What was Xiomaras punishment for not taking communion

Since beginning to develop physically at age 11, Xiomara has had a difficult relationship with her body. … This event made Xiomara feel extremely ashamed of her body, thanks to the combination of not knowing what was happening and then being completely blindsided by Mami’s reaction when she did figure it out.

How does Xiomara feel about church? How does Xiomara feel when she sits in church on Sundays? She feels like church is a prison. How does Xiomara feel about the attention she receives from boys and men? She dislikes it and does everything she can to avoid it.

Likewise What did Twin get Xiomara for her 12th birthday?

On Twin and Xiomara’s 12th birthday, Xiomara gave Twin a pair of steel knuckles to fight. Twin (a nickname for her brother) then slowly unwraps a notebook.

What does Aman ask Xiomara after she leaves mass? When Xiomara leaves Mass, she finds a text from Aman asking what she thought of Kendrick Lamar. Mami scolds Xiomara again for sitting out communion, so Xiomara quickly texts back that she enjoyed it and they should listen to something else. Aman agrees immediately.

What was Xiomara’s punishment for not taking communion?

As punishment for refusing to receive Communion, Xiomara is made to attend Mass with her mother every evening of the week. After receiving Holy Communion from Father Sean, Xiomara sacrilegiously spits out the host and hides it beneath the pew.

Does Xiomara believe in God? Xiomara’s family is extremely religious, and she grew up spending much of her free time at her local Catholic church. … Throughout her life, Xiomara has been told that she’s a very special gift from God.

What secret is being kept between twin and Xiomara?

Mami and Papi are not accepting of homosexuality, so both Xiomara and Twin understand that they must keep this a secret, and Twin is still not out by the end of the novel. Xiomara is shocked when she learns that, like her, Twin is counting down the days until they can escape the house for college.

What are Xiomara’s feelings about religion? For much of the novel, Xiomara sees religion as something designed to turn her into someone she doesn’t want to be, all while oppressing the parts of her that she’s interested in exploring.

What was Xiomara scolded for when she was 11?

Xiomara’s mother is so religious that when Xiomara got her period when she was eleven, she tried using a tampon, and her mother scolded her, wondering if she was no longer a virgin.

What is Xiomara’s relationship with Papi? Despite his own sexual history, Papi calls Xiomara a cuero (a whore) when he finds out that she kissed Aman in public. He also goes along with Mami’s cruel and abusive punishments and never advocates for his children.

Why is Xiomara’s mother angry with her?

Xiomara rushes home and is confronted by her mother who’s angry not only at her daughter’s disobedience and defiance (she’s been pretending to go to Confirmation classes, not having told her mother that Father Sean had suggested she hold off on continuing with them since she has so many questions about her faith), but …

How are Xiomara and Mami similar? Mami is Xiomara and Twin’s mother; she works as a custodian. As a young teen in the Dominican Republic, Mami wanted to be a nun and devote her life to Jesus. … She makes a particular point to control Xiomara’s sexuality; her dating rules are that Xiomara can’t date until after college.

What does Xiomara look like?

Xiomara is very tall and curvy, and she’s often subjected to catcalls and groping from boys at school as well as grown men on the street. While Xiomara hates this, her discomfort and confusion is heightened by her upbringing in the Catholic Church.

Is poet XA true story? Acevedo spoke with PW about writing a narrative arc across a series of poems, tapping into the unique experience of adolescence, and how her own teen years inspired Xiomara’s story. What motivated you to write for the young adult audience?

How does Xiomara feel about the fact that her parents are older?

Xiomara hates that her parents are old. Not even Twin understands the burden that Xiomara feels. Mami sees only Xiomara, Twin, and God, while Papi seems to be serving a silent penance.

What happens on Xiomara’s birthday? For her birthday in January, Xiomara receives tickets to an apple farm, which she knows were secretly delivered by Aman. Twin gives her a new journal to write her poems in. At school the next day, she realizes she left her old notebook at home, and when she returns, her mother has read it and sets in on fire.

How does Xiomara feel about her friend Caridad?

Xiomara doesn’t think that she and Caridad should be friends because of their many differences, but Caridad isn’t offended and doesn’t feel personally attacked by Xiomara’s questions and shaky beliefs—she makes a point to be there for Xiomara, no matter what.

What does Mami give Xiomara for Christmas? What does Mami buy Christmas Eve instead of a Christmas tree? … What is in the box Mami gives Xiomara on Christmas eve? her baby bracelet resized to fit her. What does Xiomara give Xavier for their birthday?

Who is Xiomara’s best friend?

Xiomara’s best friend is Caridad.

What is the relationship between Xiomara and her mother? Mami is Xiomara and Twin’s mother; she works as a custodian. As a young teen in the Dominican Republic, Mami wanted to be a nun and devote her life to Jesus. However, her parents forced her to marry Papi so that she could come to the U.S., depriving Mami of the future she wanted.

What class is Xiomara taking after school?

In them, she mostly encourages Xiomara to join the poetry club that she runs after school. Even though Xiomara refuses to join for months, Ms. Galiano is still able to make Xiomara feel seen and heard by introducing her to spoken word poetry and encouraging her to write. When Xiomara finally attends poetry club, Ms.

Why are Mami and Xiomara not speaking to each other? She says that her mouth will never surrender or apologize to Mami or to God. Mami wants Xiomara to think that it’s her mouth’s fault, but Xiomara points out that Mami’s mouth hurts her. Xiomara can’t talk since she knows that Mami won’t listen.

15 year old Xiomara Batista is a poet, a young woman whose blossoming body earns her unwanted attention from boys and men who think the shape of her body gives them the right to touch it, and also earns her stern lectures from her mother, who wants her daughter to be a saint and a virgin until she’s married, and whose strictly devout religious life causes Xiomara much hurt and misery, particularly as her mother automatically blames her for the unwanted attention she receives.

I think about all the things we could be / if we were never told our bodies were not built for them. 

Xiomara starts a new school year and she has a new English teacher who spots her talent and gently encourages her to attend her after-school poetry club on a Tuesday – but Xiomara can’t go because she goes to Confirmation classes then (even though she’s old enough to have been confirmed at least a year ago). The Confirmation classes serve to highlight Xiomara’s difficulties with her mother’s religious beliefs, and she eventually stops going and goes to Poetry Club instead.

Trouble is always lurking in the background for Xiomara but it comes to a head when her mother spots her riding a train home with her boyfriend Aman. The pair are kissing, completely oblivious to the world around them, and Xiomara misses her stop because she’s too caught up in the kissing. When she finally makes it home, she’s confronted by her angry mother, and punished by being confined to the house unless she’s in school or at church for services or her Confirmation classes – she even has her cell phone taken away. She gets through it with the silent support of her older twin brother, Xavier, whom she usually just calls ‘Twin’, and her poetry writing.

Eventually her mother returns her cell, and Xiomara learns about an upcoming poetry slam. She’s both terrified and exhilarated at the idea of taking part, but then her relationship with her mother takes an even worse turn – on the morning of her birthday she accidentally leaves her notebook full of poems on the kitchen table, and she leaves the poetry club to find two missed calls on her cell – her mother is waiting for her at home.

Xiomara rushes home and is confronted by her mother who’s angry not only at her daughter’s disobedience and defiance (she’s been pretending to go to Confirmation classes, not having told her mother that Father Sean had suggested she hold off on continuing with them since she has so many questions about her faith), but also furious about what she’s been writing in her poems. They end up having a massive row in which Xiomara flings scraps of her poetry at her mother while her mother flings Bible verses back. It culminates in her mother setting fire to her notebook, which brings her twin brother and her father (who’s always left parenting up to his wife) rushing into the room. Xiomara suggests that her mother burn her too since the poems are inside her, and then she rushes out.

Although she and Aman had split up a while before because he hadn’t stepped in to defend her from the unwanted attentions of another boy who’d grabbed her ass in the hallway by her locker, she calls Aman and asks if she can visit him. She spends the night at his place, just the two of them as his father works nights and his mother is absent, and they spend a lot of time kissing, then eventually get undressed, but she quickly realises she’s not ready for sex yet, and Aman respects that – to her complete astonishment as she’s too used to the idea that girls ‘put out or you get out’.

Mrs Galiano has her for first period English the following morning and she knows something is wrong as she’d worried about Xiomara’s abrupt exit following the previous afternoon’s Poetry Club when she heard her mother’s voicemail. Mrs Galiano had got Xiomara’s home number from the school directory and spoke to her father, who’d said they were all worried about where Xiomara had gone. She lets Xiomara cry and tell her all about it, then tells her that she’ll have to go home and see her family, and that she needs to talk to her mother properly, and figure out a way to have a relationship with her.

Leaving at the end of the day with Aman, Xiomara finds Caridad, her best girl friend, and her twin brother, who goes to the ‘genius’ school across town (for the academically gifted) are both waiting for her, and Xiomara realises that she’s not as alone as she’d thought. And she also realises who she can ask to help her to talk to her mother without another screaming match.

She arrives home with her twin brother and Father Sean, and when her mother sees the priest, she breaks down, and Xiomara is able to hug her mother and realises that she does love her even if she thinks she hates her.

Mother and daughter go to the church on a regular basis for sessions with Father Sean, and sometimes Twin and her father go too, and her mother begins teaching Communion classes to the youngest children at the church, and that makes her happier than Xiomara can ever recall her being before.

And her parents, and Twin, and Father Sean, and Aman and her Poetry Club friends, all go along to the Slam too, and Xiomara performs one of her poems, and afterwards they go back to Xiomara’s home where they eat pizza and also rice and beans, and talk and listen to music, and her father dances with her. And Xiomara knows that she and her mother may never go and buy a Prom dress together, but at least they can have a relationship that isn’t solely about her mother’s fears that she’ll end up pregnant before she gets married.

I loved this book. I’ve never read a novel written wholly in verse before, so that was a treat, as was Xiomara’s strong, fierce, and powerful voice. I fell in love with Xiomara from the very beginning and was willing her on, wanting her to find a way to voice her feelings and questions, her fears and her experiences of being a young black woman who’s talked over, talked down to, or simply ignored at every turn.

This book made me cry, made me cheer, and made me happy to have met Xiomara, a beautiful, brave, black girl. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

I received an e-ARC of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.