2010 American Library Association Alex Award Nomination

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A 2009 Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writer

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A USA Today New Voices Pick

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Hold Love Strong by Matthew Aaron Goodman is an extraordinary novel for its voice, its vision, and its promise…much more than a social commentary on failures of our society: it is a testament to the will to survive and to surpass. The book is fiction but every word of it rings true.” —Nina Sankovitch of The Huffington Post: Fiction As Witness: 

Hold Love Strong is a powerful and poignant story of the gallant Abraham who struggles on the night side of American society yet exudes a light of genuine hope. Goodman is an activist and artist who never loses sight of the humanity of those either imprisoned or free!” Dr. Cornel West, author of Race Matters and Democracy Matters
 

Hold Love Strong is absolutely terrific and should be required reading for every American, and at least for every high school English class. It does what a thousand articles or lectures could not ever adequately do—open people to the depth of struggles and decency faced by young African-Americans growing up in urban poverty and violence.” —Michael Lerner, author of The Left Hand of God

“The urgency of reading Matthew Aaron Goodman’s work is that he complicates what is too often made unrealistically simple: our understanding of ourselves and our neighbors. That he does so with such profound beauty only makes the experience of Hold Love Strong ever more incredible…” asha bandele, author of The Prisoner’s Wife and Something Like Beautiful
 

“What a poignant book. The younger generation offers a wonderful writer!”

-Nikki Giovanni, Poet
 

“Matthew Aaron Goodman writes with tremendous heart and gorgeous lyricism. He loves the characters whose lives he chronicles, loves them in all their flaws, through all their missteps. He’s with them, celebrating their glories in ecstatic, ebullient riffs, and mourning their defeats with an unflinching compassion…” -Thisbe Nissen, Author of The Good People of New York and Osprey Island

Hold Love Strong examines how we attach ourselves to anything that offers a glimmer of hope…” Jackson Free Press.

“Goodman delivers a commanding investigation of love, family and freedom set in a New York City housing project…” –Publishers Weekly

Hold Love Strong told exceptionally well in the lyrical first person voice of a sensitive and perceptive youth.” – Booklist

“At once intimate and epic, Hold Love Strong shines light on a world too often distorted or ignored. Goodman plumbs us into a narrative of devastating pain and searing tenderness, and he does so fiercely, with prose as bright and sharp as a blade.” -Carolina De Robertis, author of Invisible Mountain

“A hard-edged novel with a sweet but unsentimental interior…” -Kirkus Review

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