Tag: black literature

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book reviews

Book Review: ‘Rhythm & Muse’ by India Hill Brown

*Given an advanced reading copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review*

Rhythm & Muse by India Hill Brown is a predictable young adult romance novel giving us the perspective of the boy pining for the popular girl he has a crush on.

Darren likes Delia Dawson, the popular girl at his school known as Dillie who has her own podcast Dillie D in the Place to Be. He has Delia Daydreams, in which his best friend Justin always keeps shaking him out of. One day, Justin gets to spend time with his wannabe rapper cousin in a recording studio session. Darren tags along though he knows Justin’s cousin doesn’t have the rhythmic talent necessary to be a decent rapper. While in the studio, after listening to awful raps, Darren and Justin perk up to the cousin’s beats. Justin pushes Darren to sing on the beat for fun. Darren used to sing in the choir, but a mortifying experience made him drop out of choir and put his music dreams on hold. But he sings anyway – about Delia. Coincidentally, Delia’s podcast is running a competition for a new jingle. Somehow the track Darren recorded was submitted anonymously. As podcast listeners groove to Darren’s track, he can’t let anyone know he recorded it, especially Delia. He realizes they attend the same church, though he hadn’t been there in a while. He joins Delia on an all-night church sleepover where they bond over 90s R&B and their suspicions on the anonymous song that’s growing in popularity. While Darren gets closer to his dream girl, he second-guesses every move until Delia makes him more comfortable in the moment. When Delia announces the winning song of the competition, Darren knows it’s his chance to tell her the truth. But he still second-guesses telling her the truth, which endangers the relationship they are trying to build.

First, Darren’s obsession with Delia makes him a boring character. Yes, he sings, but the reason why he stopped is weak, and it is built up too much throughout the story to be that weak. The incident that has taken him away from music also has decreased his desire for college, in which he is working with a high school counselor. His second-guessing with Delia eliminates tension between the characters too quickly. He already has the girl the minute they click, which makes for a predictable ending. Other issues like his parents being married and in love and having simple dialogue adds to the boringness in the family of characters. Not saying we need a divorce, but the parents didn’t add enough tension to the situation. His love for 90s R&B could be a questionable decision since today’s teens are most likely listening to contemporary artists. Though it’s talked about how his parents taught him to love 90s R&B, it comes off as inauthentic with a music-obsessed teen not aligning himself more with music topping the charts now.

Overall, this young adult debut reads on the bland side with the unexciting characters and developments. It seems like a safe choice in YA literature as the genre continues to be battered by the banned books movement. The entire point of a romance novel is to reach the happily-ever-after, but when the main character’s personality is too tied to the person they want to be with and the tension falls apart too quickly, the story becomes less entertaining.

Categories
film reviews

‘The Perfect Find’ Amplifies the Heart of Tia Williams’ Romance Novel

Gabrielle Union and Keith Powers in "The Perfect Find."
Gabrielle Union and Keith Powers in "The Perfect Find." Image: Alyssa Longchamp/Netflix

⚠️ Spoilers ahead! Watch the film on Netflix.

Gabrielle Union, Keith Powers, and Gina Torres add star power to the fashion-centric romantic comedy The Perfect Find based on Tia Williams’ 2016 novel. Though the film follows the storyline on pages, there are still a few touches that brought the so-called unconventional love story to life onscreen. 

Jenna Jones, played by Gabrielle, is an out-of-work fashion editor still recovering from the unraveling of a 10-year relationship with millionaire entrepreneur Brian, played by the debonair D.B. Woodside. In the beginning of the story, we see Jenna floundering at her mother’s house, avoiding New York City like a plague. Her mother, played by Janet Hubert for too short of an appearance, tells Jenna she needs to go back to her life in the city. Her romantic downfall that led to her career derailment has to be on everyone’s mind since it’s still on hers.

In less than five minutes in the film, Jenna returns to her Brooklyn apartment with a chic bob and designer attire in tow. And now that she’s back at home, she needs a night out with the girls, played by Aisha Hinds and Alani “La La” Anthony. They head to a fancy party in Harlem looking for an innocent one-night stand. When Jenna feels like she ran out of luck, she falls tipsily into the arms of a younger man. They kiss, but the kiss is too much for Jenna, who finds the man’s youthful age too ridiculous to take seriously.

Bright and early the next day, she finds herself slightly humiliated in the office of her corporate archnemesis, Darcy Hill, played by Gina. Darcy laughs at the fact that Jenna has to grovel for a job when Jenna allegedly stole her jobs in the past. The competitive world of fashion journalism was a losing game for Darcy until she built her own namesake media empire at Darzine. Jenna earns the job with the expectation to produce multimedia pieces to increase digital subscriptions. Darcy assigns her twenty-something son and photographer Eric to work with Jenna to come up with these pieces. Except Eric happens to be the much-younger man Jenna was kissing the night before. 

Jenna tells Eric that they can’t develop a relationship despite their natural magnetism. They even bond over vintage Black Hollywood films, thanks to the poster of starlet Nina Mae McKinney displayed in Jenna’s office. Eric is Jenna’s boss’ son. The relationship is not only unprofessional but could make Jenna the laughingstock of Black New York again with another misstep in love. When the girls try to hook Jenna up with a blind date, Jenna decides to throw a dinner party to ease the nervousness. She even invites Eric and tells him to bring friends. The more the merrier. At the party, nerves are high as Jenna realizes the blind date is not a match. So, Eric becomes a match with his cuteness and conversation. And a secret relationship between coworkers blossom. 

Intimacy builds between the couple until Darcy warns Jenna to stay away from Eric romantically because she has her suspicions. Jenna disobeys that order while Eric is demanding to emerge as a public boyfriend, and not a private lover. But the volcano of secret love erupts when Darcy catches Jenna consorting inappropriately with her grown son on her cerise velvet sofa. The argument leads to Jenna being fired and Eric being upset about Jenna not telling him that his mother had an instinct about the romance. 

Months pass by. It’s Christmastime. Eric is working on the documentary he always wanted to do on his murdered father Otis. Jenna reaches out to Eric. They arrange to meet at a late-night diner. What Eric believes is a simple catch-up turns out to be a surprise from Jenna with a sonogram. She’s pregnant. Eric being in his early twenties and figuring out his path in cinema make him ask for space. Darcy soon pays a visit to Jenna. Not only did Jenna date Darcy’s son, but she got pregnant by him, too? It’s a lot, but Darcy recalls when she was a first-time mother and vows to support Jenna as a grandmother. 

After accepting paternity, Eric surprises Jenna at a doctor’s appointment. He confesses he still loves Jenna and invites her to the Darzine gala. The film ends with Jenna rubbing her pregnant belly alongside Eric on the red carpet. Their relationship is public, and the family Jenna always wanted is a dream come true. 

The décor and fashion alone are two reasons to put your feet up and sink into the sofa with a bowl of popcorn and a glass of wine. Designs meant to leave you awestruck include the first time Jenna meets Darcy at the office. Jenna wears a pink cape by Nina Ricci with Stella McCartney pink silk pants, while Darcy stuns in a multicolored Manish Arora coat. Even author Tia models in the photoshoot as a glam disco geisha queen and on the red carpet in a gold sequin dress. More fashionable cameos include Remy Ma, Winnie Harlow, and Dwyane Wade, Gabrielle’s real-life husband. Jenna’s office is supposed to be a cluttered dump, but in its original iteration we see leopard and zebra print wallpaper, racks full of silky frocks, and fully dressed mannequins sitting on file cabinets. This is just motivation to create a Pinterest board for the jaw-dropping home office. 

“I really wanted to see Gabrielle in a palette that I hadn’t seen her in very much in other films, a more pastel-toned palette,” said director Numa Perrier to Netflix’s blog Tudum. “When it came to Darcy — Gina Torres being such an iconic woman — we wanted to dress her to the nines. We wanted her to just be an absolute New York fashion woman who’s bold and unapologetic and takes up all the space in the room.”

One major plot adjustment is the unplanned pregnancy. In the book, Jenna and Eric don’t see each other until four years after the firing and the breakup. They spot each other at the park as Jenna watches her son Otis play and drinks a latte with Billie, the main character of Tia’s 2004 debut novel The Accidental Diva. Jenna reveals that Otis is Eric’s son and explains she kept her pregnancy a secret because she didn’t want to interfere with Eric’s budding film career. The screenplay written by Spelman College alumna Leigh Davenport, also the creator of Run the World on Starz, features the pregnancy as another plot twist at the end. With Gabrielle’s real-life fertility struggles, the moments feel more heartwarming. 

Another noticeable difference is that Brian is Black in the film while he’s described as a “Jewish Adonis” in the book. And Darzine in the film is StyleZine in the book with that only being one of Darcy’s nine online women’s magazines. The must-see film is a soothing adaptation of a book that was first indie-published by Brown Girls Books and reprinted by Grand Central Publishing after the runaway success of Tia’s third adult novel Seven Days in June. 

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she lit newsletter

Black Characters in Children’s Literature Are Disappearing as Schools Limit History Courses

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Searching for books by Black female authors this month? Take a look at authors we’ve featured

Black characters in children’s literature are disappearing as schools limit history courses

In mid-January, two weeks before Black History Month, the Florida Department of Education rejected the new A.P. African American Studies course. The state agency claimed the content “significantly lacks educational value.” Earlier this month, the College Board announced it revised the Advanced Placement course, making parts of the curriculum optional like those that touch on intersectionality and contemporary issues.

How the precollegiate course was trimmed down over complaints of alleged untruths became part of the bigger conversation: Black children being impacted by the removal of instructional materials that show people who look like them.

More books focused on accurate U.S. history and featuring Black characters are being banned nearly every day across the country. The stakes are higher, with the rise in legislation such as Florida’s Stop WOKE Act and bills to ban books with “sexually explicit” content. These efforts impact all children, but Black children are seeing a higher impact with not being able to see themselves in books that have been on shelves for years and generations because a parent filed a complaint about revisionist history and inappropriate references.

There was a 306% increase in Black main characters on the front book covers of children’s best-sellers between 2012 and 2020. But by 2021, a year after the Black Lives Matter movement was spurred by the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Black characters had been disappearing, with a 23% decline in children’s best-sellers having a Black main character.

This data is from WordsRated, a research data and analytics group. The group also recognized 2020 as the first year that Black characters outnumbered White characters on the front covers of children’s best-sellers. But these are books that had already been approved for publication a year or two earlier.

Yet there was a decline as the attention on the Black Lives Matter movement declined, WordsRated finds. In 2020, at the height of the movement, many literary agents said they would prioritize works queried by Black aspiring authors in the name of social justice. It’s not clear if enough of a new crop of traditionally published Black authors have emerged as beneficiaries to these industry promises.

Book bans multiplied by schools cutting Black history curricula means children are not given the full picture. And families may struggle to fill those gaps when parents and guardians work during the day. Some families are going out of their way to buy banned books to make these books featuring Black characters best-sellers. We saw this phenomenon last year with the astronomical sales of Ibram X. Kendi’s Antiracist Baby after Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas used it in a presentation in Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearings.

Still, the domino effect always comes back to the freedom to read and learn beyond biased interpretations. There is hope we’ll see Black main characters in more books once fresher data is available.

Black History Month is a time to reflect on the contributions of people of African descent in the U.S. More than ever, their creative and artistic contributions are being hidden from children who may not seek the knowledge later in life if they’re not exposed to the information in the first place. Here’s a video from Black Miami Dade that talks about how a group of Black teachers wrote a book to ensure Black history entered and remained in their classrooms.

Check out past newsletters!

What we’re highlighting

HarperCollins and union end monthslong strike

The largest New York unionized book publisher and its union have come to an agreement to end a three-month strike. The union, which represents around 250 members, will head back to the office after the Presidents’ Day weekend. With a major demand being higher pay, employees will soon earn an annual starting pay of $47,500 that will rise to $50,000 by 2025. The strike inspired Hachette and Macmillan to announce similar changes.

Black queer authors score 7-figure book deal

All Boys Aren’t Blue memoirist George M. Johnson and You Should See Me In a Crown novelist Leah Johnson have negotiated an undisclosed book deal with Farrar, Straus & Giroux Books for Young Readers, a Macmillan imprint. The authors, who are not related, will write a romantic series starting with There’s Always Next Year in 2025. The story focuses on two cousins trying to improve their romantic and social lives around New Year’s.

Two women-owned bookstores open doors in LA

Named after science fiction novelist Octavia E. Butler, Octavia’s Bookshelf is the newest Black woman-owned bookstore in the Los Angeles area. Nikki High, the owner and founder, grew up in Altadena and wanted to have a bookstore in nearby Pasadena, Octavia’s hometown. The store will open on Feb. 18, the same day as the much-anticipated Zibby’s Bookshop in Santa Monica. With Manhattan literary socialite Zibby Owens at the helm, the bookstore will have a two-day festival starring authors such as biographer Anna Malaika Tubbs and her husband and former Stockton, California, mayor Michael Tubbs; Dirty Dancing actress Jennifer Grey, Younger creator Pamela Redmon, and Luckiest Girl Alive writer Jessica Knoll.

Also what’s lit…

Viola Davis reached EGOT status when she won a Grammy Award in the Best Spoken Word or Non-Musical Album category for the audiobook narration of her memoir Finding Me.

Hillman Grad Books unveiled its forthcoming titles in partnership with Zando Projects.

Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Garcelle Beauvais reveals production on the book-to-TV adaptation of The Other Black Girl has wrapped.

Actress-activist Kerry Washington plans to share her ups and downs in Hollywood in her upcoming memoir Thicker Than Water.

The first Black Bachelorette, Rachel Lindsay Abasolo, unboxed copies of her second book, a romance novel.

The Afro-Minimalist’s Guide to Living With Less author Christine Platt will have a new kidlit chapter series centered on a Black girl journalist.

What we’re reviewing

‘Wildblood’ Writer Lauren Blackwood Brings Magic to the Jamaican Jungle in Historical Fantasy Novel

How the Introverted Black Writer Girl Became Visible in ‘Poetic Justice’

How Lisa Turtle Was ‘Slighted’ As a Black Teen Girl TV Character

Free Black Women’s Library Los Angeles Holds Launch Party in Slauson Community

Well-Read Black Girl Founder Glory Edim On ‘Cultivating Joy’ In Her Growing Book Club

What we’re watching

Not Dead Yet is a new ABC half-hour comedy on Wednesdays (Thursdays on Hulu) starring Gina Rodriguez as a down-on-her-luck journalist who sees dead people while writing obituaries for her local newspaper. It’s loosely based on the British novel Confessions of a Forty-Something F**k Up by Alexandra Potter.

What the plans are

PEN America and the NYC Literary Action Coalition is hosting the Literary Activism Summit on Feb. 25 at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem.

The Savannah Book Festival in Georgia will take place on Feb. 16-19 featuring authors like Nina LaCour, Katie Gutierrez, and Gayle Jessup White.

Noname Book Club will end the month with its book club picks hosting several meetings across the country from Feb. 22-28.

Where the opportunities are

Feminist Press is looking for an executive and program assistant who can help with the administrative needs of the mission-driven feminist publishing company.

The Hurston/Wright Foundation welcomes submissions in literary nonfiction for its Crossover Award honoring unpublished Black writers.

Liveright Publishing, a W.W. Norton & Company imprint working with authors Glory Edim, Mahogany Browne, and Mecca Jamilah Sullivan, needs a publicity manager with knowledge of promoting nonfiction and literary fiction works.

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Write us at shewrites@shelit.com.

Categories
deep lit

‘Wildblood’ Writer Lauren Blackwood Brings Magic to the Jamaican Jungle in Historical Fantasy Novel

⚠️ Trigger warning! The story and the post below mention sexual assault.

Following the success of Within These Wicked Walls, Lauren Blackwood returns with another vibrant story, this time set in a magical Jamaican jungle.

Wildblood, which is out now from Macmillan’s Wednesday Books, takes us to the late 19th century and builds a unique story that serves as an extraordinary sophomore novel after weaving the thread of the Charlotte Brontë classic Jane Eyre into an Ethiopian retelling with her debut novel. Within These Wicked Walls earned the recognition of being a Reese’s Book Club Fall 2021 YA Pick.

The new young adult book centers on Victoria, an 18-year-old woman who was kidnapped at a young age and forced to serve as a guide within a tourist company that specializes in venturing into the jungle. Except the jungle has creatures that could be dangerous to mortals such as spirits that can snatch souls without remorse. Victoria is a Wildblood, meaning she has the magic to communicate with the creatures and, in her professional standing, can ensure the safety of tourists.

When a well-known Black gold miner named Laertes Thorn becomes a client with his rather large party, Victoria is tasked with her fellow Wildbloods to bring these foreigners to a mountain allegedly full of gold. The gold is a legend since survivors have never exited the jungle to tell the story of reaching the treasures.

On the trip like back at home, Victoria tries to remain a motherly figure to Bunny, a young Wildblood who cannot control his magic, and a girlfriend to Samson, a Wildblood who was kidnapped by the company after her. But new emotions arise as she finds herself falling for Thorn and battling her former love Dean, the main Wildblood in charge who seems like he’ll do anything to keep their abusive boss happy like saying yes to such a dangerous trip.

The fight for survival underlies the story that places Victoria in a spot where she’s trying to understand love from different angles and trust in her inherent magic.

Author Lauren Blackwood talks to she lit about how she came up with the story and the art of making sure the characters, the plot, and the tension remain engaging until the very end. Check out the conversation below:

she lit: The story’s main character, Victoria, is a Wildblood who possesses the magic to communicate with the precarious jungle. Her touring company kidnapped her at a young age to take advantage of her magic. How did you come up with this story and figure out how to convey the difficult subject of abuse?

Lauren Blackwood: I wanted to write a book about a girl finding her strength. Anytime I portray an issue or trauma I want it to be done sensitively and respectfully, but also honestly. I don’t think showing SA* on page is ever necessary—there are ways to get the message across without that type of triggering imagery. So with that in mind, I then let Victoria guide her own journey on the path that felt right for her. 

she lit: While on the dangerous tour, Victoria finds herself tangled in a love cube with her partner Samson, her ex Dean, and her new client Thorn. Can you describe your writing experience with creating the tension between these characters?

Lauren Blackwood: You’re the first one to ever describe their situation as a love cube, haha! Writing relationships is my favorite thing, and I purposely wanted to use this book to explore different kinds of love. But I think the issue is that all three boys have different intentions for Victoria, which puts them in conflict with each other and with Victoria herself, who’s really just learning to live her life on her own terms.

Photo Credit: Terri LaShae

she lit: Victoria takes it upon herself to be a mother figure to Bunny, a younger Wildblood who rages with his magic. How would you describe this source of love for Victoria as a counterbalance to the love she’s getting from Samson and Thorn?

Lauren Blackwood: Victoria’s relationship with Bunny is more of that of a mother and child—she’s extremely protective of him, which is a love he doesn’t necessarily appreciate. It’s the opposite of her relationship with Samson, who in his own loving way tries to look out for her but ends up being a bit overbearing. So you have those two opposites of the spectrum, and then you have Thorn, who sits right in the middle. They have mutual respect and love for each other, and they don’t doubt each others’ abilities but look out for each other equally.

she lit: Greed is an overwhelming theme with Thorn and his team endangering their lives to mine gold in the Gilded Orchard that has never been mined by survivors. Can you explain the historical significance of making the team members Black and their desire to gain riches before the turn of the 20th century?

Lauren Blackwood: If you’ve read my debut Within These Wicked Walls, you’ll know I love writing about wealthy Black guys who have the freedom to do as they please. I suppose the historical significance is that when Black people owned business, all the staff would be Black because they weren’t welcome in white spaces—whatever business ventures white people were up to, Black people were usually doing it too and just not getting any credit for it. But honestly, I just wanted to write about Black people, regardless of history.

she lit: The book’s cover is vibrant, featuring Victoria in the jungle. Victoria looks a lot like you. How much input did you have in the cover design and the way the character is portrayed on the cover?

Lauren Blackwood: I wanted to write a character who looks like me (who’s Jamaican like me) because growing up there were never any fantasy novels about girls who shared my heritage. So, the only thing I really requested was to feature the Jamaican flag colors—black, green, and gold. The rest of the genius design was handled by my amazing cover designer Kerri Resnick and brilliant artist Colin Verdi. They interpreted Victoria perfectly, so I really didn’t have to say much.

*SA is an acronym for sexual assault.

Categories
book reviews

Book Review: ‘The Black Girls Left Standing’ by Juliana Goodman

The Black Girls Left Standing by Juliana Goodman leans on the grittiness to tell the story of a Black girl living in the Chicago projects searching for why her unarmed sister was killed outside the home of a police officer. 

Sixteen-year-old Beau Willet is trying to overcome the disbelief of attending her older sister Katia’s funeral. She wears a memorial sweatshirt in honor of her 22-year-old sister, who was killed by a single gunshot wound to the face fired by an off-duty police officer outside of his home in the middle of the night. Katia was accused of planning to rob the home, but Beau doesn’t accept that narrative. She depends on her friend Deja to help her figure out what happened to Katia, who was with her boyfriend Jordan at the time of the killing. Except Jordan has been missing since Katia’s death, and he is the only person who could clear Katia’s name. 

I should be crying, too, but I can’t for some reason. It’s like my ducts are all blocked up and the tears are dripping down my insides instead of my cheeks. Katia, why didn’t you just stay home with me instead? 

Beau knows the police department and the city will not investigate her sister’s killing fairly because she’s Black, her sister was Black, and they’re from the impoverished Grady Park neighborhood where Black people get killed all the time. Katia’s death is in the news cycle for what feels like a second until the rest of the city moves on and feels sympathy for the police officer and his family instead of Beau and her family. To get the answers she needs, Beau is determined to find Jordan. She feels alone in her quest when it comes to her family, her parents too depressed to push for more answers while trying to keep the roof over their heads. Deja seems occupied in a new relationship to help Beau solve the crime, and Beau feels guilty pulling Deja into her web of grief. While she’s looking for Jordan, Beau finds herself falling for Champion, a boy she goes to school with though he lives in a McMansion in the affluent Purple Hills neighborhood.

Everything’s all screwed up between me and Champion because I’m the girl with the murdered sister. Neither of us says it, but if he asked me to be his girl now, everyone would think it’s because he feels sorry for me. 

As Beau and Champion become more than friends, Beau finds herself and her friends engaging in petty fights with girls and guys in Grady Park who may or may not know what really happened to Katia. Nobody is snitching. Then Beau gets an anonymous tip that Jordan is in her apartment building complex. At first, she doesn’t believe that rumor because she knows everyone in the complex and hasn’t seen anything amiss; she swears she would’ve noticed Jordan by now, better yet someone would’ve been loyal to her and told her about his whereabouts.

While Deja seems to fade into her relationship, Beau taps Sonnet, another friend who uses her Pretty Little Liars knowledge to play detective. Sonnet lives a life more similar to Champion’s, so Beau feels immense pressure to protect Sonnet and herself. The guilt of Beau’s grief ebbs and flows as she leans on the friends not used to the atmosphere of the projects she lives in. The deeper they get into their investigation, the higher the stakes are. Blindly, Beau follows every clue until she finds herself in trouble to the point she may meet the same fate Katia did. 

Being inside Beau’s mind from the first-person perspective is incredible as she pushes aside the grief and depression of losing her sister while looking for answers for why her sister died at the hands of a gun fired by an off-duty police officer. Why was Katia outside this officer’s home at 4 a.m. with Jordan? Why did Jordan disappear? The questions resound throughout the pages as Beau tries to unwrap the mystery in her crime-ridden neighborhood where asking such questions about why someone was killed could get you killed. When Beau is in the bedroom she shared with Katia, the gloom overwhelms her as she looks through her sister’s belongings for any clues, but she only finds what could’ve been Katia’s destiny. The plans for the future seem to be the only clues Katia left behind, and it strengthens Beau more in doing the work the police won’t do. 

Overall, this young adult novel stands out with the reality of being a Black kid in the inner city and feeling like you, anyone who looks like you, and anyone you love doesn’t matter. Beau knows her sister’s killing will never get a fair investigation because Katia was accused of burglarizing a police officer’s home. But she knows her sister wouldn’t commit such an act, so she’s the only one who could stand up for Katia. Beau and her friends are the Black girls left standing who have to stand up for the Black girls who don’t make it out of places like Grady Park. In the audiobook version, narrator Ariel Blake does a fantastic job of conveying the sadness and determination in Beau’s voice. Out of similar works such as Angie Thomas’ books set in the similar fictional neighborhood of Garden Heights in The Hate U Give, On the Come Up, and Concrete Rose, Juliana Goodman’s debut novel makes a splash in the subgenre of social justice YA with digging into the mental health aspect of showing the tumultuous journey of the teenage main character struggling with how society paints girls like her, including her dead sister, and trying to prove that they deserve to be seen like any other girls.

Categories
book reviews music reviews

Book Review: ‘Shine Bright’ by Danyel Smith

Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop by Danyel Smith explores how Black female music artists have impacted the world and in particular the author’s world as she navigates her unstable childhood in 1970s California. 

Were there champagne toasts with Mariah Carey on a private island off the coast of Antigua? Yes. Was I backstage with Beyoncé in Philly, in Paris, in Cleveland, in Brooklyn? All of it. Have I cruised the Upper West Side in a vintage Cadillac convertible with Queen Latifah? Yes, indeed. But, though I chalked it up to not wanting to get too close to creatives, I would have to cover as a writer or an editor—I actually did not feel worthy of such friendships.

Danyel Smith is a music entertainment journalist titan who’s most famous for her editor in chief stint at Vibe magazine at the height of hip-hop domination. With the quote above from the book, her work has sparked friendships with the Black celebrities forever shaping our culture. (Mariah Carey describes Danyel’s 2005 novel Bliss as such on the cover: “The music business can be an enchanted snake pit, but Danyel tells her heroine’s story with an insider’s knowledge, with power, and most of all, with emotion.”) 

The author’s upbringing in Oakland, the city in which she reps with her whole heart, wasn’t always shiny. Her parents split when she and her sister are in elementary school, and her mother engages in a toxic relationship with a violent lawyer named Alvin who rages against the family. Her mother stays for the questionable financial stability, but when Danyel starts fighting back, that’s when she realizes what she wants the most is threatened by Alvin.

But the radio is on in Alvin’s car, and Danyel’s mother is still playing her albums. The music speaks to Danyel, even when she’s eating her free breakfast at school where the morning care teachers double as vocal trainers showing the kids how to croon to The Stylistics’ “Betcha by Golly, Wow.” The Black artists singing through speakers in different places influence Danyel. She will take her writing talents from her personal diary dedicated to getting rid of Alvin to media platforms describing the impact the artists had on pop culture, though sometimes unappreciated, she makes it her mission to ensure they are appreciated. 

People wonder why I have been able to stand up to men in this business of music. To go to shows—glamorous and grimy—by myself. To negotiate with the worst of the promoters, the performers, publicists, security guards, police officers. To, on behalf of any given media organization, but mostly on behalf of Vibe, and on behalf of myself, not stand down. I just wasn’t that scared of men, not for a long time. “Step to me” was my front. “If you want this smoke.”

The don’t-back-down mantra happens to be how many of the artists she writes about are handling their livelihoods. One chapter is dedicated to the “Drinkard Family Dynasty.” The rich branch that produced Leontyne Price, the first Black woman to gain international fame as an opera singer. Leontyne’s cousin, Dionne Warwick, is the pop singer who reached a pinnacle of success in the 1970s and 1980s and whose impact surpasses generations with her “Twitter auntie” status regularly updating almost 600,000 followers. Dionne’s aunt, Cissy Houston, is the gospel singer who started touring with her group then with Mahalia Jackson and Elvis Presley before her solo debut. Cissy’s daughter, Whitney Houston, is arguably one of the greatest singers of our time, or as the author writes: “But—their problematic relationship notwithstanding—Cissy’s training of Whitney Houston is one of the most important accomplishments in the history of American music.” This familial connection between some of the greatest singers we ever known should be acknowledged more, and the author breaks down their roots and their personal histories to show the anguish they must have had for not always being appreciated for sharing their talents. 

The chapter dedicated to Diana Ross examines how her departure from The Supremes and solo success branded “Miss Ross” as a diva in a negative light when she used to be a little girl from Detroit who had unfathomable dreams that by chance came true. Gladys Knight also gets her own chapter starting with how she became one of the hardest-working kids in showbusiness already performing with her cousins and friends, “The Pips,” so she can help her divorced mother put food on the table. We learn LaDonna Adrian Gaines would drop out of her high school she had said were full of “pretty violent people” straddling the racial lines in Boston to eventually head to Germany where she christens herself as Donna Summer. The shock and disappointment lies on the page when Mariah Carey, the queen of the ’90s pop who also released her own memoir, doesn’t get a single Grammy Award for her 1995 Daydream album that still produces the soundtracks to people’s lives to this day. The ups and the many downs of Black women breaking barriers in music are palpable. 

The big stars get the props. Sprinklings of Phyllis Hyman, Millie Small of “My Boy Lollipop” fame, and Lisa Fischer whose performance of the 1991 hit “How Can I Ease the Pain” is pure magic, feel like they needed more recognition as they are singers who deserved the riches and stardom, but they remain “unsung” à la the popular TV One docuseries. Reading stories of Black women in pop reminds you of the many artists who changed the cultural landscape, sometimes as a one-hit wonder, but their achievements get lost in the mix. That’s where the author fills in those gaps with her Ringer podcast “Black Girl Songbook.” Episodes focus on artists like Deniece Williams, Angela Bofill, and Karyn White—all Black women who had defined music during a moment in time but now have fallen out of public discourse. 

Overall, the author brilliantly tells her story in a poetic rhythm and how music saved her. The love for music she has is on the storytelling side, so she can promote the Black women who turned their love for music into a career beyond their imaginations. Published by Jay-Z’s literary imprint Roc Lit 101 under Penguin Random House with the title deriving from Rihanna’s “Diamonds,” this book serves as a reminder that music history is heavily influenced by Black women, but they unfortunately don’t always receive flowers for their immeasurable contributions.

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‘Proud Family: Louder and Prouder’ Reboot Champions Black Literature

If you’re not looking closely, you may be missing the parade of nonfiction and fiction titles by Black authors being shown to the next generation of Proud Family viewers.

Originally debuting in 2001, The Proud Family became a fixture on the Disney Channel and ABC’s One Saturday Morning featuring an African American 14-year-old middle schooler named Penny Proud as she navigates friendships and family in the Los Angeles area. Disney+ rebooted the cartoon this year with 10 episodes streaming now under the title The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder. And this is giving the creators more freedom to get their racial justice message across screens to a wider audience witnessing the Black Lives Matter and the #BlackStoriesMatter movements.

The voice of Penny Proud since the show’s inception, Kyla Pratt is the star, with her cartoon doppelgänger, but for the new series Keke Palmer joins the cast to voice Maya, a social activist who’s a new transfer to their Willy T. Ribbs Middle School. The school is named for the first Black driver to qualify and race in the Indianapolis 500. The Easter eggs of activism are really hidden in Maya’s book choices throughout the episodes.

We’re introduced to Maya in the first episode “New Kids on the Block” where she and her brother KG, voiced by rap artist A Boogie Wit da Hoodie, move into the old home of original character Sticky, who was voiced by Orlando Brown. That character was written out most likely due to Orlando’s legal troubles over the years, but Penny and her group now have two new friends. Or so they think.

Maya detects she and Penny are not compatible based on Penny trying too hard to make a connection. After all, Maya is carrying a copy of Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code, a 2019 nonfiction book by sociologist and Princeton University professor Ruha Benjamin that examines how society’s focus on technology can reinforce White supremacy and push racial inequity.

Later in the premiere episode, Maya is in her school hallway, armed with a copy of Parable of the Sower, the 1993 post-apocalyptic climate fiction classic by Octavia E. Butler that is set in our current time period. A24 last year announced it secured the rights via Deadline to the Parable of the Sower and its sequel Parable of the Talents for a plan to turn the titles into two motion pictures with Garrett Bradley tapped to direct.

In second episode “Bad Influence(r),” Maya is carrying the civil rights graphic-novel memoir March: Book One by the late congressman John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell in different scenes throughout the episode.

“It All Started With an Orange Basketball” is the third episode that explores how Penny’s love for basketball is squashed by the ambition of her father, Oscar Proud, hilariously voiced by comedian Tommy Davidson. This episode will be distributed in book form for early readers by Disney Press in September under the same name. Game scenes occur in the Bubba Wallace Recreation Center, named for the only present-day Black race car star who pushed for the ban of the Confederate flag at NASCAR events in 2020.

The episode also features Maya and LaCienega, Penny’s frenemy who’s a namesake of the famous South LA boulevard and voiced by Alisa Reyes of 1990s Nickelodeon’s All That fame, chatting in the Wendell Scott Regional Branch Library, named after the first Black race car driver to win a race in NASCAR’s Grand National Series.

LaCienega rips a copy of Ta-Nehisi Coates‘ Between the World and Me out of Maya’s hands to use as a prop to bump into Kareem, Penny’s sorta boyfriend voiced by Asante Blackk, to get his attention. He notices the selection and says it’s his favorite book, and LaCienega lies and says it’s her favorite, too. They walk into the sunset. 

Masquerading as the woke reader, LaCienega holds the book in other scenes while Maya is now reading James Baldwin’s 1963 nonfiction essay collection The Fire Next Time.

Another literary reference is in the episode “Home School” where Maya is reading Maya Angelou‘s 1969 autobiographical debut I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. (Perhaps, this character is named after one of our most influential Black female authors?) Even in the “Snackland” episode starring an animated Lizzo voiced as herself as the musical guest for the Proud family’s amusement park venture, Lizzo’s bodyguard character is reading The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, but she rips it into shreds proving she can destroy Oscar for skipping on Lizzo’s payment.

The book choices, along with the intentional naming of the buildings the characters frequent, demonstrate the ability to educate children and adults on important, sometimes underappreciated Black literature and Black figures via a kooky cartoon centered on a Black family and a racially diverse cast of characters.

Some of these books, such as Race After Technology, do not appear to have a mass marketing campaign. So, if you’re interested in the intersection of race and technology, for example, this book may not end up in your web, library, and bookstore searches.

Then for classics such Parable of the Sower and The Fire Next Time that are usually not on young adult reading lists, they can be left out of searches for books covering their topics. Along with highlighting the obscure and classic works, the cartoon gives props to the more recent best-sellers by Black authors that have dominated charts over the years like Between the World and Me and The Vanishing Half.

Disney+ renewed The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder for a second season.

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what's lit

Sourcebooks, Ebony Publishing Partner to Distribute Books by Black Authors

Indie publisher Sourcebooks has teamed up with Ebony Magazine Publishing of the renowned Black media brand to produce adult fiction and nonfiction books.

Together, Sourcebooks and Ebony plan to publish four to eight books a year, first starting with Black Hollywood: Reimagining Iconic Movie Moments by photographer Carell Augustus. The photography book will come out in October and feature images of Black actors from Vanessa L. Williams as Cleopatra to Vivica A. Fox as Veronica Lake. Upcoming fiction includes the first book in the crime thriller Martyr Maker series originally self-published by actor Eriq La Salle.

“It’s wonderful to partner with the forward-thinking team at Sourcebooks,” said Lavaille Lavette, president and publisher of Ebony Magazine Publishing, in a statement. “This collaboration with our flagship imprint Ebony Magazine Publishing will celebrate the broad spectrum of Black voices through powerful fiction and nonfiction stories with authors who represent and speak to the full spectrum of our culture.”

Ebony’s publishing arm focuses on stories in the genres of fiction, nonfiction, culture, and children’s literature through its imprints Ebony Classics, Ebony 2.0., Ebony Voices, and Ebony Jr. It’s also home to the Ebony Book Club.

Helmed by CEO and publisher Dominique Raccah, Sourcebooks is one of the largest woman-owned publishers based in the Chicago area that specializes in young adult, fantasy, mystery and crime, thriller and suspense, diverse literature, LGBTQ+ literature, and children’s literature.

“We are thrilled to be partnering with EBONY to showcase the extraordinary work of Black authors and celebrate Black stories,” Dominique said in the statement. “Books change lives, and Ebony Magazine Publishing will be life-changing for authors and readers alike.”

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Book Review: ‘Kindred’ by Octavia E. Butler

Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Kindred by Octavia E. Butler takes time travel and blends the science fiction concept across race, gender, and DNA with the main character going back to the antebellum South to save an ancestor in order for her to live in the future.

The story starts with Dana, a Black woman in 1976 Pasadena, California, who is in the hospital recovering from the loss of her left arm and waiting for her White husband Kevin to finish with the police. How she loses her arm is a journey that begins on her 26th birthday when she finds herself in 1815 Maryland saving a White boy from drowning. When she asks the boy’s name, she learns it’s Rufus Weylin. The name rings a bell because the boy is her ancestor, the father to one of her foremothers, Hagar who was born in 1831. Dana needs to save him, so he can eventually plant the seed for Hagar with his slave Alice Greenwood to make sure she will exist.

Before she gets in trouble for being a free Black woman in 1970s attire, she finds herself back home to a worried Kevin. She is later summoned again by Rufus where he is burning the curtains in his bedroom. Dana realizes she returns to the past under Rufus’ control when he is in trouble and the only way back home is her own fear. As fear controls the time travel, Dana returns to the past again, but this time Kevin holds on for the ride. Now, she and her husband are stuck in the antebellum South where their interracial relationship is illegal. Kevin tries to find his place as a White man in the prior century by spending time with the slave-owning Weylins while Dana is adjusting to life as a slave and befriending Alice and the other slaves. The inhumanity and cruelty of slavery motivates her to uplift the slaves with her futuristic ideals, but it results in Dana receiving a punishment so severe that it scares her back home—without Kevin. She is determined to return to save her husband and her ancestors to make sure her existence comes into being.

This masterpiece is categorized as science fiction, but it exceeds the genre by having the main character return to the past to save herself instead of traveling to the future to save the world. The story emphasizes the complicated nature of African American ancestry with the slave master being a part of the bloodline and Dana needing Rufus to survive in order for a Black branch of the bloodline to lead to her birth.

There is a dependency between Dana and Rufus as Dana wants to exist while Rufus, who accepts Dana as a time traveler without knowing their shared lineage, also wants to exist subconsciously despite his tendency to fall into life-threatening situations. Dana sees Rufus grow up, and as Rufus becomes a man, he begins seeing Dana in a sexual light, especially with her resemblance to Alice. That development confuses Dana, who wants to keep Rufus happy for her survival and the survival of the slaves on the Weylin plantation.

What also adds another dimension to the story is Dana having a White husband in a time when their marriage is legal but still receives negative attention. Her family and his family were not too happy when they married, so as she navigates her contemporary world in an interracial couple, she finds herself 150 years in the past dependent on Kevin to save them. Also, at home she depends on Kevin, the successful author with his best-selling book giving them the money to buy their new home where Dana begins her time travel. Dana wants to be an author, too, but her dreams take a hit in boosting Kevin’s career. For survival in both worlds, Dana has to work with her husband and her forefather because the color of her skin impedes what she can do.

The more Dana drops into the early 1800s, the more she realizes she can’t present herself as a free Black woman on a plantation. She gets closer to her other ancestor, Alice, who also needs assistance especially as a slave, but their connection reaches the frustrated friendship level since Alice knows she can’t trust Dana with her disappearing acts and her tendency to stand by Rufus, Alice’s owner and rapist. Dana gets complaints from other slaves for wanting to be White and using that alleged privilege to her advantage.

The empathy fight Dana struggles with in having Rufus’ back when he follows the slavery law of the land becomes overwhelming. Every time she returns home to 1976 California, she has physical and emotional bruises and scars trying to make sense of her surroundings that are over a century and thousands of miles apart.

Overall, Kindred packs a multitude of elements into a novel that has a Black female character straddling two worlds in two different time periods and facing racism for her choices to survive in a world not set up in her favor.




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Book Review: ‘Well-Read Black Girl’ by Glory Edim

Well-Read Black Girl: Finding Our Stories, Discovering Ourselves by Glory Edim

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Well-Read Black Girl is an anthology by Black female writers who discuss how they became writers, but while some stories strike a chord, others lack depth.

Between the stories, the anthology has lists of written works by Black women to check out. It’s a valuable resource for a to-be-read list. The writers themselves usually mention a work that changed their life and directed them to writing. Jesmyn Ward discusses the unexpected Black girl magic within Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth by E.L. Konigsburg. Dhonielle Clayton credits Coffee Will Make You Black by April Sinclair with making her realize her sexuality. Zinzi Clemmons discovers how close she grew up next to the Brooklyn brownstones highlighted in Paule Marshall’s Brown Girl, Brownstones. Mahogany L. Browne compares the girls in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye to the ones she grew up with in Northern California and how they all felt invisible as Black girls.

While some essays mostly focus on one experience and one book, others broaden their journey. Rebecca Walker talks about being Alice Walker’s daughter and how hanging out with Black female writing dynamos informed her future career. Gabourey Sidibe writes about her mother’s disappointment in having a daughter and how that motivated her to live her best life. Renee Watson tells the story of how she became a Rose Festival Princess in Portland despite being a big Black girl expected to lose and how Lucille Clifton’s poetry later moved her to accept her body.

The anthology gives insight to what inspires some of the top Black female writers, but it comes off as a collection meant for a younger audience. The theme of how you became a writer or what it means to be a Black writer also simplifies the essays with several mentioning well-known books as inspiration with similar reasoning. Marita Golden writes about Zora Neale Hurston’s impact on her career, particularly with Their Eyes Were Watching God. Zora is an expected source of inspiration due to her popularity, and the essays that highlight other lesser-known Black writers resonate better and make you feel as the reader you’re learning about or being reminded of a writer’s legacy.

Overall, the anthology is entertaining, but some stories are better than others and what inspires authors can sometimes be interesting and sometimes not, depending on how they write their inspiration story.




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Book Review: ‘My Sister, the Serial Killer’ by Oyinkan Braithwaite

My Sister, the Serial KillerMy Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite describes the contentious relationship between two sisters through the older sister who’s tired of cleaning up after her irresistibly beautiful younger sister’s murderous mistakes.

The story starts with Korede getting a call from her younger sister Ayoola to help clean up after the murder of her current lover. Korede obliges since this is the third man whose body they had to hide after Ayoola murdered them in what she calls self-defense. Though Korede justified the previous murders because she had met the men and deemed them disgusting, she’s unsure about this third man. She never met him, so she doesn’t know if she should believe Ayoola, who can be classified as a serial killer since this killing is number three. As Korede tries to suppress her suspicion, Ayoola keeps popping up even at Korede’s place of work where the man Korede likes takes a liking to Ayoola. Now Korede worries that this man and other men who keep falling under Ayoola’s spell may show up dead, so should she protect her sister or divulge the secret to stop more killings?

This book moves smoothly within Korede’s thoughts on how to approach her relationship with her sister and wondering if her sister’s actions are a result of her beauty or their family’s past. Korede is constantly in dilemma mode, which makes the book exciting, as Ayoola’s killer looks lead to disaster with Korede exhausted of cleaning up the messes.

Overall, it’s an entertaining read with an interesting twist on a young woman whose man-eating ways go too far and the sister trying to understand the phenomenon and stop the madness.

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Book Review: ‘The Water Dancer’ by Ta-Nehisi Coates


The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“The summoning of a story, the water, and the object that made memory real as brick: that was Conduction. What I might do with such a power was not my immediate concern, so much making it through that day.”

Tales of magical realism and the harsh reality of the Atlantic slave trade becomes intertwined in “The Water Dancer” by Ta-Nehisi Coates. It tells the story of a man trying to recall memories of his long-lost mother and escape enslavement on a dying tobacco plantation in Virginia owned by his white father. Coates’ first novel moves slowly through the overuse of prose but emphasizes the decision of freedom and what it exactly means to the different characters.

Hiram Walker’s mother had been sold off years ago by his white father, Howell Walker, and Hiram wants to remember his mother. Other slaves in the community, called the Tasked, tell him he has this power to conjure the memory of his mother through the water.

The story really starts with Hiram riding over a bridge with his white brother, Maynard, where they fall into the water. Maynard doesn’t survive, and everyone is surprised Hiram survived in the water so long. He returns to his father’s plantation, but eventually decides to run after he’s blamed for Maynard’s death. Hiram runs with the girl he loves, Sophia, but they’re captured.

After weeks of torture, he’s returned to Corinne Quinn, a wealthy white woman who was betrothed to Maynard. It turns out Corinne is a part of the Underground aka the famous Underground Railroad. Hiram joins the effort, always wondering of Sophia’s fate and of the purpose of his powers as he figures out what it means to be really free.

Hiram seeking freedom and expecting everyone Tasked wants his version of freedom, regardless of who’s left behind, is an interesting concept that plays throughout the novel. It focuses on the division of families and how it was a fact of life, and if someone ran away, they would have to create a new life in the North and research where their loved ones had ended up. Not knowing the fate of a loved one haunts Hiram with his mother, an underdeveloped character that keeps getting mentioned yet there’s no sense of who she is. It’s reminiscent of Cora in “The Underground Railroad” by Colson Whitehead because Cora’s mother had escaped but never sent for Cora, so there is anguish toward the mother; she’s not present, but the reader feels her impact.

This book made me appreciate Whitehead’s book more because the characters are better developed there. Hiram in Coates’ book tells the story in first-person narrative, but there are personality elements missing; he’s mostly stoic. He’s one of those narrators who falls behind other characters though we follow his actions.

The freedom definition theme saved the book. The magical realism gets muddled until the end where the history of African folklore related to water comes up. Though it’s brought up a lot, the water dancing leading to what you need isn’t believable enough, like the folklore isn’t fitted correctly to this story.

Length-wise, It’s a 400-page book that could’ve been done closer to 300 pages. Slavery in the Americas will always be a fascinating topic because of the legacy of not acknowledging its profound generational impact. The history itself in many cases overshadows a fictional story.

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Book Review: ‘The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls’ by Anissa Gray


The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls by Anissa Gray
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls” by Anissa Gray is being marketed as “The Mothers” x “An American Marriage” with mothering at the root of family deterioration as two members are imprisoned for a crime that has angered the community.

Respected restaurateurs Althea and Proctor Cochran are in prison over allegedly misusing donated funds for a flood in their town of St. Joseph, Michigan. As their reputation becomes tarnished, their teen twin daughters, Baby Vi and Kim, have to stay with Althea’s youngest sister Lillian. Another sister, Viola, lives in Chicago away from the family drama while a brother, Joe, lives a few towns away with his family as a church pastor. The Butler siblings – Althea the oldest, Viola, Lillian and Joe – lost their mother when they were young with their father becoming a traveling pastor barely home. Their mother’s premature death weighs like a cloud over them because of the circumstances they each dealt with living without their mother.

Althea married Proctor and found success at their restaurant. Lillian, who’s taking care of her nieces, is also taking care of her late ex-husband’s grandmother, Nai Nai, who’s Chinese and they still have interracial tension. Viola is breaking up with her wife Eva while dealing with the resurgence of the eating disorder she developed in adolescence. Joe, who’s had a strained relationship with his sisters, wants the nieces to stay with him and his family because he feels with religion he has the most stable household. Their father died years earlier, but his neglect still weighs on them. As they all battle their own demons, Kim is falling down a path of trouble until her implosion forces the family to unite to save her and Baby Vi.

Most of the book measures at three stars. The scenery doesn’t change much; the reader is either in Lillian’s home, which is the family home inhabited by their demons despite all the refurbishments, and the prison, mostly where Althea is. Incidents such as how Althea met Proctor when they were kids at her mother’s funeral are replayed often along with particular verses from her mother’s Bible. Kim is the twin who keeps finding trouble while Baby Vi’s character doesn’t seem that developed as she’s characterized as the twin who doesn’t stir any trouble. Proctor also fades in a way as the reader mostly gets the sense of his character from the letters he’s writing to Althea. The story really revolves around the Butler siblings while there’s still a focus on the twins, and since they are the children of the imprisoned parents, it would’ve been nice to see perspective chapters from them, too. All the chapters are first-person narratives from the sisters: Althea, Viola, and Lillian, while the other set of sisters, Kim and Baby Vi, need chapters. Even Joe needs a chapter to explain his feelings about his sisters compared to just his sisters’ feelings toward him.

Overall, it’s a complicated family story where ghosts from yesterday resurface amid the temporary loss of two members. The title and cover make the book stand out, but the title seems overdramatic for the story. Ravenous and hungry are synonyms and care and feeding are close in meaning in this context, so the title also gets too wordy.

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Book Review: ‘Piecing Me Together’ by Renee Watson

Piecing Me TogetherPiecing Me Together by Renée Watson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“Piecing Me Together” by Renee Watson is a relatable story of a Black teen girl so focused on what she wants but doesn’t realize what she has can still get her to where she wants to be.

Jade is a high school junior/multimedia artist who attends a private school in Portland, nowhere near her impoverished neighborhood, so she makes a few bus transfers each way to get the best education. But she doesn’t have any friends at her school until she meets Sam, a white girl, who lives in a neighborhood near her. Now Jade’s mom can get off her back about making friends since she still is close with her childhood friend, Lee Lee, who attends the neighborhood school. Regardless of her socioeconomic status, Jade, gifted in Spanish, wants to go on a field trip to Costa Rica. But students have to be nominated, so when she gets called into the counselor’s office she thinks she’s got a nomination but instead she’s got into a mentoring program for Black teen girls. Jade is not entirely sold on the opportunity but attends the program’s first meeting, only to be stood up by her mentor, Maxine. It turns out Maxine, a Black 20-something professional who graduated from the school, can barely commit to the program with boyfriend drama. Jade picks up on this and takes their relationship with a grain of salt until they become closer the more they spend time together. As she visits museums in Portland, Jade is looking forward to hearing back on the Costa Rica opportunity, but she learns some opportunities won’t be given to her because of who she is but other opportunities will come her way because of that.

This story is a good read with smoothly showing Jade gain her voice when she feels it doesn’t matter because she’s Black, poor, and obese. She sees how not speaking up affects her relationships with one example of Jade and Sam having a temporary falling-out because Jade feels she’s not being heard when she isn’t saying exactly how she feels. It also shows the trauma of a Black girl being in a predominantly white school and how she becomes invisible despite her hard work. Jade sees there are other ways she can succeed, and once she sees that, the law of attraction will lead her to what she really wants.

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Book Review: ‘Queenie’ by Candice Carty-Williams

QueenieQueenie by Candice Carty-Williams
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“Queenie” by Candice Carty-Williams surrounds a protagonist going through a breakup and myriad other situations that send her on a downward spiral. It’s one of the first new adult novels I’ve read where mental health is brought into the storyline for a woman of color who’s on a dangerous path to destruction, yet it’s relatable and comical at times.

“Bridget Jones’ Diary” meets “Americanah” is how the publishers are describing this novel since Queenie is a 25-year-old, 2nd-generation Jamaican Brit struggling to get over her boyfriend, Tom. Some reviews complain about Queenie’s obsession with Tom since he’s white, but she’s a millennial who thought she found her soul mate and has a dating preference. The story opens to Queenie in a clinic where she learns she’s had a miscarriage, even with her IUD in use. But she can’t go home and tell Tom, and he’s tired of the lack of communication, so he asks Queenie to move out of their apartment. She ends up renting a room while trying to get ahead in her journalism career. She pitches stories but keeps getting distracted by her colleague, Ted, who seems persistent in workplace flirtation. But Queenie believes she and Tom would get back together with her friends Darcy, Kyazike, and Cassandra trying to convince her otherwise. While fending off Ted, Queenie falls into a one-night stand habit with men from OKCupid and other places who have objectified her body as a BBW. All her bad decisions around men explode in her face. The explosion then stimulates her anxiety until she has a breakdown where she has move into her grandparents’ home and ask for professional help to get her life back on track.

The novel opens up to Queenie’s miscarriage, so there’s a theme of making bad sexual health decisions with unprotected sex and multiple partners within a short amount of time. Also, there’s a theme of bigger black women being objectified for only sex due to their size and race. Queenie feels she’s not worthy of a relationship, especially when she deals with non-black men; the reason why she chooses men outside her race coming up later in the book. Mental health surfaces through her depression and anxiety with the roots of her pain stemming from her own mother’s bad decisions around men. Depending on her religious Jamaican family, we see the first- and second-generation issues from immigration that linger with Queenie being the first to graduate from college but unhappy that the career of her dreams is stalling because she’s a black woman seeing her white colleagues moving forward.

Overall, the book may slowly grow on the reader since it’s one bad decision after the next, but once Queenie’s layers come undone, there’s a deconstruction of why she’s making these decisions. And these actions could be interpreted as “wild” and “promiscuous” for a woman of color, opening up to judgment, but many women period like men deal with sex and love differently, especially in their 20s. That’s why this novel stands out for portraying a very imperfect character. Though you might not agree with her actions, there’s a level of realistic growth in Queenie identifying, understanding, and rectifying her issues.

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Book Review: ‘A Kind of Freedom’ by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton

A Kind of Freedom: A Novel

A Kind of Freedom: A Novel by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“A Kind of Freedom” by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton is a multigenerational novel that follows a family overcoming and adapting to obstacles specific to their eras. Though the stories of families may be seen as one-dimensional, it still emphasizes how wealth in the African-American community could disappear based on circumstances.

The story starts with Evelyn and her younger sister, Ruby, in 1940s New Orleans as the daughters of one of the only black doctors in the city. Evelyn has her as eye on Renard, who also likes her and has dreams of going to medical school. But her father doesn’t want Evelyn to marry Renard because he doesn’t believe he’ll become a doctor because he lived as an orphan with a friend’s family.

Then the story fast forwards to the early 1980s with Evelyn and Renard’s two daughters Jackie and Sybil. Jackie is unexpectedly raising her son on her own with her husband dealing with a crack cocaine habit working at her parents’ daycare center.

The third part focuses on a post-Katrina New Orleans with Jackie’s son, T.C., all grown up just getting out of jail before his son’s birth.

To most readers, it might seem like a dull tale around a family, but it makes you think about how this black family was on top decades ago only to lose that wealth and status when a white family would’ve more likely stayed on top generations later. It’s a thought-provoking novel.



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Book Review: ‘If Beale Street Could Talk’ by James Baldwin

If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


“If Beale Street Could Talk” by James Baldwin is a soft story about a woman and her family trying to get her wrongly accused fiance out of jail. Though I’ve only read one other Baldwin work — “Just Above My Head,” this one pales in comparison with less passion and pain and thought-provoking moments.

Tish and Fonny plan to get married and have already found a place to live after so many rejections due to racism in 1970s New York City. But Fonny is unexpectedly jailed for a rape he says he didn’t commit. His religious mother refuses to help him get out of jail while his alcoholic father can’t seem to get his life in order to help his son. So that leaves Tish and her family to stand up for Fonny, especially when Tish learns she’s pregnant.

The urgency of the time is missing. The story is told from Tish’s point of view, but what you expect to happen does happen. The racism is unsurprising when it comes to Tish and Fonny’s previous encounters with police to where they are with their legal troubles. But the story unfortunately has become timely. It’s similar to “American Marriage” by Tayari Jones, though that story too did not reach its full potential. With “Just Above My Head” — a totally different story, I still think of those characters and what they were enduring in that story. It was that powerful, so I expected an encore reaction with another well-known Baldwin work, but I didn’t get that. I won’t be thinking of Tish and Fonny like Roy and Celestial failed to make an impression.

Overall, it’s a love story of a young Black couple in a time of racism yet what they experience doesn’t deter their love nor do they advance from that experience.