"With the Fire on High," by Elizabeth Acevedo

This month, we started reading this book called "With the Fire on High,” it’s a really interesting story about this high school girl named Emoni Santiago. In the book we discover that Emoni dreams is to become a chef, pouring all of her passion into creating amazing and unique food. However, her dreams aren’t easy to achieve due to her challenges as a young mother while trying to reach culinary goals. This book is about pursuing your dreams even if there are a lot of obstacles and all odds are against you. According to the article “Rhapsody in Book Weblog,” author Elizabeth Acevedo wrote this book with a goal in mind. She wanted to discuss topics like gay relationships and teen mothers. Her goal was to show the importance of these subjects. She also wanted to promote the understanding of these topics by storytelling. 

Emoji Santiago, a high school senior living in Philadelphia, is the main character of the story. She’s a young mother to her daughter named Emma. She always carries a lot of responsibility on her shoulders due to her circumstances. Emoji has always had an incredible talent and deep passion for cooking, a skill she always had even when she was little. She always dreamed of becoming a professional chef, but various challenges always got in the ways of her culinary dreams. 

In the beginning of the story, the primary conflict was introduced through Emoni's internal struggles. She always had extraordinary culinary talents and a very deep passion for cooking. But these dreams have often been put on hold due to her demanding responsibility of being a young mother to Emma and supporting her family. Throughout the story, the central conflict continued as Emoni attempted to navigate her challenging circumstances by enrolling into a culinary class. A lot of problems occurred after joining the culinary class due to her challenges like her financial situation, which limited her opportunities. She even met a boy named Malachi, whom she eventually dated, but she had a hard time getting close to him because of her past relationship. At the end of the story the primary conflict is that Emoni navigates through her complex life and starts to solve many problems. She begins to actually persuade her culinary dreams and beings to come closer to Malaichi and other important people in Emoni’s life. 

At the beginning of the story, Emoji was characterized by others as a teenage mother who has to balance her school and personal life. Her grandmother who also viewed her as a capable caretaker for Baby Emma, but also worried about Emoni sacrificing her future and her school life. Her friends often viewed her as someone who has so many responsibilities and someone who carries many burdens, but they still admired her culinary talents. Throughout the book, Emoji goes through a lot of growth. She starts feeling overwhelmed due to her taking care of baby Emma while trying to figure out different ways to reach her financial goal. As the story progresses we see that Emoni starts to speak up for herself and makes many tough decisions. She discovers that cooking is something she should pursue and she should try to put it into her life rather than abandoning it. The outcome of Emoni’s journey is that she found a way to pursue her culinary ambitions while balancing her life as a mom. She learns many things and starts to build a future for herself and Emma while including her passions for cooking. She also finds out that she has a strong support system and relationship between other people. 

Overall, I l really enjoyed this book because it's honest and it portrays Emoni’s struggles in the story. It doesn’t only show her difficulties, the story highlights how she overcomes her challenges. This book also shows us why she made certain decisions and lets us understand her perspective. The focus on her thoughts and emotions is what made this book so great in my opinion. 

If you are looking for stories that really dig deep into character growth and explore deep emotions, then I think this book is perfect for you. It does a great job talking about the struggles Emoni goes through, whether it is her relationships or her financial situation and how she overcomes it. 

“With the Fire on the High” is a story that talks and explores the difficulties of a young high school teen mother. It also talks about how a person is faced with overwhelming challenges and how they overcome it with support. If you are drawn to a book that shows that then this book is a must read for you.