This summer I read the book The Skin I'm In by Sharon G. Flake. The Skin I'm In is about a girl named Maleeka and her life in middle school being teased constantly about her dark complexion. Along comes a new teacher, who has a blotched face. Although all the students were making fun of the teacher's uneven skin tone, the teacher chooses to take in the comments and not let it get to her. The teacher's confidence starts to rub off on Maleeka, who decides she wants cut her hair. Despite her newfound confidence, she continues to be bullied by her classmates and her "friend" Char, who treats her like trash. Throughout the book, we see Maleeka try to part from Char, but she continues to let herself be pressured to do everything Charlese tells her. Towards the end of the book, she gets in big trouble for something Char threatened her to get involved in. At the end of the book, she reveals the truth and raises her voice. Along this journey to finding her voice, she encounters multiple fights, and one attack of boys who were trying to assault her.
This book reminds me of the song Complexion (A Zulu Love) by Kendrick Lamar. In the song he embraces his complexion and explains that skin tone doesn't matter.
This book deals with many real-life struggles including friendship, romance, bullying, peer pressure, poverty, and colorism. This book is sad and hard to read, but really well written. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys sad realistic fiction, or anyone who can relate to the topics I stated above.
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