Book review - Saving Savannah

Title: Saving Savannah
Author: Tonya Bolden
Genre: historical fiction
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Rating:

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Summary (provided by publisher): Savannah Riddle is lucky. As a daughter of an upper class African American family in Washington D.C., she attends one of the most rigorous public schools in the nation--black or white--and has her pick among the young men in her set. But lately the structure of her society--the fancy parties, the Sunday teas, the pretentious men, and shallow young women--has started to suffocate her.
Then Savannah meets Lloyd, a young West Indian man from the working class who opens Savannah's eyes to how the other half lives. Inspired to fight for change, Savannah starts attending suffragist lectures and socialist meetings, finding herself drawn more and more to Lloyd's world.
Set against the backdrop of the press for women's rights, the Red Summer, and anarchist bombings, Saving Savannah is the story of a girl and the risks she must take to be the change in a world on the brink of dramatic transformation.

My opinion: The plot of this book is not especially complex. The central conflict - a privileged girl who expresses displeasure with her life and searches for meaning - follows an expected path. Her world is opened up, her awareness expanded, by her interactions with a domestic worker and a rough but handsome young man. Bolden attempts to add complexity with side plots - the rebellious older brother, the mother's secret history, the conflict with the best friend. The first two are little more than elements contributing to the character, not true side plots. The conflict with the friends is shallow and quickly resolved, never really explored in depth and not resolved with any true effort on either character's part. Even with those criticisms I find it worth reading. Largely because its a time and perspective that get little attention in fiction or in schools. Firstly, we have suffrage from the black perspective. There is inevitably exploration of racism but also internal to their community based on skin  tone and place of origin. And even more, there's the exploration of class divides and the ways it's inexorably entwined with race. The conclusions we're meant to draw are pretty clear so it doesn't have much value in terms of literary evaluation. The real value here is in the discussions one could have as a result, probably with an upper middle school aged group.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley