Angel & Hannah

* An Amazon #1 Paperback & Audio Bestseller in Asian American Poetry! *

A new gem from the first woman Poet Laureate of Queens, New York & touring cast member of Russell Simmons Presents: Def Poetry Jam.

From the award~winning author of The Temperature of This Water, here is a story of forbidden romance that will change the way you look at first love.

"A tender and honest story of young love striving to survive the streets." - Kirkus Review

"Angel & Hannah is triumphant...sensuous, tender, and faceted like cut glass. I love this book."—Cathy Park Hong, award-winning author & TIme Magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2021.

The sweeping, unforgettable story of an interracial couple in 1990s New York City who are determined to protect their love against all odds—a reimagining of Romeo and Juliet.

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"Ishle Yi Park speaks to us from the most tender, furious, and emotionally raw space in her breathtaking novel in verse. Angel & Hannah makes love feel revolutionary and desire feel like embattled truth. Reading it, I was often breathless, believing in the brilliance that is the bruised wonder of youth. Park brings us as close to a heart's fire as we are willing to go and leaves us soaring over the possibility of a new dream."—Tina Chang, award-winning poet and author of Hybrida & Poet Laureate of Brooklyn

"Angel & Hannah is a gorgeously written, unforgettable, sweet, and wild love story. The brilliant, cinematic verse and boundless heart let us breathe in the music of Angel and Hannah's grace and grief. I love and recommend this book with my whole heart."—Lee Herrick, former poet laureate of Fresno, California, and author of Scar and Flower

"The sonnets in Angel & Hannah are exquisite. Through a literary sorcery equal parts magic and craft, Ishle Yi Park has taken the old school form of the sonnet and brought it to life through the love story of Angel and Hannah...As you read, you will ache with Angel and Hannah, love with them, feel your heart quiver with the rise and fall of their love story. Park's meditation on the brutality of the world towards young, urban love, is uplifting and heart-breaking. She is one of the most brilliant and inventive writers I've ever had the pleasure to read." —Bushra Rehman, Author of Marianna's Beauty Salon & Editor of Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today's Feminism.

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Hannah, a Korean American girl from Queens, New York, and Angel, a Puerto Rican boy from Brooklyn, fall in love in the spring of 1993 at a quinceañera. Their forbidden love instantly and wildly blooms along the Jackie Robinson Expressway. Told across the changing seasons, Angel & Hannah holds all of the tension and cadence of blank verse while adding dynamic and expressive language rooted in a long tradition of hip-hop and spoken word, creating new and magnetic forms.

The poetry of Angel and Hannah's relationship is dynamic, arresting, observant, and magical, conveying the intimacies and sacrifices of love and family and the devastating realities of struggle and loss. Read this novel~in~verse to dive deep into their passionate romance and difficult journey, and discover what burns within these two young lovers' hearts. What will happen to their young, passionate love? Read this novel~in~verse today to find out.