perspectives too, where she looks back on how living there, and that summer in particular, shaped her life, yet doesn’t solely define her. ”We will meet people they will transform us.

With all of the activity occurring around them, their friendships are tested.

Fe Fe jumps rope with a few other girls and they must be cautious of the dangers in their neighborhood including drug addicts and gang members. She lives there with her loving mom and older teenage brother. Last Summer on State Street is a coming of age story about Felicia (Fe Fe) Stevens, a 12 year old who is spending summer in the Robert Taylor Homes of Chicago before the buildings are torn down, forcing all the residents to relocate elsewhere. 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.

Last summer on state street by toya wolfe