Big Girl

A Novel

by Mecca Jamilah Sullivan

Narrated by Lisa Reneé Pitts

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Pub Date Jul 26 2022 | Archive Date Aug 02 2022

General Fiction (Adult) | New Adult

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Description

Exquisitely compassionate and witty, Big Girl traces the intergenerational hungers and desires of Black womanhood, as told through the unforgettable voice of Malaya Clondon. In her highly anticipated debut novel, Mecca Jamilah Sullivan explores the perils-and undeniable beauty-of insatiable longing. Growing up in a rapidly changing Harlem, eight-year-old Malaya hates when her mother drags her to Weight Watchers meetings; she'd rather paint alone in her bedroom or enjoy forbidden street foods with her father. For Malaya, the pressures of her predominantly white Upper East Side prep school are relentless, as are the expectations passed down from her painfully proper mother and sharp-tongued grandmother. As she comes of age in the 1990s, she finds solace in the music of Biggie Smalls and Aaliyah, but her weight continues to climb-until a family tragedy forces her to face the source of her hunger, ultimately shattering her inherited stigmas surrounding women's bodies, and embracing her own desire. Written with vibrant lyricism shot through with tenderness, Big Girl announces Sullivan as an urgent and vital voice in contemporary fiction.

Exquisitely compassionate and witty, Big Girl traces the intergenerational hungers and desires of Black womanhood, as told through the unforgettable voice of Malaya Clondon. In her highly...

A Note From the Publisher

A Phenomenal Book Club Pick
TIME Best Books of the Month
Vulture Most Anticipated Books 2022 - Vulture
Goodreads Hot and Fresh: 60 Highly Anticipated Debut Novels
Ms. Magazine Most Anticipated Reads for the Rest of Us 2022
SheReads.com Best Books Coming in Summer 2022
Essence 18 New Books We Can’t Wait To Read This Summer

A Phenomenal Book Club Pick
TIME Best Books of the Month
Vulture Most Anticipated Books 2022 - Vulture
Goodreads Hot and Fresh: 60 Highly Anticipated Debut Novels
Ms. Magazine Most Anticipated...

Advance Praise

"In Mecca Jamilah Sullivan’s achingly beautiful coming-of-age debut novel, Big Girl, this body carries the weight of an entire neighborhood.... Big Girl triumphs as a love letter to the Black girls who are forced to enter womanhood too early ― and to a version of Harlem that no longer exists. In this novel, gentrification means a violent thinning of the true beauty of Black and immigrant cultures and tightknit communities that have been nearly erased in service of commercialism and whiteness." ―Cleyvis Natera, New York Times Book Review

"Sullivan (the collection Blue Talk and Love) charms in her stunning debut novel about a Black girl’s coming-of-age.... All of Sullivan’s characters―even the cruel ones―brim with humanity, and the author shines when conveying the details of Malaya’s comforts, such as Biggie Smalls lyrics, the portraits she paints in her room, the colors she braids into her hair, and the sweet-smelling dulce de coco candies she eats with a classmate with whom she shares a close and sexually charged friendship. This is a treasure." ―Publishers Weekly, starred review