num_pages: 312
description: Told in two distinct and irresistible voices Junauda Petruss bold and lyrical debut is the story of two black girls from very different backgrounds finding love and happiness in a world that seems determined to deny them both.Trinidad. Sixteen-year-old Audre is despondent having just found out shes going to be sent to live in America with her father because her strictly religious mother caught her with her secret girlfriend the pastors daughter. Audres grandmother Queenie (a former dancer who drives a white convertible Cadillac and who has a few secrets of her own) tries to reassure her granddaughter that she wont lose her roots not even in some place called Minneapolis. America have dey spirits too believe me she tells Audre.Minneapolis. Sixteen-year-old Mabel is lying on her bed staring at the ceiling and trying to figure out why she feels the way she feelsabout her ex Terrell about her girl Jada and that moment they had in the woods and about the vague feeling of illness thats plagued her all summer. Mabels reverie is cut short when her father announces that his best friend and his just-arrived-from-Trinidad daughter are coming for dinner. Mabel quickly falls hard for Audre and is determined to take care of her as she tries to navigate an American high school. But their romance takes a turn when test results reveal exactly why Mabel has been feeling low-key sick all summer and suddenly its Audre who is caring for Mabel as she faces a deeply uncertain future.Junauda Petruss debut brilliantly captures the distinctly lush and lyrical voices of Mabel and Audre as they conjure a love that is stronger than hatred prison and death and as vast as the blackness between the stars.
language: English
title: The Stars and the Blackness Between Them
publisher: Dutton Books for Young Readers