Every Body Looking

By: Candice Iloh

Narrated by: Candice Iloh

A Finalist for the National Book Award

When Ada leaves home for her freshman year at a Historically Black College, it’s the first time she’s ever been so far from her family - and the first time that she’s been able to make her own choices and to seek her place in this new world.

As she stumbles deeper into the world of dance and explores her sexuality, she also begins to wrestle with her past - her mother’s struggle with addiction, her Nigerian father’s attempts to make a home for her. Ultimately, Ada discovers she needs to brush off the destiny others have chosen for her and claim full ownership of her body and her future.

“Candice Iloh’s beautifully crafted narrative about family, belonging, sexuality, and telling our deepest truths in order to be whole is at once immensely readable and ultimately healing.”(Jacqueline Woodson, New York Times best-selling author of Brown Girl Dreaming)

“An essential - and emotionally gripping and masterfully written and compulsively readable - addition to the coming-of-age canon.” (Nic Stone, New York Times best-selling author of Dear Martin)

“This is a story about the sometimes toxic and heavy expectations set on the backs of first-generation children, the pressures woven into the family dynamic, culturally, and socially. About childhood secrets with sharp teeth. And ultimately, about a liberation that taunts every young person.” (Jason Reynolds, New York Times best-selling author of Long Way Down)

©2020 Candice Iloh (P)2020 Listening Library

Critic reviews

A Michael L. Printz Award Honoree

One of Reader's Digest's 50 Best YA Novels of All Time

"Candice Iloh's beautifully crafted narrative about family, belonging, sexuality, and telling our deepest truths in order to be whole is at once immensely readable and ultimately healing."—Jacqueline Woodson, New York Times bestselling author of Brown Girl Dreaming

"An essential—and emotionally gripping and masterfully written and compulsively readable—addition to the coming-of-age canon."—Nic Stone, New York Times bestselling author of Dear Martin

"I can't remember the last time I read a story that stood this effortlessly at the axis of so many slivers of young American life. To show complexity without box-checking, and empathy without melodrama, to me, makes this a story with legs, and Iloh a writer to watch." —Jason Reynolds, New York Times bestselling author of Long Way Down

Relatable Story.

Life becomes beautiful when you decide to do what you love instead of trying to live up to everyone else’s expectations.

Very Interesting

I liked the storyline. I could relate to the author's childhood. The jumping around of the childhood years, it took me a minute to understand the books progression. Once I peeled back the layers of her story. Everything started .asking sense. Before I move this book to storage, I want to hear the audible again