Review by Jennifer Gouck

Fifteen-year-old Amandla’s mother, Annalisa, has had a vision: if Amandla wears a blue bedsheet hastily fashioned into a dress to school today, its magic will bring her father, who has been missing since before she was born, home forever.  

Annalisa has lots of visions. She also has a broken memory that burns with pain every time she tries to remember her past and a mind that plagues her with manic episodes. On one of Annalisa’s bad days, Amandla finds a wad of cash and an unknown address in nearby Durban – the wealthy, white city a few miles away from Sugar Town, the mostly Black shantytown in which she and her mother live in near-poverty. Determined to find out what’s going on, Amandla makes the journey to Durban and discovers the first of many family secrets: Annalisa’s side of the family is incredibly rich – and her grandfather wants nothing to do with her. Just what else has Annalisa been hiding? What happened all those years ago to make her lose her memory? And what really happened to Amandla’s father?  

Malla Nunn’s Sugar Town Queens is a contemporary YA novel set in South Africa that deals with a wide range of issues including race, class, and community. Amandla spends much of the novel navigating her identity as a mixed-race girl (Annalisa is white and Amandla’s unknown father is Black), as well as coming to terms with the fact that her wealthy grandparents seem to have left her and Annalisa to fend for themselves in one of the most dangerous shantytowns in the country. Although there are elements of mystery here as Amandla tries to find out the truth about her past, Nunn also deftly weaves Amandla’s coming-of-age story into conversations around living in a post-Mandela South Africa, the role of women in this society, the importance of family, and the power of female friendship.  

I very much enjoyed Sugar Town Queens, particularly the relationship between Amandla, her best friend Lil Bit, and their blossoming friendship with their classmate Goodness. I also enjoyed the sprinkling of romance in this story between Amandla and Goodness’ brother Lewis – though, importantly, this is very much a subplot and doesn’t overshadow Amandla’s journey of self-discovery and growth. Zulu traditions and language are beautifully woven into the narrative and offered a fascinating window into Zulu culture for this Irish reader.  

For educators reading this review, I think this book would teach well. For example, a lesson could be dedicated to students researching Nelson Mandela and his legacy in South Africa and applying their new-found knowledge to the text. Students would also be interested, I think, in finding out more about Zulu culture – particularly the notion of Ubuntu that is at the heart of the novel.  

Overall, Sugar Town Queens is an enjoyable and poignant read. A tale of division and reconciliation, of family lost and family found, Nunn’s second YA novel is filled with resilient, strong South African women whose voices echo long after turning the final page.  

Sugar Town Queens
Written by Malla Nunn
2022, Penguin Random House
ISBN: 9780525515623
Reviews: Kirkus, School Library Journal, Publishers Weekly

Dr Jennifer Gouck (she/her) is an Occasional Lecturer and Tutor at University College Dublin, Ireland, where she teaches Young Adult literature. She is also a reviewer for Children’s Books Ireland and their magazine, Inis. Her academic work has been published in The International Journal of Young Adult Literature and Women’s Studies. Aside from reading, Jennifer’s favourite pastime is going on woodland walks with her scruffy rescue dog, Max. 

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GLLI’s 2024 International YA Literature Month has been curated by Dr Emily Corbett. She is a lecturer in children’s and young adult literature at Goldsmiths, University of London, where she leads the MA Children’s Literature: Theoretical Approaches to Children’s and Young Adult Literature programme. Her research focuses on the growth and development of YA from literary, publishing, and cultural perspectives. She is also General Editor of The International Journal of Young Adult Literature and was founding Vice President of the YA Studies Association. Her monograph, In Transition: Young Adult Literature and Transgender Representation (2024), is forthcoming with the University Press of Mississippi in June. You can find her contact details on her institutional website and connect with her on Twitter and Instagram via @DrEmilyCorbett.

Opinions expressed in posts on this site are the individual author’s and are not indicative of the views of Global Literature in Libraries Initiative.