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Book Review: Chlorine Sky by Mahogany L. Browne

Chlorine Sky

Chlorine Sky by Mahogany L. Browne
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

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

Chlorine Sky by Mahogany L. Browne is a novel-in-verse featuring two Black girls engaged in a toxic friendship that is hanging on a thread, but the verse and the story fail to strike a chord.

Skyy, the main character’s name we learn on the last page, is a basketballer who feels less beautiful compared to other girls, especially her best friend Lay Li, who seems to be the most beautiful girl at school. Lay Li is a boy magnet while Skyy suppresses crushes on boys. So when Lay Li’s ex-boyfriend Shawn tries to get more information on her new boyfriend Curtis, Skyy disses Curtis. And like that Lay Li ignores Skyy like she ignores Shawn. In disbelief, Skyy works to get back in Lay Li’s good graces as she feels the pain of losing her best friend over a trivial situation. She can’t confide in Lay Li or her older sister Essa, who’s always mean, and she doesn’t see her cousin Inga, who’s always nice, enough. So she stays on the basketball court and falls for a boy named Clifton. They kiss, but Skyy feels sad that she can’t share this information with Lay Li. Days go by until Lay Li comes to Skyy to share her very different experience with Clifton.

The novel-in-verse is becoming a genre that literary agents want to boost in the industry. Except it’s difficult to tell a sufficient story that fits into a novel in verse. This book’s verse is borderline mediocre, some good parts but mostly so-so parts as in the combination of words are not impressive. For grammar geeks, the paragraph breaks aren’t placed in the best spots with ampersands starting at lines and capitalization is not used enough. For visual geeks, the cover is beautiful with the oranges and navy blues around a Black girl trying to find herself while rescuing a friendship.

Overall, the book is short but not as sweet as expected. The story has familiar elements with the athletic girl being best friends with the fashionable girl. Opposites attract, but in high school the athletic girl feels inferior to the fashionable girl because of the heightened attention on what is classified as beauty. And beauty means everything in adolescence when boys are in the picture, especially when the boys are the ones creating the division between the female friendships.

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Book Review: ‘On Her Own Ground’ by A’Lelia Bundles

On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker by A’Lelia Perry Bundles
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Self Made also known as On Her Own Ground by A’Lelia Bundles is an engrossing biography about Madam C.J. Walker, the Black woman behind a million-dollar hair care empire who became a Black History Month fixture yet the story of her life and rise to success is largely still shrouded.

Born Sarah Breedlove in Louisiana, Madam C.J. Walker lived in poverty for decades with marrying as a teenager after her formerly enslaved parents died, dealing with abusive marriages, then making pennies as a washwoman. At the time, she, like many other women, are dealing with severe hair loss, most likely due to the lack of daily cleanliness with the scarcity of water and soap. A hair care entrepreneur named Annie Turnbo helps Sarah grow her hair. With the success, Sarah makes her own products to help women grow their hair. She does everything in her power to hobnob with the wealthy in Indianapolis, where she ends up as the place to start her business with her third husband C.J. Walker and daughter Lelia from a previous marriage. One of the main people she tries to connect with is Booker T. Washington, the civil rights speaker, who believes Madam C.J. Walker’s hair care products are meant to straighten Black women’s hair to conform to Eurocentric beauty standards. It’s one of the fabrications about Madam C.J. Walker that she created the products, including the straightening comb, to straighten kinks out. This biography tries to decipher how this lie followed Madam C.J. Walker’s career as it derives from a newspaper article where a White reporter wrote the products are for straightening Black hair to be more like White hair.

The book is drenched in details. A’Lelia Bundles, an experienced journalist, is the great-great-granddaughter of Madam C.J. Walker, named after the daughter Lelia, who later goes by A’Lelia when she becomes a Harlem socialite. With the journalism aspect, there’s context on top of context describing the historical, geographical, and socioeconomic conditions around Sarah and her career as she moves around the country to grow her business. Indianapolis is the city of choice during the Great Migration for Sarah to make it the business birthplace until the blossoming Harlem in New York City becomes the spot as the home of Black excellence. A lot of these details had been omitted in the shortened bios that people are given about Madam C.J. Walker, so it’s refreshing to get the whole story along with the thousands of obstacles that this history-making entrepreneur endured, which is a main aspect missing from those bios.

Annie Turnbo Malone, the hair care entrepreneur who may have inspired Madam C.J. Walker to start her own business, is portrayed in the Netflix series as a nemesis. In the story, there is conflict between the two women as competitors, but it’s not all-encompassing like the TV series made it seem. In the series, Annie Turnbo Malone is turned into a fictional character who is color-struck and upset that Madam C.J. Walker is finding more success. Most never heard of Annie Turnbo Malone, and the TV series messes up her image as a nemesis rather than a natural business competitor since she’s also a part of Black history, particularly when it comes to entrepreneurship. Annie Turnbo Malone also had a monstrously large business spanning states and a résumé reflecting philanthropy. The biography clears up the relationship that Netflix chose to construe for dramatic purposes.

The book also shows how Madam C.J. Walker and her daughter A’Lelia worked so hard to get the business off the ground and running that their physical health deteriorated. Both women died relatively young from hypertension and not being able to control it because they refused to slow down. They both had similar marriage problems with Madam C.J. Walker’s title being named after her third husband she was only married to for about six years, which turned out to be crucial years in the business hence her title. A’Lelia also had three short-lived marriages like her mother. Surprisingly, the marriage tumult doesn’t seem to derail the women’s ambitions as the company grows and takes young Black women under their wings to spread the success.

Overall, the biography is very well-researched and elaborately tells the full story of a Black woman seen as the grandmother of the modern-day billion-dollar Black hair care industry. The book was originally published as On Her Own Ground in 2001 and casually renamed Self Made after the Netflix series of the same name.

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Book Review: ‘Grown’ by Tiffany D. Jackson

GrownGrown by Tiffany D. Jackson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Grown by Tiffany D. Jackson rips a page from the Mute R. Kelly movement to create a traumatic storyline that brings a teenage girl in the crosshairs of the dangerously famous life of an R&B crooner with a penchant for attracting underaged girls.

Enchanted Jones sees herself as a mermaid. She swims on her high school team and fosters a golden voice. One day her best friend Gabriella tells Enchanted about a showcase where she can win an opportunity for the singing career of her dreams. Enchanted tricks her mother into driving them to the showcase where she sings her heart out onstage but doesn’t get a coveted spot on a singing competition show. But 28-year-old R&B sensation Korey Fields does notice Enchanted and hands her his phone number when her mother isn’t looking.

That transpires into a flirty text message exchange with Korey dropping promises to catapult Enchanted’s career. Her parents agree for Enchanted to spend time with Korey in his home studio. Those experiences bring Enchanted and Korey closer while her parents are wondering why they can’t come into the session or why she’s staying hours longer. Once their relationship goes public thanks to a viral video Korey released without Enchanted’s knowledge, Enchanted joins Korey on tour. Her parents aren’t sure, but Korey’s female assistant Jessica agrees to be a guardian for Enchanted. Jessica is a woman, so the parents trust her to watch over Enchanted. But of course that’s not what happens.

Enchanted is transformed into the adult singer Korey wants her to be but so is another girl from the showcase that Enchanted finds in Korey’s mansion. They both are locked into their respective rooms. Jessica tells Enchanted she can’t leave the room for any reason—even going to the bathroom in which she’s given a bucket. The fairy tale romance Enchanted thought she had quickly is going south with Korey controlling her every move. She eventually breaks away but not before she’s a suspect in his murder.

The story mirrors what we know of R. Kelly’s alleged sexual predatoriness on teenage girls. Enchanted is promised the singing career of her dreams by the famous Korey Fields as he lures her into a manipulative relationship.

One factor here is that other characters around Enchanted are embarrassed by her faux pas of spending time with Korey such as her Will & Willow friends. The Black social group mimicking the real Jack & Jill have text exchanges throughout the book judging Enchanted and her parents for what’s taking place in the limelight. They say their parents are judging Enchanted’s parents for signing off on the tour and losing contact with their daughter. Enchanted’s younger sister Shea is totally embarrassed at Will & Willow and at their predominantly White school about what Enchanted has done. Gabriella demands Enchanted leave Korey alone, which puts stress on their friendship until Gabriella disappears from Enchanted’s life. And when Enchanted tries to find Gabriella after leaving Korey, nobody believes Gabriella even exists.

The trust Enchanted and her family have for Korey in the beginning also stems from the celebrity status. Korey is a known figure, so why would he hurt Enchanted? Like the real R. Kelly, the fictional R&B singer had allegations against him in the media brought by women who had inappropriate relationships with him when underaged, but his success overpowered that news. People confuse celebrity for trust because these individuals are famous and they wouldn’t break the law with so many eyes on their every move, but the last several years have taught us that a lot of men kept secrets pre-#MeToo movement and when their secrets rose to the public surface, they were quashed.

The edge of eighteen is another issue explored in this book with Enchanted getting too excited to enter adulthood and make her dreams happen instantly. Usually adults learn quickly that dreams don’t happen in a snap, but teens desire that freedom on the highest level. And many girls find themselves in the grasp of men who promise them that freedom, and in this case, that dream if they engage in a sexual relationship with those men. They believe it’s their only hope while they also get their hearts involved, which is what Enchanted does when she feels like she has to protect Korey’s feelings especially when he’s dramatically displaying them and blaming the outbursts on his past.

Overall, this book has triggering elements but heightens the sexual, physical, and emotional abuse a girl can go through while in a relationship with a grown man.

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Book Review: ‘His Only Wife’ by Peace Adzo Medie

His Only WifeHis Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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

His Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medie dives into African family relations that can arrange an marriage yet destroy it at the same time.

The story opens with Afi, a twentysomething struggling seamstress and failed student living in Ghana, preparing for her wedding. Without her husband, whom she never met. Going through with the marriage because of her shortcomings, Afi also wants to please her mother who wants to please Aunty Faustina Ganyo, a wealthy woman in the community who has her hands on everything―and likes it that way. Afi knows her mother never recovered from her father’s death, and now the head of their extended family is her stingy Uncle Pious. But Afi’s mother has received a lot of help from Aunty, and Aunty offering her favorite son Elikem “Eli” Ganyo to Afi to marry is the ultimate gift.

Moving away from her small village of Ho to the big city of Accra, Afi lives in a luxury apartment. Without her husband, whom she still has never met. It turns out Aunty set up Afi with Eli because she doesn’t like Eli’s Liberian girlfriend Muna. Not only is Muna not Ghanaian, but she’s too tall, has a manly shape, and a “roasted coffee beans” complexion, and she smokes cigarettes, drinks alcohol, and refuses to connect with the family and culture, according to the Ganyos. Plus, the daughter Muna had with Eli is battling sickle cell anemia, and they had already lost a child due to the same illness, so the Ganyos see Muna as a threat to their family line. But they also said Eli will leave Muna for Afi, who is light-skinned and Ghanaian, exactly what the Ganyos prefer for Eli’s wife. As Afi and Eli finally get close, Afi realizes that she still lives in the apartment while Muna lives in the mansion. She fights to get in the mansion, and when she does, she thinks the fight for Eli’s affection is over. But it’s far from over.

Afi is a young woman who doesn’t come from money and has had her education hopes dashed after failing entrance exams twice. But her luck changes once she becomes a wife with money and a career thanks to her connections to a rich family. This novel shows the evolution of a woman who learns the sacrifices to find love and reach her dreams are based on a choice that was made on her behalf at her expense. The ties to the Ganyos threatens Afi and her mother, who desperately wants to keep Aunty happy since Aunty gave her her job and her humble home after her husband died. Afi’s mother depends heavily on Aunty, which means Afi needs to depend on Aunty and her every word. Afi is torn between what she wants from Eli, her allegedly lawful husband, and how her demands could impact her mother, her uncle, and other members of her family back at home where the Ganyos reign over the territory. The tug of war between her family and in-laws puts Afi in the middle, and she eventually decides to put herself first.

Overall, the story flows well with Afi becoming stronger only because she has to fight her family in the fight for love.

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Book Review: ‘The Meaning of Mariah Carey’ by Mariah Carey

The Meaning of Mariah CareyThe Meaning of Mariah Carey by Mariah Carey
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

*Reviewed by a dedicated member of the Lambily who has waited for this story for three decades*

The Meaning of Mariah Carey by Mariah Carey is an in-depth celebrity memoir that highlights the intersection of racial and familial trauma and how the world-famous songstress converted the pain into laser focus on talent exploration and superstardom success.

Mariah clarifies that this is her story from her perspective as she describes her family in the negative light that she viewed them. The story starts with Mariah’s childhood that hints at trauma described in many of her songs from “Outside” on the Butterfly album to “Petals” on the Rainbow album. The youngest of three children, Mariah is years apart from her teenage brother Morgan and sister Allison, who were both already showing signs of psychological damage from growing up in an interracial family in the 1960s and 1970s in New York City. Mariah also has the fairest complexion that makes her a target of sibling abuse ranging from her brother exhibiting violence to the point where cops are called to her sister pimping her out to a grown man. Race plays a huge part with her Black father and White mother and seeps into her upbringing as she lives with her mother in a White section of Long Island and visits her father in Black Harlem. The location forces Mariah to attend predominantly White schools where she’s called racial slurs on an everyday basis for being Black. Then when she hangs out with her father and her Black cousins on the weekend she feels her complexion comes up in the question of her paternity. One of the issues that bothers little Mariah the most is that her mother never could wrangle her curls. The untidiness of her appearance brings self-esteem down even more until her opera singer mother trains her to sing, and music becomes Mariah’s saving grace.

A major portion of the book covers a few chapters on her tumultuous marriage to Sony Music executive Tommy Mottola, who discovered her and became her first husband. Mariah goes into detail about how what looks like a storybook fairy tale romance is slow torture to her twentysomething self. She even calls the mansion in upstate New York she shared with Tommy “Sing Sing” like the infamous prison. Metaphorically, she describes the luxurious baths she would take as washing off the Mariah Carey persona to become an unhappy housewife. The mental abuse is more described here with what Mariah calls Tommy’s incessant anger that was shown to her all the time and visible to others in his inner circle.

There are explanations for some of her obsessions that have been magnified in the media to make her seem frivolous. For example, she connects with her idol Marilyn Monroe after seeing her in film as a young girl and learning little Norma Jeane Mortenson also had a tumultuous childhood. Mariah is “eternally twelve” because the physical and emotional abuse hit a fever pitch at that age where she wishes she could be a regular kid.

Like Mariah said on her book tour, what she says is unimportant is not in the book from the highly publicized engagement and breakup with Aussie billionaire James Packer to the highly publicized stint and battle on American Idol with rapper Nicki Minaj. She also brilliantly throws shade at other highly publicized events from her career to show the media monster she’s over it. And shade is hinted toward Jennifer Lopez, who Mariah claims she does not know, and now we know the subtle beef started way before the meme.

Overall, this is an extraordinary celebrity memoir by Mariah, along with her co-writer and Black cultural writer Michaela Angela Davis, that emphasizes her biracial identity and how that impacted her family and her drive. Because of the depth, it’s recommended to read the actual book though the audiobook is also an excellent choice due to the amount of well-known lyrics within the chapters. There is a lot of digging deep into the construct of race and how it could destroy individuals with Mariah describing her journey of working to overcome the obstacles placed in her path.

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Book Review: ‘Punching the Air’ by Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam

Punching the AirPunching the Air by Ibi Zoboi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When I say
That maybe
I was punching
All the walls
They put around me
Around us

I was punching
The air
The clouds
The sun


Punching the Air by Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam of the Exonerated Five illustrates a heart-wrenching portrayal of a Black teen boy trying to find what joy he has left in juvenile hall after being accused of putting a White teen boy into a coma.

Amal is a regular sixteen-year-old Black boy growing up in New York when he finds himself in a courtroom fighting charges that he put a White boy from another neighborhood into a coma. He gets sent to juvie, where he taps his artistic and poetic ability as best as he can, but he’s deterred at every corner. The other boys are volatile and the adults are judgmental. Poetry class is his only outlet, but Amal struggles with the work the instructor wants him to put into his poems. Then his artistry clicks for him, and this leads to him repainting a mural in the common area where the boys meet up with their families. Amal becomes known as “Young Basquiat,” a tribute to Jean-Michel Basquiat, until that morsel of happiness is taken away from him, and his life seems to be precariously hanging in the balance again.

The entire story is told in verse. This young adult novel differs from others exploring the racial justice movement since the main character is in actual custody and his freedom depends solely on what a White boy says, only if he wakes up from his coma. How a Black boy’s life depends on a White boy’s testimony shows readers the racial dynamics even kids are dealing with. They had gotten into a fight that went too far. Amal says he didn’t throw the harmful blow that put Jeremy in a coma. The boys don’t know each other because Amal and his friends crossed over the physical boundaries of their neighborhood that separate Black and White families with markers of housing, education, resources, and opportunities.

Mental health is a major theme. One way Amal tries to stay grounded is through his Islamic faith. It’s refreshing to see a Black Muslim teen in a young adult novel because the religion is rarely seen in the genre, and when it is, it seems to belong to a Middle Eastern kid instead. Amal’s faith ties him to his mother, who reminds him to pray five times a day. He knows he stands out as a devout Muslim in juvie, and his faith remains under threat inside those gray walls behind bars. Amal also struggles with his poetry and art in the dreary environment. The story examines the power of art for youth since it represents healthy expression. When art is taken away by adults to cause detriment, a teen’s mental health could deteriorate, especially if they’re in a situation like juvie.

Overall, the novel dives into a serious issue of incarcerated teens and those teens looking for any glimpse of bright light they can capture to strengthen themselves. The co-author Yusef Salaam was one of the five Black and Latino teen boys found guilty in the Central Park jogger rape case in 1989. Salaam and Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, and Korey Wise are now considered the Exonerated Five after they were exonerated in 2002 when the real rapist had been located through DNA testing. The novel is based on Salaam using his passion for art during his years behind bars also waiting for the truth to be revealed. That’s the most powerful aspect of this book: how race plays a part in who is trusted with the truth.

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Book Review: ‘Paper Gods’ by Goldie Taylor

Paper Gods: A Novel of Money, Race, and PoliticsPaper Gods: A Novel of Money, Race, and Politics by Goldie Taylor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Paper Gods by Goldie Taylor is a political thriller centered in Atlanta where characters pretend to be sweet as syrup to the public and wicked in private.

Equipped with degrees from Spelman College and Harvard Law, Atlanta mayor Victoria Dobbs is a force to be reckoned with. Her shiny life with her cardiac surgeon husband Marshall Overstreet and their twin daughters, Maya and Mahalia, after poet Angelou and gospel singer Jackson, is enviable. When her mentor Congressman Ezra Hawkins is shot dead by a sniper in the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, Victoria finds a red origami dragon beside Hawkins’ body. She takes it and tries to decipher the meaning since she’s seen one before. But Hawkins’ position is up for grabs, and Victoria wants it. As she announces her run in the special election, uber-wealthy White men Virgil Loudermilk and his cousin-brother Whit Delacourte look for their own candidate to snatch Victoria’s power. It turns out mostly Loudermilk’s actions have sinister origins, connected to a committee of White politicos arranging for Democratic Black politicos to hold city positions like mayor but not state positions like governor, reserved for mostly White Republicans. The forced racial divide in politics has piqued the interest of veteran reporter Hampton Bridges as he’s been pursuing the story for years. His snooping has placed him on the blacklist for Victoria, Loudermilk, and Delacourte. He’s also been a victim of a suspicious car crash with his latest college-age girl in the front seat that raises more concern. While everyone is trying to hide their secrets and dodge threats, they are making sure they protect their best interests no matter who gets killed in the process.

This novel explores the dual identity most politicos presumably live with. Mayor Dobbs, for example, is the impeccable Black woman worthy of likeability, but she’s also pulling strings behind the scenes to make sure she stays on top. Loudermilk and Delacourte remain top lawyers at major companies throughout the Atlanta region while pulling the strings in overall state politics. Everyone’s hands in this story are dirty and get filthier by the page. The amount of scandal that multiplies for each character makes it a page-turner, especially as characters get killed or almost killed. What incites character empathy is how the characters try to protect their families, with many members having the Southern-style double first name.

Overall, the novel is an entertaining take on the fictional political atmosphere that reads like a smooth investigative magazine piece. The author is the editor-at-large at The Daily Beast, so she uses many of the characters’ last names as their main names, meaning it’s written with journalistic flair. Read this book before the John Legend-produced ABC series starring Nia Long comes out. Also, the audiobook is hard to follow with the plethora of detail, especially all the names, and popular reader Bahni Turpin’s voice doesn’t vibe with the material.

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Book Review: ‘Luster’ by Raven Leilani

Luster by Raven Leilani
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

*Won book in a Goodreads giveaway*

Luster by Raven Leilani is an amazing debut novel that uses masterful verbosity to illustrate the evolution of a millennial Black woman character as she navigates through many obstacles to figure out what she wants to do with her life.

Twenty-something Edie is trying to figure out her purpose. She works at a publishing house but hasn’t fulfilled her passion for art to the fullest extent out of fear of failure. Love is not the goal as she stumbles through sexual partners, including co-workers. She wants a real connection, but when she gets fired over inappropriate sexual relations in the office, she finds herself in the arms of the digital archivist Eric. Not only is he distant, but he’s also married. Edie goes to a party at his house where she meets his wife, Rebecca, a pathologist. Now that Edie doesn’t have a secure job and is on the verge of eviction, Rebecca invites her to stay in the home. Edie soon meets Akila, the Black adopted daughter that Rebecca and Eric neglected to mention. She’s drawn to being a mentor to the young girl because Akila is a reminder of her younger self as she deals with flashbacks centering on her toxic family upbringing. She’s also drawn to finding out more about Rebecca, who keeps scheduling activities for them to bond as she strives for normalcy in her open marriage. As Edie grows closer to Akila, an unarmed Black woman and police situation occurs at the suburban New Jersey home that makes Edie quickly realize how she will always be an outsider in the home of her flaky boyfriend and his wife.

The writing is so elaborate but likable. The way the main character describes situations with her suicidal Seventh Day Adventist mother and her veteran atheist father to past sexual relationships to adventures with Rebecca in the autopsy room at her hospital workplace sticks with the reader. The brilliant writing slows the story progression, but when the plot climbs to the climax, it’s a satisfying result. Many issues are brought up in the one character such as career doldrums versus true ambition; quick sexual hookups versus extending them into disengaged long-term relationships; parental loss after surviving parental trauma; and being Black in a White family that doesn’t comprehend the experience of being Black. There are similarities to Kiley Reid’s Such a Fun Age with the coming-of-age modern-day tale of a millennial Black girl failing to make the best decisions, but the execution of this story and its elements resonates stronger.

Overall, the novel is a standout from the writing to the story development to the complex characters, though it’s a book where some readers may not like the heavy situations or the heavy wordage.

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Book Review: ‘The White Coat Diaries’ by Madi Sinha

The White Coat DiariesThe White Coat Diaries by Madi Sinha
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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

The White Coat Diaries by Madi Sinha is a fun mishmash novel that has a healthy dose of romance drama, family drama, and career drama.

Dr. Norah Kapadia is the daughter of a renowned cardiologist who died when she was a child in a car accident. So she wants to live up to his name, but it’s been difficult with her mother still mourning years later struggling with depression and diabetes. Norah’s brother and sister-in-law lay the guilt on her for not helping with her mother. Once she starts her residency, Norah quickly finds herself falling for her supervisor, Ethan. They start going out. Norah is falling hard, and she thinks Ethan is too until she discovers he may or may not be sleeping with another doctor. But when a patient on Norah’s watch dies unexpectedly due to Ethan’s advice, Ethan asks Norah to lie for him. Her feelings for him cloud her judgment. As she constructs the lie, she tries to figure out if Ethan is worth the possible obliteration of her medical career. But more mistakes along the way end up with her making sacrifices she didn’t expect.

The pressure to meet your career goals while being bogged down by family needs feels authentic, especially with Norah’s mother experiencing health issues and Norah being a doctor who helps when she can but can’t be on call 24/7 just for her mother. She has other patients! And she learns the importance of patient ethics as the book shows the stress of residency life and how patients’ well-being can still slip between the cracks when the doctors are not paying attention. While the doctors are worrying about patients, their own well-being is deteriorating, and they stay together all the time which leads to sexual tension. This story shows how hormones can lead to the wrong decisions as Norah, a virgin due to never having time for a social life, is still figuring out what it means to even be in love.

Overall, the novel is a page-turner since Grey’s Anatomy-like medical romances feel rare in the women’s fiction genre. The author is a doctor herself, so the ups and downs Norah is dealing with as she starts her career strikes a chord in the love, family, and friend departments.

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Book Review: ‘Cinderella Is Dead’ by Kalynn Bayron

Cinderella Is Dead by Kalynn Bayron
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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

Cinderella Is Dead by Kalynn Bayron is a fascinating take on what happened after fairy tale icon Cinderella married Prince Charming and how it’s not happily ever after.

Two hundred years after the death of Cinderella, in the kingdom of Lille girls are forced to attend a ball put on by King Manford. At the ball, a man will lay claim on the girl, and they’ll be married, even if the girl doesn’t want to. That’s the world Sophia lives in, and she hates it because she’s in love with her best friend Erin. But Sophia’s parents are putting everything they have into preparing Sophia for the ball in order for her to marry well, and Erin isn’t on board with defying the system. Sophia tries to get with the sacrifices until at the ball she realizes she can’t do that. In the process, she upsets the king and runs away into the dark forest. When she wakes up, she finds herself at Cinderella’s tomb with a redheaded girl named Constance who claims to be a descendant of one of Cinderella’s stepsisters. Constance tells Sophia the real story of Cinderella and how her life wasn’t a fairy tale, how a far more sinister event caused her death, leading to the kingdom diminishing the rights of girls and women in favor of male domination. Sophia becomes even more determined to be with Erin and works with Constance to take down the kingdom. They head to the home of the fabled godmother for assistance, and from there they learn even more history about their society and receive more fuel to save the girls and women of Lille.

The story opens the reader’s mind about the tale of Cinderella and how it can be interpreted as a failure and not a dream come true. The interpretation of the fairy tale’s legacy of oppressing females resonates in the current environment in different ways around the world, so it’s striking to see this kingdom struggle with real-life issues based on the interpretation of a well-known story. On top of the oppression, Sophia loves a girl and is told she can’t do that; it’s punishable by law. The transformation of Sophia’s love also uplifts the story with her feelings shifting to who supports her goal to take down the kingdom.

Overall, the novel moves with a nice energy, and the story continually interprets the Cinderella story in different ways that add to the uniqueness of this new story.

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Book Review: ‘The Black Kids’ by Christina Hammonds Reed

The Black KidsThe Black Kids by Christina Hammonds Reed
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Black Kids by Christina Hammonds Reed features a Black teen girl living in the wealthier outskirts of Los Angeles during the 1992 uprising, but the historical event’s impact falls between the cracks as the main character stays on the sidelines.

Ashley is a well-to-do Black girl living in the hills in an all-White neighborhood where even her own neighbors sit outside on the lawn as a pretend patrol. Ashley’s older sister Jo is considered rebellious and moves away to live in the Crenshaw and Koreatown area of the city, which eventually become hotspots during the unrest. Also, Lucia, Ashley’s nanny, is planning to move back to her native Guatemala with her family. And Ashley’s parents are off focused on their demanding careers. Then on April 29, 1992, the Rodney King verdict comes down. The unarmed Black man beaten by four LAPD officers the year prior doesn’t see justice as those officers are acquitted. Hours later, the city of LA is afire, dredging up a level of racial tension unseen in a generation. But Ashley still wants to fit in with her White friends at her White private school. She starts a rumor about Black male classmate with a promising basketball future being criminally involved in the uprising. Then all of a sudden she recognizes the microaggressions she had been dealing with for years from her White girlfriends. As she questions what’s happening to the city, her uncle drops off his daughter at Ashley’s home to stay focused on saving the family’s vacuum store threatened by the fires. How the uprising is affecting her family leads to even more revelations. She’s starting to see how race impacts her life. The tension pressurizes for days until it explodes at prom where Ashley experiences the ultimate betrayal from her so-called friends and realizes which friendships need to be killed and which ones need to be nurtured.

Ashley’s life and surroundings seem relatable today though it’s a story taking place almost 30 years ago. The author does a great job with framing the time element to make teen readers feel closer to the story.

The writing is flowery but gets convoluted with throwing the actual events of 1992 on the shelf in favor of character backstory every few pages. The amount of flashbacks bury the current moment. Though the flashbacks are interesting and intimate, they clog up the story development as it moves at a slow pace. With Ashley as the main character, she is also living the uprising precariously through other characters who seem to be more in the action or more affected like her sister Jo and her cousin Morgan. Showing the story from the characters who are in the heat of the uprising would’ve been more interesting. Ashley tends to be too aware where her voice comes off more adultish as she quickly picks up on the deep meaning of what’s going on around her. It’s noticeable via the audiobook where actress Kiersey Clemons gives the story a gloomy feel.

Overall, the synopsis feels a bit misleading with the focus on the 1992 LA uprising since the main character is physically removed from the situation therefore trying too hard emotionally to be involved with it. The more exciting story would be around the characters in the middle of the uprising. It’s a novel where you would want another character’s perspective or have the perspectives change every chapter.

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Book Review: ‘Saving Ruby King’ by Catherine Adel West

Saving Ruby KingSaving Ruby King by Catherine Adel West
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

*Given an advanced reading copy from the publisher via NetGalley*

Saving Ruby King by Catherine Adel West is a story about a young woman trying to figure out how to live with the abuse from her father when the community, especially their church, believe her father killed her mother.

Ruby King’s mother Alice is shot dead in her South Side Chicago home after returning from Calvary Hop Christian Church. This of course devastates Ruby but also worries her as she’s now stuck living in the house with her abusive father, Lebanon. Seen as the rough-around-the-edges guy, Lebanon is known to beat his wife, so in the eyes of the church community, he may have something to do with Alice’s murder. But at the time of the murder, he was at his bakery, so police believe it’s a robbery gone wrong. He keeps busy by visiting his sick mother Sara in the hospital. Ruby, on the other hand, is trying to stay calm though her best friend Layla thinks otherwise. Layla asks for help from her pastor father, Rev. Jackson Potter, but he’s not quick to help Ruby. This perturbs Layla, who entrusts others to help her get Ruby out the house. In her desperate struggle to save her friend, Layla discovers buried secrets between her family and Ruby’s family that causes her to question everything, including who killed Alice King.

Because Ruby is 24-years-old, a bona fide adult, the story at first doesn’t explain why she feels she has to stay with her father after her mother is killed. Why can’t she stay with Layla? It does a good job of showing Ruby slow to act in her grief while Layla speeds up her efforts. The desperation differs between the two friends with Ruby feeling she can handle the abuse and Layla wanting to end the abuse as soon as possible. Another storyline develops between Lebanon and Sara, who is very cruel to her son. Lebanon tries to figure out why his mother is the way she is, which becomes one of the buried secrets that turns the story upside down, but also shows the destruction he passed down to his household. The generational trauma and pain is so heavy on the Kings where abuse thrives in their home while the Potters ignore theirs and become successful leaders in the church. But Lebanon’s past took him to prison for another murder that Jackson was present at, so who killed that person becomes another mystery within the story. The inanimate object that plays a huge role in this story is the church. The author gives the church its own perspective as if the walls can talk—and listen.

Overall, the story unveils layers at different parts to explain why Ruby is pressured to stay home with Lebanon and his abuse, why Layla is so headstrong to save Ruby, and why Alice’s murder comes down to the buried secrets that changed the characters’ hearts.

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Book Review: ‘The Vanishing Half’ by Brit Bennett

The Vanishing HalfThe Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett is a riveting tale of two Black sisters who are so light-skinned that one decides to pass as White while the other accepts who she is. It delves into race and complexion but also into family ties ruptured by one person leaving the family by choice.

Desiree and Stella Vignes are twins living in Mallard, Louisiana, a town purposely populated by light-skinned Blacks. Desiree, the more outgoing and outspoken twin, conjures up a plan for her and Stella to leave town at sixteen. They sneak away from their home and end up in bustling New Orleans in 1954. They find work until one day Stella disappears without a trace.

The novel moves ten years forward with Desiree making the journey back to Mallard with her young daughter Jude. The townspeople notice right away how dark-skinned Jude is. When Desiree returns to her mother, she tells her she hasn’t seen Stella in years.

Unbeknownst to her family who she kills off when anyone asks about their whereabouts, Stella is making a life in Los Angeles with her husband Blake and young daughter Kennedy. Except Stella is living a lie: She is passing for White. Her struggle to keep the secret haunts her as she’s known around their White neighborhood in Brentwood as sometimes being moody and quiet. When a Black actor and his family fight to buy a home in the neighborhood, Stella worries her life will be ruined since she’s avoided her own people for so long to avoid her cover from being blown. Putting her Karen tendencies to the side, she decides to make friends with the Black mother living across the street from her and they become fast friends—something neighbors start gossiping about.

Years later, Jude heads to UCLA with the goal to find Stella. She doesn’t tell her mother that she thinks the missing twin is in LA, but she stumbles upon Kennedy and makes the connection that it’s her cousin. The two try to be family as Kennedy is conflicted about who she is, now knowing that her mother has been lying her entire life.

The literary fiction novel jumps timelines intersecting the twin sisters and their separate lives with their daughters who know the emotional strain the separate lives have brought upon the family. It’s reminiscent of Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng with the writing and storytelling style through characters’ various secrets. It’s definitely a graduation from the author’s debut novel The Mothers, which is a great debut novel also diving into secrets within a contemporary community.

At the end, the author says she was inspired by Imitation of Life, more the 1959 film rather than the novel by White Jewish author Fanny Hurst, who came under fire at the time for stereotypical presentations of the Black mother character as a Mammy figure and her light-skinned daughter as a tragic mulatta passing as White. The “passing” technique has left holes in Black families since the end of slavery, and it’s a topic that’s still relevant today as people may or may not defend their ethnicities based on their looks. With the conversation of race, this novel is a good choice under the anti-racism reads to emphasize how some people give up their old lives as one race for new lives under another race due to the opportunities they feel they couldn’t get before.

Overall, it’s an engrossing piece interlacing the lives of two sisters who don’t know where the other is because one becomes obsessed with dodging obstacles surrounding race until she evolves into a new person with a new past that subtracts her bloodlines.

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Book Review: ‘Rodham’ by Curtis Sittenfeld

RodhamRodham by Curtis Sittenfeld
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld is an alternative history book reimagining Hillary Rodham Clinton’s political path without former President Bill Clinton. It uses real history to piece together that potential path that still has its own bumps to the White House.

Fresh off her graduation speech at Wellesley College, Hillary Rodham heads to Yale Law School. There, she meets the charismatic Bill Clinton, who’s got the attention of most of their classmates with bragging about his hometown of Hope Springs, Arkansas, well known for its watermelons. His hometown pride and sense of humor attracts Hillary, who’s only dealt with boring boys. As Hill and Bill become an item, Hillary looks for confirmation from those around her to make sure it’s a good fit since there’s so much hope placed on her as a female striving to become a top attorney. Hillary’s mentor, Gwen Greenberger, a Black woman who owns a children’s rights legal nonprofit, doesn’t care much for Bill. But Hillary keeps going out with him. Their relationship grows and leads to multiple proposals until Hillary says yes. But their relationship is not perfect. Especially after Hillary finds Bill in bed with another woman. They still go off to Arkansas to help Bill get elected for governor. A serious allegation has Hillary rethinking everything, so when Bill loses the election, she breaks off the engagement and returns home to Illinois to start her life as a lawyer.

Hillary teaches at Northwestern University, but in 1992, Bill Clinton is running for president with his wife and two children by his side. Though she says she’ll help Carol Moseley Braun, who has the potential to be the first Black woman senator in the U.S. post-Anita Hill hearings, Hillary decides to run against Carol. She wants to be in politics now. Hillary wins the senatorial seat and has her eyes on the White House, a race she has lost twice before. But for 2016 she believes three times a charm. And so does Bill Clinton, who returns to the spotlight after dropping out of the 1992 presidential race when sexual assault claims bog down his campaign. Now Bill is a Silicon Valley tech tycoon, and with his money, he can run a better campaign. This throws Hillary off since she never got married nor had kids and wonders if she should’ve stayed with Bill back in the day to get that dream she’s supposed to want as a woman.

This book twists history in an interesting way where Hillary not only has her own path, but she lives the sometimes lonely life of a woman with ambition. It’s as if that was the path she could’ve taken in real life, but she comes from a generation where that path was seen as too treacherous; a woman needs a husband to be accepted by society. The story emphasizes her loneliness over the stretch of fortyish years as she still ponders if Bill Clinton was her soulmate because the path not traveled will always be reexamined time and time again.

In the book, there are two major Black women characters who are burned by Hillary, which struck me as a play on purpose to show how White women can eclipse the success of Black women without realizing it. Hillary’s mentor, Gwen, looks like she’s based on Marian Wright Edelman, the famous attorney behind the Children’s Defense Fund. The fictional Gwen also is in charge of a children’s legal nonprofit where Hillary works. Gwen is also married to a White Jewish attorney and has twin boys. Marian Wright Edelman is also married to a White Jewish attorney and has three boys. The story has Hillary and Gwen having a falling-out over Carol Moseley Braun.

In real life, Carol Moseley Braun does become the first Black woman senator in the U.S. for the state of Illinois, one of the elections won by women in support of Anita Hill’s 1991 testimony to Congress about sexual harassment allegations against U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who’s still on the bench today. The book has Hillary supporting Carol, then running against her and winning the election. Gwen accuses Hillary of destroying history. But it shows Hillary’s blind ambition circumventing other women, especially women of color who still have to pave their own political paths and make historical firsts. It also emphasizes the patience many politicians exhibit to let a candidate shine, with them hoping their shine comes two to six years later unless someone comes out of the blue and steals the shine then.

Overall, the book is a fresh take on revisiting Hillary’s potential presidency sans her former president husband, eliminating how she stood by his side throughout his career for so long and how she waited before she started her own political career. This shows what the beginning could’ve been for her and how the ending could’ve been in her favor.

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Book Review: ‘Open Book’ by Jessica Simpson

Open BookOpen Book by Jessica Simpson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Open Book by Jessica Simpson is a poignant memoir where she describes her successes and failures in a relatable way.

Once a part of the line of the teen pop machines introduced in the late 1990s, Jessica Simpson stood out with her debut ballad “I Wanna Love You Forever” getting the attention of divas from Whitney Houston to Celine Dion at a time when that type of powerhouse voice was disappearing from airplay. Growing up with a pastor father in a Baptist family, Jessica moves all over Texas, even with a stint in Colorado, where her father presides over multiple churches. They finally settle down in Richardson, Texas, and her big voice gets attention. She even tried out for the Mickey Mouse Club with her future industry friends: Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Ryan Gosling, and Christina Aguilera. She bombs the final audition even though Disney had sent her to acting school with Chuck Norris with her acting partner being the actor who embodied Barney, the purple dinosaur. That’s just one of the fun celebrity connections. She eventually finds fame when she signs with Columbia Records and gets a voice teacher who tells her she reminds industry folks of another young Texan songstress—Beyoncé Knowles.

She talks about her marriage with fellow pop star Nick Lachey and feeling the doubt before the walk down the aisle. In her early twenties haze, she learns she wanted to be a wife before she was ready and imagined herself like her mother and grandmother before her marrying at a young age. And she was a virgin, which exploded in the media more than she thought it would be. Once her marriage falls apart, she finds herself involved in an emotional affair with Johnny Knoxville, her The Dukes of Hazzard co-star. That’s the start of her love life coming under a microscope, most likely dating back to her days of simply stating she was a virgin and the media following her every love misstep.

One of the greater touching elements is the dedication to her cousin Sarah, who died at eighteen the summer before college in a freak accident. This defines Jessica’s life with her motivating to start a prayer journal because Sarah had one, and Jessica learns her name was under every date; her cousin was always praying for her. Jessica didn’t know she had all those prayers on her, especially after she deals with being molested by the daughter of a family friend. This haunts her later when she confides in the wrong person.

Along with her faith, Jessica is candid about her body perception issues, alcohol abuse, and how she still lost her way after making the comeback of helming a billion-dollar eponymous fashion brand and starting the family of her dreams. It shows her humanness that seems to be forgotten in the coverage of celebrities and their real problems.

Overall, the elements of her story are relatable, and she works at telling her story that way with her celebrity status. She sees her mistakes and understands how hard they were to overcome. On audiobook, her voice is flawless, breaking with emotion when it needs to and joking with the fun parts. At the end of the audiobook, there are six original songs that relate to her journey of writing down her story. It’s one of those more memorable celebrity memoirs because she strives to engage with her fans on a human level.

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Book Review: ‘Minor Feelings’ by Cathy Park Hong

Minor Feelings: An Asian American ReckoningMinor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong is an essay collection from a Korean-American writer who feels her voice, as well as the voices from other Asian Americans mostly women, hasn’t been fully understood on purpose.

The author describes “minor feelings” as the feelings nonwhite people develop about their own cultures based on the stereotypes they see in America and believing those stereotypes. She uses life experiences to convey those feelings, and the not-so-minor impact, that she had to rework and create her own philosophies about race and ethnicity in America.

Growing up in Los Angeles first in the Koreatown section, she discusses going to school where the Asian girls seemed to adopt the Latina and Black teenage girl culture they saw in the media and other times when she wrestled with how Asian identity was depicted in the mainstream. Her experience, for example, with the Los Angeles 1992 uprising barely exists since her family already moved out of Koreatown at the time, living the suburban American dream. From what she saw in the media, she said she felt torn knowing the Black community endured racism from the Korean shop owners in the area and those same shop owners becoming targets for destruction during the uprising.

Another story that stands out and runs long in the book surrounds Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, a Korean-American writer and artist who was murdered in 1982. The author describes learning about Theresa and her most famous work, Dictée. But the author worries that Theresa’s life being cut short at 31 after a man rapes and murders her in New York City overwhelmed her potential future. The author also describes the frustration that Theresa’s murder failed to gain much attention in the media as Theresa is just known as an “Oriental” woman and what happened to her fades. She goes into additional detail with describing the court case that wasn’t covered much in the media and interviewing Theresa’s brothers and friends for more insight into keeping her legacy alive.

Overall, the essay collection is informative. What she chooses to focus on is interesting and thought-provoking though some parts are more memorable than others.

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Book Review: ‘Know My Name’ by Chanel Miller

Know My Name: A MemoirKnow My Name: A Memoir by Chanel Miller
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Know My Name by Chanel Miller is a poignant memoir about a sexual assault survivor whose case gains enormous media attention as she struggles to find her voice amid the noise.

Chanel is known as Emily Doe in what becomes known as the Stanford Rape Case. At a Stanford University frat party in January 2015, Chanel is found unconscious half-naked outside by a dumpster being assaulted by Brock Turner, a star swimmer at the university. Chanel, at the time, is a recent graduate of University of California Santa Barbara who had decided to join her younger sister and friends at the frat party. But they get separated, and Chanel blacks out. She isn’t the perfect victim. She becomes too drunk to the point she passes out. She already graduated from another college, a lower-level one. She has a boyfriend. She lives in Palo Alto, miles away. This plagues her case throughout as she notices Brock’s golden white boy status as an Olympic-bound swimmer trumps what happens to her, who she is.

She narrates the hardship of being raped and not remembering the act. Her details of how she is found and realizing the number of men who had seen her in that position haunts her. As a student at UCSB during the infamous 2014 Isla Vista rampage where a mass murderer blamed his actions on girls who wouldn’t have sex with him, Chanel brings this memory up sometimes along with the fear of being punished by men for not letting them use her body as they like. During the trial, she sees Brock being believed more than her because of her unconsciousness at the party, her non-star status. Brock says Chanel enjoyed the penetration, the dry humping, the breast fondling so much she had an orgasm. His words over hers, his character witnesses’ words over hers follow her around as she tries to find peace in the yearslong case, even running to Rhode Island for an academic program and Pennsylvania to stay with her Wharton-bound boyfriend.

In the beginning, she mentions how she misspelled “subpoena” in a court document and that people judged her for it. But she is honest about not quite understanding the intricacies of the legal system and ultimately how she sees the system not being on her side. One important factor that becomes a theme is how she is defined as a white female in court. She’s half-Chinese. When this book came out, readers were surprised about her being Asian because the amount of support she received may have been determined by her whiteness alone. She shares how her mother is a well-known Chinese author and living within her Chinese culture in California.

Overall, the memoir introduces us to Chanel as she describes her journey to accept what happens to her post-trauma and how to use it as a force of positivity to help others going through a similar ordeal.

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Book Review: ‘It’s Not All Downhill From Here’ by Terry McMillan

It's Not All Downhill from HereIt’s Not All Downhill from Here by Terry McMillan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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

It’s Not All Downhill From Here by Terry McMillan is a true-to-life story about a black woman in her late 60s dealing with tragedy after tragedy and trying to find the good although she feels society telling her she’s too old to improve her life.

Loretha Curry is turning 68. She’s happily married to her third husband and owns a beauty store in Los Angeles. Her birthday is on New Year’s Eve while her twin sister was born the next day. On top of having different fathers, they never really got along. Loretha has a 40-something daughter who’s an alcoholic and a son she never gets to see because he lives in Japan with his family. Her granddaughter can’t keep a job and is pregnant by her live-in boyfriend. Her mother is in a nursing facility and won’t stop talking about dying soon. On the health side, Loretha can’t stop eating fast food and sweets that have led to obesity and diabetes. Though her life seems relatively charmed, she shares everything with her four lifelong girlfriends: Korynthia, Poochie, Sadie, and Lucky. But when tragedy strikes on her birthday, Loretha wonders if she can ever pick up the pieces since she feels she’s in advanced age. Looking for a transformation, Loretha makes little steps as she tries to fix the issues within her family and find her happiness again. She encourages her girlfriends to do the same though tragedy strikes them in different ways as well.

This story reminded me of my mother and her friends, who are in the same age group. They’ve seen a lot of setbacks in their lives, but now they’re seeing more tragedy as they enter old age and the growing pains that come along with it, especially as a black woman trying to keep the family and friend circle together. The book follows Terry McMillan’s style of piling so many issues on the main black female character which results in numerous situations and numerous characters, but it all worked well this time unlike in her last book I Almost Forgot About You.

Overall, it’s a good read that becomes thought-provoking of what we endure by a certain age and how we let age define what’s next for us with forgetting to live in the present.

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Book Review: ‘The Boyfriend Project’ by Farrah Rochon

The Boyfriend ProjectThe Boyfriend Project by Farrah Rochon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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

The Boyfriend Project by Farrah Rochon is a delightful romance novel that delves into the workplace relationship.

Samiah is a talented software engineer working at one of the hottest cybersecurity startups in Austin, Texas. When another woman live tweets her horrible date with Samiah’s boyfriend, Samiah finds herself at a restaurant telling him off along with a third woman. As their confrontation goes viral, Samiah and her two new friends, London and Taylor, become internet celebrities. It’s embarrassing to Samiah until a new colleague Daniel shows concern for her well-being. Nobody else has been doing that, so this catches Samiah’s attention. With superstar pediatric surgeon London and rising fitness guru Taylor, Samiah embarks on the boyfriend project, where the three women promise to stay committed to their goals for six months in order to be prepared to have a real boyfriend. Samiah decides to focus on a mobile app that she had abandoned years before. But the attraction to Daniel is too strong. They eventually fall for each other until Daniel’s undercover mission threatens their budding relationship.

Though the beginning comes off goofy with the date going viral and the girls showing up right on time to catch a player in motion, the story develops with Samiah and Daniel fighting their urges to stay focused on their ambitious careers in tech and Samiah, London, and Taylor cementing a solid friendship.

Overall, it’s a digestible romance that delivers on the promise of a fun read. It shows successful black women and men trying to find love in a millennial-attracting metropolis. The mystery part of what Daniel is trying to dig up on Samiah’s company adds another element as does Samiah’s dedication to increasing the company’s community service reputation. The descriptive career elements add more oomph to this story.

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Book Review: ‘When They Call You a Terrorist’ by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and asha bandele

When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter MemoirWhen They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Patrisse Khan-Cullors
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir written by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and co-written by asha bandele explores Patrisse’s journey growing up poor in Van Nuys area of Los Angeles and how that led to co-founding the Black Lives Matter movement. I read the book for research on the 1992 LA uprising, which is mentioned once in passing, but the book is very relevant in light of the protests across the U.S. over the death of George Floyd.

The memoir starts with a quote from Assata Shakur and a foreword by Angela Davis, emphasizing the civil rights activism message. Patrisse is raised by a single mother in Van Nuys in an impoverished barrio, a mere mile away from the wealthy neighborhood of Sherman Oaks, now known in the black community as where the fictional Black-ish family lives. She has two brothers and a sister, but she watches her brothers get stopped by the police often as teens, and one of her brothers, who’s later diagnosed with schizophrenia, eventually lives a life in and out of prison. She’s loved by her father but learns he is not her biological father, so she develops a relationship with her biological father, who also is in and out of prison. She describes both those relationships with love to focus on the importance of fathers in a black girl’s life. By the time she’s in her teens, she senses she belongs to the LGBTQ community and makes lifelong friends. She’s on the road to becoming an activist for people like her, but the death of Trayvon Martin in 2012 leads her and fellow activists to form Black Lives Matter to raise their voices for black people killed at the hands of police and racists.

Her story is beautifully written in a poetic prose that remains in present tense throughout, which is rare for a memoir where the past is in past tense. The attention to which details to share is extraordinary as well. She points out the autobiographical details that informed her activist path such as walking down the street as a kid with her mentally ill brother and watching the police frisk him over nothing. It was difficult to put down the book with the flow of the words and the story.

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