I Tried: Tales of an Emerging High School Feminist

by Noriko Nakada

I Tales from an Emerging High School Feminist explores what it means to be a young woman of color growing up in rural America. In the final installation of the Through Eyes Like Mine series, Nori teeters on the edges of adulthood and navigates shifting expectations of her community, family, and herself. I Tried examines the challenges and isolation a multiracial girl faces in small-town America.

165 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 20, 2019

About the author

Noriko Nakada writes, blogs, tweets, parents, and teaches middle school in Los Angeles. She is committed to writing thought-provoking creative non-fiction, fiction, and poetry.

Publications include her memoir series: Through Eyes Like Mine. Through Eyes like mine was shortlisted for the 2040 Book Award. Overdue Apologies: a middle school memoir and I Tried: Tales from an Emerging High School Feminist complete the trilogy. Excerpts, essays, and poetry have appeared in Catapult, Meridian, Kartika, Hippocampus, Compose, Linden Avenue and others.

She completed her mfa at Antioch University Los Angeles in 2005. She continues to write, blog, tweet, and facebook about life, food, education, and sports.

She is a member of the leadership team for Women Who Submit, an organization empowering women and non-binary writers to submit their work for publication.

Works in progress include Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop: One Family's Struggle with Mental Illness, and Ricepaper Superheroes, a historical novel about a Japanese American family during World War II.

Reviews

[Colette · Rating 5 out of 5]

In I TRIED: TALES FROM AN EMERGING HIGH SCHOOL FEMINIST, Noriko Nakada recounts in spare, poetic prose her journey through high school as a budding feminist and young woman of color in small town Bend, Oregon. Nakada relates with searing honesty and forthrightness the impact of rural America's biases--both conscious and unconscious--regarding her race and gender on her self image and confidence. We grow to know and love this young woman as the pressure of these biases interact with the rigid hierarchy of high school and propel her through doubts about her own abilities as an athlete, scholar, activist, and feminist. Her emergence as a strong, opinionated person willing to sacrifice certain dreams to pursue her most powerful ones will inspire anyone who reads this beautifully written meditation on what it means to be human.

[Jacquie Stricklind · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author presented the challenges of her time in high school and growing up in a non diverse place. I had a hard time putting the book down, it was so hard not to read the ending because I wanted to know where she was going to college. Just a good book. Now we the readers need to hear your college experiences.

[Samantha · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked this book because it is very detailed and has some experiences that i can relate to. I also like that the book is about a high school feminist who just wants equal rights. The main character (Noriko Nakada) has a very strong and powerful personality. I recommend this book to people who like real-life stories that they can relate to.