As Lightning
Highlighting the prominent and contradictory place children occupy in Western culture, where they are at once cherished and reviled, As Lightning interrogates the nature of childhood itself. Offering multiple pathways through her own past via unexpected means—tests, riddles, word searches, rhyme, and a tour-de-force grouping of choose-your-own-adventure poems—Lenna Mendoza reveals the inherent pitfalls of imposing a narrative on a life.
Praise
“In manic, addictive rhyme, As Lightning upends ideas of innocence, revealing childhood to be a dangerous, haunted land, shining nonetheless from spilled ultrafine glitter. Mendoza navigates form with an engineer’s precision and an uncanny, prophetic vision. An essential book about girlhood and survival.”
— Melissa Ginsburg