The work resonates with fear, hope, love, and the importance of memory.Set against the backdrop of an actual historical event, Pérez.gives voice to many long-omitted facets of U.S. 'This book presents a range of human nature, from kindness and love to acts of racial and sexual violence. 'Pérez deftly weaves unflinchingly intense narrative.A powerful, layered tale of forbidden love in times of unrelenting racism.'―starred, Kirkus Reviews However, the book became the fourth-most banned and challenged book in the United States in 2021 and the ninth-most banned and challenged book in 2022, according to the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom. ' layered tale of color lines, love and struggle in an East Texas oil town is a pit-in-the-stomach family drama that goes down like it should, with pain and fascination, like a mix of sugary medicine and artisanal moonshine.'-The New York Times Book Review Perez initially expected to receive pushback for Out of the Darkness but didn't receive any for the first several years following publication.

And the consequences can be explosive.Īshley Hope Pérez takes the facts of the 1937 New London school explosion-the worst school disaster in American history-as a backdrop for a riveting novel about segregation, love, family, and the forces that destroy people. But sometimes the attraction between two people is so powerful it breaks through even the most entrenched color lines. Naomi Vargas and Wash Fuller know about the lines in East Texas as well as anyone. Includes a fascinating author's note detailing the process of research and writing about voices that have largely been excluded from historical accounts.'This is East Texas, and there's lines. Race, romance, and family converge in this riveting novel that transplants Romeo and Juliet to a bitterly segregated Texas town. Can their love survive both prejudice and tragedy? Naomi and Wash dare to defy the rules, and the New London school explosion serves as a ticking time bomb in the background. These teens know the town's divisive racism better than anyone. *NOTE: This book will not be stocked or shipped from me, this will be shipped from an indie bookstore warehouse so it will not be giftwrapped like my other books, combining this with other books that I ship myself will result in a double charge for shipping ($11 for media mail vs $5.50) because you are technically paying for two shipping labels*Ī dangerous forbidden romance rocks a Texan oil town in 1937, when segregation was a matter of life and death.Ī Top Ten Most Challenged Book of the Year

Out of darkness book perez