"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