*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.
A wife must come to terms with losing her husband and uniting her family abroad as they grieve in the Netflix series From Scratch. Based on the best-selling memoir by actress Tembi Locke, the series’ last episode summarizes the grief that is expressed throughout the book.
In the last episode, Amy, played by Zoë Saldaña, brought her husband Lino, played by Eugenio Mastrandrea, home to palliative care as his rare soft-tissue cancer worsened with no cure in sight. After a few days of bittersweet heartache, Lino dies. When Amy meets with palliative care counselor in “Between the Fire and the Pan” episode, she’s told to bring her daughter, Idalia, played by Isla Colbert, to Lino after he passes. She does that in the beginning of this episode to let her daughter grieve her father.
The grieving process is palpable. Amy later collapses as her mother Lynn, played by Kellita Smith, and her sister Zora, played by Danielle Deadwyler, bathe her in the bathtub as she uncontrollably cries. We don’t hear the grief as instrumental music drowns them out. Amy then stays in bed while her family takes over her house. Zora tells Amy that she’s afraid of her slipping away. Amy breaks down that she can’t fly to Sicily to bring Lino’s ashes home. She doesn’t have the energy; she already gave her all.
FINDING HOME IN SICILY
Amy finds herself driving on the rollercoaster roads of Sicily with Idalia in the backseat, along with Lino’s ashes. They follow the directions to Lino’s family’s home, where they are greeted by the entire town led by Lino’s mother Filomena, played by Lucia Sardo. Amy rises out of the car and presents Lino’s ashes to his mother. Filomena gets teary as she carries the urn high in a solemn parade through the narrow alleys to her house.
The priest comes to the house for the blessing while Filomena breaks down. Idalia gets agitated about the overwhelming emotion in the room. Amy carries her to their guest room where she explains they are leaving Lino in Sicily. Idalia thought her father would come back with them to Los Angeles. After the blessing, Filomena tells Idalia she can see her father anytime in her imagination. All in black, the family later goes on another trek to bury Lino as the townspeople bow in respect.
The next day, Filomena makes Amy breakfast, consoling her about the everlasting heartbreak of losing a husband. Filomena’s husband and Lino’s father Giacomo, played by Paride Benassai, dies in the episode “Heirlooms,” a year after visiting the family in LA in the “Bread and Brine” episode. Neither of Lino’s parents attend the wedding for Amy and Lino that takes place in Italy, a sore spot in the “A Villa. A Broom. A Cake.” episode that continues to emerge throughout the series. This is not the first time they have spoken, but it’s the first time Amy has been in the family household and is being treated with care by her semi-estranged mother-in-law.
Amy goes to a wine bar for a moment of peace away from her family. She’s the only woman there. The older Sicilian men watch her in suspicion. Not only is she American, but she is Black, and they have probably never seen someone who looks like her up close. The town’s mayor shares his condolences with Amy. She walks out of the bar and notices the women hanging outside on their patios watch her walk back to Filomena’s house. In Italian, they comment on her darker complexion. Amy thinks it’s comical that they don’t realize she understands Italian as she heads home. For another break, she runs up the hills around the town and sneaks a peek of the Mediterranean Sea as the backdrop to rolling green hills. That’s her moment of peace.
TOWN GOSSIP
“Grief in Sicily is not an individual experience but a communal one where people are called upon to witness and support one another,” Tembi writes in the book where she recounts her life with her late husband Saro, who died from cancer. “The way certain African cultures use drumming as an active means of dealing with their grief—the rhythm is played continuously for days, day and night, over and over, as a constant reminder to the community of its loss—in Sicily the story of the deceased is told over and over.”
In the show, the mourning tour continues as Filomena brings Amy and Idalia to other townspeople’s homes to sit and relive memories of Lino. At one home, Idalia gets sick eating too much candy. The nosy women notice Idalia gripping her tummy once they’re outside and convince Filomena to take this opportunity to see the doctor’s house. Nobody has really seen the so-called palace-like interior. The women want to know what’s inside the massive house. Amy can’t believe she’s being wrapped up in town gossip.
Filomena takes Idalia’s hand as they head to the doctor’s mysterious home. He invites them inside to sit with them in the their mourning. They notice a photo of the doctor with Lino framed on a side table. The two are standing outside the restaurant in Florence where Amy and Lino fell in love in the debut episode “First Tastes.” The doctor explains he had visited Florence and met with Lino years ago. He now prays often for Lino. The unexpected visit becomes the most impactful. Once they leave, the women swarm around the family to hear what they saw. Idalia tells them that she saw several chandeliers inside. This satisfies the town gossipers.
That night, Amy dreams of Lino. She finds him in the kitchen in Sicily cooking her a meal. They embrace. Then she wakes up. She can see him whenever she wants. In the morning, she learns Filomena wants her to meet with the family lawyer. Filomena doesn’t give Amy details until Amy finds herself beside her sister-in-law being asked by the lawyer to sign papers. It’s a deed to the land. Now that Lino as the oldest son is gone, Amy inherits the farmland. She refuses to sign the paperwork.
While resting back at the house, Amy is summoned. A dispute over a car accident with the town’s mayor has broken out with a driver who speaks English. The driver tells Amy that the mayor hit his car. Amy explains to the driver that the man in the car is the mayor, and with the townspeople crowding the area, the mayor will win the argument. The driver takes the loss and speeds away. The townspeople cheer for Amy. She’s one of their own.
SANT’ANNA
Amy goes to church with Filomena while it’s empty. Filomena is praying to Saint Anne or Sant’Anna, the mother of the Virgin Mary, the grandmother of Jesus Christ. She says she prayed to this saint when Amy and Lino married, when Lino died. She wants Amy to make Sicily her home. That’s why she sent her to the lawyer’s office to inherit the land. Later, Amy brings Idalia to the spot she had found while running where the hills and the sea create a picturesque vision of peace. Amy tells Idalia that this is where Lino still feels alive because it’s their home.
Sant’Anna’s Day falls on Amy’s birthday. Sant’Anna is the patron saint of travelers and widows. It’s the opportune time to celebrate Lino.
“These women pray to her in times of difficulty and times of celebration,” Tembi writes in the book. “I had also learned that she was the patron saint of widows and travelers. I was born on her day, July 26. I was married on her day. For the people of Aliminusa, that meant she was my personal saint. ‘You drew a good card,’ Nonna told me.” Her family comes to Sicily to join in the Sant’Anna Day procession that starts with a prayer then ends with the band playing in celebration. She describes the moment as the “magic hour,” a phrase in cinematography describing “the moment when the diffused rays of the sun make everything more beautiful.”
Magic hour happens onscreen for Amy’s family, who flies from LA and Texas, to join Amy, Idalia, and Lino’s family as they celebrate life. The joyous and heart-wrenching event ends the series.
Netflix’s limited series From Scratch follows a couple affected by cancer, but after years of remission, they’re seeing cancer rear its ugly head again right when they feel like they’re back on track.
Amy, played by Zoë Saldaña, and Lino, played by Eugenio Mastrandrea, have just found out that Lino’s rare soft-tissue cancer has made a return after seven years in remission. Seven years ago, they weren’t parents to their adopted daughter, Idalia, played by Isla Colbert. They try to strategize how to talk to their young daughter about Lino’s cancer spreading to this lungs.
The family has a picnic at the park, where Idalia wants to share her ice cream cone with Lino. But Amy has to tell her that her father can’t have ice cream because he’s sick. Immediately, Idalia puts her ice cream cone down, as if she knows the history of the cancer and the possibility of its return.
Later, Amy cuts Lino’s hair in their home’s garden. It has become a sanctuary for them to grow the seeds of foods from Sicily that are necessary for Lino’s authentic Sicilian cooking. When Lino was first diagnosed with cancer in the “Bitter Almonds” episode, he cut his hair alone in the bathroom amid his chemotherapy treatments. But now Amy makes sure she’s present for Lino as he sacrifices a part of himself for his illness.
Amy’s mother Lynn, played by Kellita Smith, and Amy’s sister Zora, played by Danielle Deadwyler, takes turns sitting with Lino during his chemo treatments. On Zora’s shift, Lino gets a spiked fever. He’s rushed to the hospital as Zora calls Amy. The family is back in the hospital monitoring Lino. Amy learns that Lino was taking anti-anxiety meds that may have contributed to his fever.
Lino’s condition worsens. Nurses and doctors keep ignoring Amy’s pleas to find out what’s wrong with Lino. They tell Amy that they can only talk to family. Since Amy is Black and so are the family members in LA, the racism patients and their families experience in the hospital is on full display. Amy notifies the carousel of doctors that she is Lino’s wife and deserves straight answers, but she’s not getting any straight answers.
When the rest of Amy’s family arrives from Texas, Amy receives a call from Lino’s mother Filomena, played by Lucia Sardo. Filomena tells Amy that she had a dream of the Virgin Mary. The Lord is calling Lino home. Amy absorbs the heartbreaking premonition and leans into finding out why her husband is deteriorating.
Meanwhile, Lino is so sick that he’s considered infectious, so children are not allowed in the wing of the hospital where he’s receiving care. This adds more distress to Amy because Idalia cannot see her father. The family devises a way to sneak Idalia inside to spend time with her father. Idalia sits beside Lino as they read a book together. The touching moment inspires Amy to later have dinner alone with Lino while he’s propped up in his hospital bed. Lino asks Amy to go back to her life during his recovery. But they still don’t have answers on what the recovery will entail.
Lino is not getting better. Amy calls Lino’s oncologist about the hepatologist also treating Lino. The oncologist says Lino needs a liver transplant. Amy chases the hepatologist down in the parking garage, where the doctor tries to stay mum after hours but then reveals Lino’s liver is failing. After finally receiving a confirmation, Amy yells at the hepatologist for not being straight with her. None of the many specialists treating Lino seem to be communicating as Lino undergoes countless tests. As Lino’s condition worsens even under this magnitude of surveillance, Amy notices an advertisement for palliative care.
Amy and the palliative care specialist talk about giving Lino care as his body dies. He needs comfort at this point. Continuing medical care is pointless and expensive. Amy notifies Filomena about the decision. Lino leaves the hospital via ambulance as their home is prepared for his last days.
Within days, Lino requests a party to see family and friends at their home’s garden. Amy detects his burst of energy, but their family friend Preston, played by Rodney Gardiner, gives Amy the voice of reason that sometimes a burst of energy reinvigorates someone who is dying. The loved ones surround Lino in the garden.
CARING FAMILY
The frustration of seeing a loved one suffer in their condition mirrors the book, where memoirist Tembi Locke describes her journey of falling in love with her husband to caring for him as he dies from a rare cancer. A parade of specialists go in and out of her late husband Saro’s hospital room.
“Suddenly we had descended into a medical landscape of dueling specialists, expert professionals each of whom saw one piece of the puzzle that was Saro’s body,” Tembi writes. “I was the only one looking at the whole of his life, his body, his heartfelt desires. I tried to humanize the patient behind the chart.”
The discrimination is another aspect. Tembi’s omnipresence in the hospital room is not enough for medical staff to understand she’s the main point of contact for her husband’s care.
“As the heads of hepatology, endocrinology, immunology, gastroenterology, and orthopedic surgery made their rounds, I succumbed to writing my name on the hospital room whiteboard: ‘CARING FAMILY: Tembi, wife. Black woman sitting in the corner.’ It was my response after two nurses had asked me if I was ‘the help.'”
Experiencing racism as a caretaker puts added stress on the situation. With some of the book’s elements changed for the screen, this is a situation that needed to be shown that even in a matter of illness, a person’s skin color can impact the information they receive to deal with the illness. It’s one of the several moments throughout the TV series and the book that shows an interracial couple receiving backlash for their union. Even when it’s a matter of life and death, medical care may be subpar. We see in the next episode that when the patient and their family take matters into their own hands, they can live the rest of their lives on their terms.
The second episode of Netflix’s new drama From Scratch based on Tembi Locke‘s heart-wrenching memoir about her love journey with her late husband has the young couple move to Los Angeles for a fresh start.
It’s November 2002 where Amy, played by Zoë Saldaña, and Lino, played by Eugenio Mastrandrea, have finally united in the City of Angels after an 18-month long-distance relationship. They live with Amy’s sister Zora, played by Danielle Deadwyler, as they look for jobs in their preferred fields. While Amy works in an upscale Hollywood art gallery with an international flair, Lino is only able to get a job at an American Italian restaurant that serves plates piled with questionable-looking spaghetti and meatballs.
WORKING FOR THE MAN
At the gallery, Amy sells a photographic piece featuring girls in burqas resembling basketball jerseys for Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. The fact she can recall Kobe’s fluency in Italian due to a military upbringing seals the deal with the man who says he’ll buy the piece. Office politics makes Amy’s boss upset, but the sale translates into a greater deal of respect.
On the other hand, Lino leaves work early because of slow days at the restaurant. He gets restless. As Thanksgiving approaches, he asks Zora if he could help with the grocery list. Lino heads to Jons, one of LA’s supermarket fixtures, for a trip where he discovers frozen corn dogs.
The scene features a Jons employee showcasing the corndog samples played by Nick Locke, the brother of author Tembi and their showrunner sister Attica Locke, who’s also an award-winning mystery novelist. Their other brother, Doug Locke, makes a cameo as a receptionist at the art gallery. When Lino and Zora bond over the grocery list, one of Tembi’s first TV appearances in a 1994 episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Airplays in the background.
With Amy gaining the ranks at the art gallery, she asks her boss for an introduction to a top Italian restaurant chef who could hire Lino, an authentic Sicilian chef who has mastered Italian cuisine. Amy drives Lino to the interview. During the interview, the chef belittles Lino for his immigrant status and Sicilian ethnicity. Lino returns to Amy’s car, upset over the ordeal.
CULTURE NOT ACCEPTED
For Thanksgiving dinner, Lino, as the chef in the house, cooks the entire holiday meal. But when the family of Amy and Zora arrive looking for Black staples like macaroni and cheese, collard greens, and, of course, turkey with gravy, Lino’s Sicilian-inspired meal is pushed off the table to the windowsill, uneaten. On top of the failed job interview, Lino feels his culture is disappearing.
Over dinner, Amy’s mother Lynn, played by Kellita Smith, comments that she wants “Brown grandbabies” and asks Lino if his family approves of him cohabitating with Amy. Lino shares that his family hasn’t approved of him in a long time after he left home to attend university then dropped out to become a chef. But, yes, running to America to be with a Black woman who’s not Catholic adds a cherry on top to the disappointment.
After being bummed about the adjustment to his new home, Lino sits up in bed to a surprise bowl of hot grits. That’s what Amy calls the dish, but Lino calls it polenta. The boiled cornmeal is a shared delicacy in Texas and in Sicily; there are similarities between the two places and their two cultures. Earlier, Amy had gone to the restaurant looking for Lino, who had left before his shift ended. She notices his coworkers playing football, better known as soccer by Americans. It motivates Amy to bring Lino to an Italian American bar where he can bond with his work friends and new friends who share the same culture.
In the parking lot of the bar, Amy and Lino get carried by “Try a Little Tenderness” playing in the car. They start dancing behind the vehicle. Lino would listen to the blues while he cooked in Florence.
“In a city, where there is no center, I’m your center, you’re my center,” Amy says. Their dreams may never come true, but they will at least have each other.
Her knee is about to drop when Lino intercepts. He wants his knee to hit the concrete first, but Amy says no. She proposes marriage. Lino says yes. His friends are in the parking lot, too, and cheer for him. With the good news, he calls home. His father picks up the phone. He tells his father that he’s marrying Amy. His father disowns him.
In the book, Tembi and Saro, the inspiration for Lino, get married in New York City in front of a justice of peace due to his visa. Though their real-life proposal may not have been as romantic as the one portrayed on the show, they plan a wedding ceremony and reception in Florence. Amy and Lino do the same.
The first episode of Tembi Locke‘s fictional adaptation of her best-selling memoir From Scratch starts with a Black Texan law school student and a Sicilian chef taking life and love risks in Italy.
Starting in fall 2000, Amy, played by Zoë Saldaña, arrives in Florence for an art program. With a pickup from friend Caroline, played by Kassandra Clementi, Amy is taken to her dorm building where she meets her suitemates. She’s an artist though she’s also a student at Georgetown Law School, where she could become a lawyer like her father and choose a practical career path compared to being an artist. So, she’s taking a risk with her future by indulging in Italian life with art, friends, and a boyfriend whose family owns an art gallery.
One day, Amy and Caroline run into Lino, played by Eugenio Mastrandrea, a chef at a nearby fancy restaurant called Ristorante Vigna Vecchia. Amy points out Lino’s black pointed toe boots as an interesting fashion choice. As Amy struggles with her Italian, Lino laughs and lets her know he knows English.
They later go on a solo walk after a night at the bar where Caroline works. Lino tells Amy he is fluent in English from his time when he studied translation at university. He disappointed his father with his decision to leave his home in Sicily and abandon farming his family’s land. He also abandoned his university studies to become a chef.
Amy is doing the same thing, sort of. When she calls her older sister Zora, played by Till star Danielle Deadwyler, back in Houston where their family is having a barbecue, their father refuses to talk to Amy over her decision to delay her return to Georgetown Law in favor of an art program in Florence.
The look
Lino soon brings Amy a bike that he “finds,” so she won’t have to ride the bus to her program. He then invites her to Vigna Vecchia. She says she may bring the guy she’s dating, and Lino says he is welcomed as well.
That night, Amy brings her two suitemates instead to Vigna Vecchia. The moment she pulls her chair out to sit at the table conveniently facing the kitchen, Amy locks eyes with Lino. Then Amy proceeds with her suitemates to eat extravagant samples of the finest Italian food described in the book as “heaping plates of strozzapreti with braised red radicchio in a mascarpone sauce; fusilli in a fire-roasted bell pepper sauce; gnocchi with gorgonzola in a white martini reduction with shaved aged parmigiano.”
The book goes on to tell the true story between author Tembi Locke and her real-life love, Saro, who was a Sicilian chef working in Florence. This meal sealed their fate.
“I began to see that Saro was speaking directly to me, each dish an edible love letter: succulent, bold. By the third and fourth courses, I accepted that this chef who wore elf boots was making love to me, and we hadn’t even so much as kissed.”
Image: Netflix
Though the limited series is more of a fictional portrait, Tembi said in a recent interview with her sister and showrunner Attica Locke that the moment the characters Amy and Lino connect in the restaurant is what happened in her love story as well, and that that moment ignites the story.
“In Florence and that first time I go to Acqua al 2, which was my late husband Saro’s restaurant, and he cooks me a meal. You cannot have a series called ‘From Scratch’ without that moment,” Tembi said.
“First Tastes” is not only the name of the episode but also the first chapter of the book, where the precise moment they realize that a relationship may blossom from a delicious meal is described as below:
“From my place at center stage, I could see Saro moving like a wizard behind a scrim of sizzling heat, orchestrating the clamorous clanging of pots; setting the pace and unfurling magic onto plates from Acqua al 2’s narrow, searingly hot kitchen. At first glance, the kitchen looked like Aladdin’s cave. There was Saro in a white T-shirt, floor-length apron, white clogs, and red bandanna with James Brown hollering out, ‘This is a man’s world’ from a boom box in the background. Saro caught my eye, smiled, and signaled that he would be out later to say hello.”
Back to the TV series, which shows Amy running off with her pseudo-boyfriend after saying goodbye to Lino. Even after a meal and a spark, Amy can’t fall for a chef when her other romantic option has a connection to art.
African roots
On that walk where Amy and Lino converse about their lives, Lino first pronounces Amy’s name as “ah-mee,” which involves “love” in Italian related to amore. Amy shakes her head no, as she pronounces her name the American way and says it’s short for Amashé, which she tells Lino means “beautiful one” in the South African Zulu language.
Amy later calls Zora, who has moved from Houston to Los Angeles to achieve her dreams while starting out as a teacher. But then their mother Lynn, played by Kellita Smith, gets on the phone. She’s staying with Zora until she embarks on an ashram in Topanga. Lynn gets straight to the point, advising Amy to not “fall for some Disney princess castle shit” in “White-ass Europe.” She reminds Amy about her friend’s daughter who is studying in Kenya as a Fulbright scholar and dating a Ph.D. student in Nairobi. “That is some different shit,” Lynn explains.
The phone call in the series is not much different from the book. The author mentions how her shortened name, Tembi, is for Tembekile, a name bestowed upon her by South African folk singer Miriam Makeba, who was married to former Black Panther Stokely Carmichael. Her parents spent time with both of these figures during their participation in the Pan-African Liberation Movement, a piece missing from the series.
When Tembi talks to her mother further about the situation, she tries to balance her behavior with her mother’s expectations:
“I had been raised to sympathize with the challenges facing people of color across the African diaspora. Why, then, had I come to Italy, the heart of European culture, to study abroad? Why was I not in Kenya, like the daughter of her friend Mary from her former Movement days? Mary’s daughter was on a Fulbright and teaching Kenyan children English as part of her studies at Wellesley. Why was I not more like Mary’s daughter? And why in God’s name was I continuing to hook up with ‘white boys’? She wanted something more for me.”
The spread of parental worry reaches Amy’s father Hershel, played by Keith David, as he arrives in Florence in Texan regalia complete with denim jeans held up by a leather belt with a huge buckle, a pair of cowboy boots, and a cowboy hat. He comes with Amy’s stepmother Maxine, played by Judith Scott, to survey Amy’s adventures in Florence. They go to Lino’s restaurant for dinner. Lino believes Amy’s parents are there to meet with him until Amy’s boyfriend enters the scene late. Devastated, Lino backs away into the kitchen.
Hershel tells Amy he doesn’t care for either of her love interests. He also reminds Amy that she shouldn’t fall for any man in a land where the men don’t look like her, the same sentiment her mother shared earlier.
BLACK GIRLs want ROMANCE too
Lino approaches Amy about the mistaken meeting. He confesses his unprecedented feelings for her. She doesn’t say much in response but gives him a notebook he had eyed at a street market. The sentiment that Black girls can’t have fairy-tale romances resonates with Amy, especially when she shares the update on Lino with Zora.
During her art showcase, Amy impresses her teacher, which was the professional goal she had during the program that has been clouded with the possibility of love. Then she sees Lino at the showcase, but he slips out without going up to Amy. She runs after him and asks why he’s leaving. Her teacher calls after her about an opportunity to hobnob with other artists. She tells Lino to meet her at her place later. As she walks away, Amy seems worried that Lino will not come over later. Her carefree time in discovering art and engaging in lust may have cost her true love.
At home, she falls asleep as nighttime falls. Rain starts to fall. The pitter-patter against the windows wakes her. Did Lino come? The moment she looks outside, Lino is looking up at her window. He looks apprehensive. She runs outside in the rain and kisses Lino. A kiss turns into a sleepover. Once they wake in the morning, Lino tells Amy he can cook anywhere in the world. He is willing to uproot his life to be with Amy. That’s when Amy realizes a fairy-tale romance may be in the cards for her after all.
Tembi Locke’s memoir about her love journey with her late husband is getting an onscreen adaptation with fictional characters similar to her and her family members.
From Scratch became a best-seller in 2019 when the actress opened up about meeting her chef husband Saro in Sicily while studying abroad in college and how they built their lives in Los Angeles in order for her to pursue her Hollywood dreams. When her husband succumbs to cancer, she finds herself as a single mother to an adopted daughter as they venture through Sicily to engage with her husband’s family and homeland without him.
The Netflix series debuts Oct. 21.
In the eight-episode miniseries, Zoe Saldaña plays Amy, a character like Tembi who’s a Black woman from Texas in Italy for her dramatic studies. Eugenio Mastrandrea plays Lino, a character like Saro who’s a Sicilian chef who falls for Amy and follows her to the U.S. where they build their family until his untimely death.
“When the book club was going to pick ‘From Scratch’ as its May ’19 book club pick, every day literally I wake up and I’m like, ‘I don’t know how, but thank you, just thank you,’ because it has been such a gift,” Tembi said at a Netflix sneak peek event. “They have been incredible collaborators. They have believed in every aspect of this story, every frame of it, everything that we wanted to do, and they have really given us as sisters this platform to put this book on a bigger canvas.”
Attica Locke, who’s an award-winning mystery novelist and screenwriter who worked on Hulu’s Little Fires Everywhere based on Celeste Ng’s novel, joined her sister Tembi to bring the family love story to the screen.
“I think there is a beautifully absurd family dynamic at the heart of it, and it touches on everybody. And all of our families has some element of the absurd to them underneath our love,” Attica said. “There’s love of food. There’s love of my culture. There’s love of music. And we wanted to show kind of every aspect of it. I don’t think there’s any dyad. I don’t think there’s any relationship between two people that doesn’t hit a bump over the course… including the sisters hit a bump that they have to kind of have to get through and decide in the time that we have left, how do we want to spend it together as a family?”
The miniseries covers a yearslong journey of a character falling in love then learning to preserve that love, Tembi said.
“We wanted to render life in its fullest sense, and here’s a woman coming into her womanhood and all that that means with it and owning all of who she is and the arc of her journey of self-discovery,” she said.
Due to her proximity to the true story, Attica said she’s learning how to tell stories more authentically through book and TV projects.
“I would hope that, and what I think is happening in my life, is that through the books and through the television shows that I’ve worked on, that I’m getting closer to and more comfortable with telling the truth,” Attica said. “What telling stories that have fundamental truth in them. And whereas I may have been more shy as a younger writer about saying something that is clearly my point of view that I believed to be the kind of truth of something in the world.”
As for a non-spoiler, Tembi said the first time the character based on her goes to the restaurant owned by the character based on her late husband and receives a cooked meal is pure magic. “You cannot have a series called ‘From Scratch’ without that moment.”
*Given a copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review*
Zyla & Kaiby Kristina Forest is a young adult romance bringing together two teens who think they are too different but find enough common ground to develop a relationship that always seems threatened by outside factors.
The story starts with the title characters going missing from a school ski trip, but it really starts the summer before where the two are lowly amusement park employees trying to earn extra cash for college.
Hezekiah “Kai” Johnson is working at Sailor Joe’s Amusement Park over the summer when he and his on-and-off-again girlfriend Camille start arguing in front of customers. Camille approaches Kai over his alleged flirtatious behavior with other girls on the job. Kai denies the allegations, but the hullabaloo has almost cost them their jobs. Once Kai gets home to Aunt Brenda and Uncle Steve, they tell him he needs to swear off girls until he graduates high school and matriculates at the family alma mater Morehouse College, the historically Black men’s college in Atlanta. His father and Uncle Steve are college alumni while his mother and Aunt Brenda attended the Black women’s college next door, Spelman College. The dream to continue the HBCU legacy keeps Kai motivated, especially since he lost both of his parents in a car accident. Even when he catches up with his therapist, he doesn’t seem to understand why he keeps getting entangled with the wrong girls.
Zyla Matthews is the opposite. She’s afraid to commit to any relationships. Her mother constantly curling herself up in a ball and crying over her latest boyfriend is enough relationship drama for Zyla to handle. Since Zyla, her mother, and her sister live with her great-aunt, Zyla wants to add more money to her college stash. She has her eyes on fashion school in Paris. So, she’s spending her summer at Sailor Joe’s. When a rowdy customer threatens Zyla at a booth, Kai inadvertently comes to the rescue.
Sparks fly between the two employees even as summer fades and they attend their separate schools. Morning text message exchanges kindle the flame. Once Zyla and Kai start getting serious, they fret over introducing each other to their respective guardians. Kai’s uncle and aunt had already banned him from dating while Zyla’s mother and great-aunt have track records of making mistakes with men.
Despite their families’ reactions to their budding romance, they get the blessing to continue seeing each other. Zyla goes to parties with students who go to school with Kai, including his trail of ex-girlfriends. This worries Zyla, who has never been in a relationship and fears she’ll get hurt like her mother does every other week. Kai, who’s still battling the overwhelming grief of losing his parents suddenly, tries to reassure her that he only has eyes for her. Then on Valentine’s Day, when they shed all their insecurities, the night is ruined to the point they have to face their fears again about their relationship.
What stands out in this book is how both characters are dealing with their inner demons and letting those demons get in the way of their relationship. With Kai growing up without his parents and Zyla still facing the post-divorce reality within her family, they are trying to figure out how to define love for themselves. The hormones are telling them one thing, but their brains are forcing them to think further on their gravitational pull. Kai is known as a player when in actuality he’s looking for love in all the wrong places. He tries to live down his reputation as Zyla becomes insecure about being thought of as another one of Kai’s girlfriends, mainly when they’re around Kai’s crew.
The family dynamics also play a large role in the story. Kai is close to Uncle Steve and Aunt Brenda, but he feels he is failing at being his best for them. They’re the ones who took him in when he became an orphan, so he feels he’s letting them down when he prematurely commits to his promise of not dating any more girls. In the beginning of the book, we see Zyla comforting her mother in the car after another breakup. Zyla is the one who lets her mother rest in the backseat and drives them to their destination. She has to be mature beyond her years for herself and her younger sister Jade since her mother doesn’t have it together and that’s why they live with Aunt Ida, a curmudgeon always muttering about how bad men are.
If you’re interested in reading the audiobook, narrator Tashi Thomas does a fantastic job of switching up the characters’ voices. When she returns to the story narration, sometimes her voice comes off as mechanical, but the audio recording is a smooth listen.
Overall, this YA romance dives deep into how family dynamics can interweave into a blossoming relationship. The mental health aspect ties into the family dynamics as we see Kai attending therapist sessions that contribute to his character development of trying to be more self-aware about his relationships. Zyla, an aspiring fashion designer, uses retail therapy as her outlet instead finding pieces at the thrift store to create her own designs. They are teenagers looking for ways to cope with their environments, and once they bond together, they start to question their stability as a unit and as individuals. The ups and downs to get to the happily-ever-after feels like a pleasant ride on the Ferris wheel.
Lola Tung as Belly in 'The Summer I Turned Pretty'
Best-selling young adult novelist Jenny Han has another series in the book-to-TV limelight. After finding success on Netflix with the three film adaptations of her To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before series, she now has her first YA series The Summer I Turned Pretty getting the screen treatment with its recent premiere on Amazon Prime Video.
Not new to advocacy for having more Asian and Asian American stories represented in books, Jenny spoke about the issue on her press tour while a mention made an appearance on the new TV show.
On CBS Mornings this week, anchor Gayle King asked if Jenny was hurt when she wasn’t able to sell her early works featuring an Asian character. Jenny says her feelings weren’t hurt “because it was so matter-of-fact.”
To be able to sell her first YA novel, she made her main character Belly Conklin, played by Lola Tung onscreen, appear White.
Jenny Han in ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ (Peter Taylor/Prime Video)
“I had tried to sell a book with an Asian main character before this one, and people weren’t really interested in it,” says Jenny, who’s also the executive producer of the show. “The thing I would hear is we already have a book with an Asian. I thought with The Summer I Turned Pretty, it was a story I hoped would kind of have an effervescence to it that people can lock onto. After that, I wrote To All the Boys, and I was able to write my own ticket once I had garnered trust from an audience that might not pick up a book with a cover with someone who didn’t look like them.”
The character of Belly became half-Asian, half-White, and is now depicted as biracial on the updated media tie-in cover issued by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.
To All the BoysI’ve Loved Before was the first best-seller to have an Asian girl on the cover, according to the author. The fight for representation even spilled onto the choice to have her headshot on the back cover.
“Even with my first book, it was important to me to put a picture on the back of it because at first they were like, ‘Hmm, we don’t really need it.’ It wasn’t really done at the time,” she says. “I want other young Asian women to see that and think it’s possible.”
The Summer I Turned Pretty follows Isabel “Belly” Conklin who’s on the verge of turning 16 when she heads off to Cousins Beach in Massachusetts with her mother and older brother for another summer with the Fishers, her mother’s best friend and two sons.
The foursome who grew up together every summer are now teenagers, and Belly feels the energy shift between her and the oldest Fisher son Conrad, played by Christopher Briney, and the younger Fisher son Jeremiah, played by Gavin Casalegno. Belly always had a crush on Conrad when she was considered too young and nerdy. Now that she’s blossoming into womanhood, heightened by a debutante ball, she becomes entangled in a love triangle that stretches beyond her and the two brothers.
In one scene in the fourth episode “Summer Heat,” after a conflict reaches a fever pitch in the Fisher summer home, Belly’s author mother, Laurel, played by Jackie Chung, heads to a bar to cool off. There, she sees the local author she’s been competing with in the beach town’s bookstore. Once they start chatting, the state of their careers comes up.
“When we went out with my first novel, everyone said, ‘Uhhh, there is no market for a book about a Filipino main character, and now it’s all they want from me,” says author Cleveland, played by Alfredo Narciso, about his treatment in the beginning of his fictional publishing career.
The show also stars Rachel Blanchard as Susannah Fisher, the mother of Conrad and Jeremiah. Rachel starred as the ’90s TV version of Cher Horowitz, the main character of Clueless loosely based on Jane Austen’s classic Emma.
The second season of the series has already received the green light for production.
March 24th marks what would’ve been Erica Kennedy’s 52nd birthday. The promising author, who published two novels entrenched in media and entertainment through two multicultural female characters, died in 2012. Ten years after her untimely death, her novels Blingand Feministaremain pillars in the modern-day establishment of the “chick lit” and “bitch lit” genres for Black and multicultural readers that shouldn’t be forgotten.
Born in 1970, Queens native Erica Kennedy Johnson worked in entertainment and fashion journalism with writing clips for New York Daily News, Vibe, and InStyle. She blogged at the now-defunct xoJane and other sites that dominated the female-centric blogosphere in the mid-2000s. Writing and commenting on entertainment gave her a platform as she amassed over 4,000 followers on her personal Twitter—a number in 2012 that would’ve paved the path for Black Twitter stardom. Her last tweets defend President Barack Obama against conservative attacks and give us a play-by-play of Scandal episodes. Famous film critic Roger Ebert even listed Erica as a tweeter to follow and tweeted about her death, directing users to Erica’s writer-friend and memoirist Bassey Ikpi’s now-private blog.
Erica’s writing chops sprouted from her fashion publicity résuméworking at Tommy Hilfiger and from her upbringing in what she coined the “hip-hop glitterati” with mogul Russell Simmons and Puff Daddy before leaping into the literary world with her 2004 debut novel that reportedly earned her a $500,000 advance.
Bling follows Mimi, a half-Haitian and half-Italian twenty-year-old from Ohio who arrives in New York City with her two best friends as they audition as their R&B girl group Heartsong. Looking beyond the poorly named group that was Mimi’s brainchild, fortysomething record label executive Lamont Jackson only sees Mimi as the answer to his prayers of climbing to the top of Triple Large Entertainment, known for churning out rappers. Mimi meets with Lamont alone and gets signed to the label as a solo star.
To give her the industry-standard look, Lamont assigns her the ultimate glam squad: He introduces her to Lena, an entertainment lawyer’s spoiled daughter; Kendra, Lamont’s on-and-off girlfriend who happens to be a supermodel; and Mama Jackson, Lamont’s mother who adores Kendra and treats her as the daughter she never had because she’s ready for a daughter-in-law. But the magnetization between Mimi and Lamont makes them the hottest couple in the industry. Mimi, also known as the “Haitian Mami,” begins work on her album while Lamont tries to clean house in preparation for their meteoric rise that may not look the way they expect.
“I’m not all decked out in bling. I recognize the absurdity of driving around in a powder blue Bentley. I do have to worry about paying bills.”
The satirical novel has 500 pages of deliciousness where the reader is transported behind the scenes watching characters who resemble real R&B and hip-hop stars of yesterday and today. Each section of the novel is titled as a disc with chapters named after hip-hop hits. More details even include the naming of Mimi’s debut album track list complete with the namedropping of real-life producers like Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins as contributors.
The main character, whose birth name is Marie-Jean Castiglione, goes by a nickname that R&B-infused pop diva Mariah Carey adopted publicly a year later during her The Emancipation of Mimi reign. Having the stark age difference also feels Mariah-like since she was twenty-years-old when she fell for the record label executive Tommy Mottola after a similar Cinderellaesque discovery.
Coincidences make the book feel authentic in its world-building and character-building, which are points of difficulty for every writer: trying to make the world they’re describing in words feel as real as possible that the reader easily transports there mentally and lives in the world seeing the action from the outside.
Bling was published by Miramax Books, a publisher created by brothers Bob and Harvey Weinstein to turn books into movies through their film production company Miramax Films. The book’s film rights had been sold to Miramax Films, according to the book’s original printing. Miramax had been affiliated with The Walt Disney Company until 2005, leaving Miramax Books to be folded into Disney’s publishing arm Hyperion.
Of course, Miramax experienced its downfall when co-owner Harvey Weinstein’s sexual assault allegations came to light in 2017, with two allegations evolving into convictions. Miramax is now owned by beIN Media Group and Paramount Company. The Weinstein brothers had created their own imprint again after Miramax Books’ sale, called Weinstein Books, which had been dissolved by Hachette Book Group in 2017 again after Harvey Weinstein’s sexual assault allegations ignited the #MeToo revolution.
“The thing I admired so much about Erica is that she deferred to no one. Shortly after Miramax optioned her first novel Bling, she called me at The Hollywood Reporter, and we were talking about the deal’s press coverage. I was able to get a photo of Erica in the paper—a beautiful one, natch. But she was outraged that Variety ran a photo of Harvey Weinstein instead of her. ‘It’s not like he wrote the book,’ she deadpanned. And I just had to laugh. She was right, of course. Most people would have been satisfied to take second billing to an Oscar winner. But not Erica. And that was the kind of hutzpah that so defined her for me.”
That being said, will we ever get the Bling movie? Will Gabrielle Union or another book-to-screen lover adapt the novel to film, especially after living in a post-Empire world? Bling‘s film rights are still owned by Erica and Miramax, the U.S. Copyright Office record shows.
The book itself looks like it hasn’t been published on a large scale since its hardcover and paperback releases in 2004 and 2005, respectively.
Erica’s author profile hasn’t been updated by Macmillan, which published her 2010 sophomore novel that earned the certification of “bitch lit” highlighting a female character wanting it all and pushing whoever and whatever out the way.
Published by Macmillan‘s imprint St. Martin’s Griffin, Feminista, from its title, is meant to stretch out the typical “chick lit” mold featuring a character in her thirties vying for career elevation and trying to ignore the biological clock yearning for a man.
Sydney Zamora is an entertainment journalist for Cachet looking for a promotion as her publication underpays her. Like Mimi in Bling, Sydney identifies as biracial with a White mother and an Afro-Cuban father. Sydney drops thousands for matchmaker Mitzi Berman, but her hard shell repels potential matches. While on assignment, she meets Max Cooper, a department store heir who wants to prove himself as an executive. They butt heads, and their aspirations get tangled into each other. The fact that he’s an eligible bachelor that Mitzi tries to rein in doesn’t phase Sydney. But in a happily-ever-after, Sydney and Max eventually fall for each other.
What makes Feminista a different type of “chick lit” romance novel in general is the character is fighting with herself to stabilize her career and lifestyle only to yearn for the male partner that female professionals can’t dream of because they’re too busy taking over the world. That’s the definition of being a feminist many women take on, so Sydney struggles to figure out if she’s losing her feminist status if she conforms to societal pressure even if that pressure could translate into love and happiness that will enhance her life.
“Female ambition was something I really wanted to explore. Even in 2009, there are so many women who are not comfortable being the boss. I got a lot of money for my first book and I remember a male friend said, “Wow, you must have a great agent!” I said, “Yes, that’s why I hired him.” But I still felt guilty about having the money. I’m loathe to even admit that but it’s true.”
Seeing these Black, multiracial, multicultural female characters at pivotal ages striving in realistic Manhattan while pushing toward their career and love goals invited a more diverse readership. These books came out in the mid-2000s when novels by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus of The Nanny Diaries fame, Lauren Weisberger of The Devil Wears Prada fame, and Plum Sykes of Bergdorf Blondesfame reigned supreme on the best-sellers’ lists by White women featuring fictional White women.
In a Q&A with The Frisky, Erica says she decided to make her starring ladies multiracial, “so anyone could see what they wanted to see in her,” in reference to Sydney from Feminista. The novel has an illustrated cover depicting characters that can be misconstrued as White, Erica says, but it came from a black-and-white illustration with a splash of color.
Erica wasn’t alone in drawing non-White readers into the “chick lit” audience. At the time, Tonya Lewis Lee and Crystal McCrary Anthony co-wrote the Gotham Diaries following the intersection of circles within the Black elite of Harlem. They shared the spotlight with Erica of being on The New York Timesbest-seller’s list. Another writing duo, Charlotte Burley and Lyah Beth LeFlore, wrote Cosmopolitan Girls about two Black women who think each live an enviable life under the lights of New York City. All the authors posed for a photo at the Bling launch party at the now-closed NYC nightclub Lotus in June 2004.
Danyel Smith, also an entertainment journalist and former Vibe editor, wrote Blissin 2005, a music-themed novel like Bling with Mariah Carey, now an author herself, contributing a review on the front of the book. And lastly Tia Williams had her first novel The Accidental Diva debut in 2004 but last year’s runaway hit Seven Days in Junemade her a rising literary star.
Authors like Tia Williams and Danyel Smith, whose successful podcast Black Girl Songbook will be translated into a nonfiction book called Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop coming out April 19, are finally receiving their flowers with their newer work.
When Erica died in 2012, Black female writers who knew her as a friend and an acquaintance wrote moving tributes, hinting at her mental health struggle possibly being the reason for her demise. The sisterhood of support in recognizing her unique creativity but also recognizing her and their own depression created a strong presence online. There wasn’t a cause of death announced, her family asking for privacy.
“My hope is that the next black author gets six figures for this kind of book. I just want to be home in sweats and glasses, writing.”
Our ever-evolving literary landscape brings to mind how Erica was eligible in having the same accolades such as having her book seen on screen or selected by a celebrity book club. But leaving her work behind, we can only spread the word on what she gave us—whether her books are considered likable enough with their range of online reviews—since they’re worth reading and imagining pieces of ourselves within the pages she wrote.
Stacey Abrams on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on Dec. 8, 2020. (ABC)
Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams rose to prominence in 2018 as the first Black woman selected by a major party to vie for the highest position in her home state. But when she lost, she alleged voter suppression led to an unfair election. She started an organization and wrote a book about the ordeal but also saw another wave of popularity in 2020 for her contribution to the election of the future president.
Stacey is the prime example of a working woman who writes novels on her free time. She moonlights as a romance novelist under the pseudonym Selena Montgomery. As Selena, she has written four novels with HarperCollins Publishers. As Stacey, she has written two nonfiction best-sellers.
In January, Henry Holt and Co. announced Stacey would release a book in June during the height of the presidential election about her work to make voting equal for all Georgians. Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America is written like the average politico book discussing her upbringing but adds her journey in creating Fair Fight, an organization dedicated to promoting fair elections in Georgia and across the U.S., encouraging eligible adults to vote, and educating them on their voting rights.
On her media book tour earlier this year, the Yale-trained lawyer and Spelman Woman also motivated Americans to participate in the 2020 Census, which was impacted by the sudden COVID-19 pandemic in March. In her book, she recalls how Republicans such as outgoing President Donald Trump and conservative pundits badmouthed her for not conceding in her 2018 election.
My cardinal sin is that I have refused to concede the outcome of the 2018 gubernatorial contest, and I have made a crusade of calling out and defeating voter suppression. I do so as a private citizen, and this reality greets me every day. As I have traveled the country in the months since the election, I typically begin my speeches the same way. “I am not the governor of Georgia,” I tell the assembled crowds, to boos and hisses of support. Then I declare with equal conviction a truth I hold deep in my heart: “We won.”
Fast forward to November when Democratic President-elect Joe Biden grasped victory, and Stacey along with Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms were being thanked publicly by other Democrats and supporters who credited their campaigning to moving voters to the polls in a traditionally Republican red state in which Biden won the electoral votes. Though she said Trump ridiculed her for not conceding in her election, he has yet to concede in his latest election.
Soon after the election, Stacey notched another book deal. Doubleday and Anchor Books announced her new novel, While Justice Sleeps, a U.S. Supreme Court thriller expected to be on bookshelves by May 25, 2021. Doubleday will manage the first printing of 150,000 copies while the book will be published in hardcover, e-book, and audiobook by Penguin Random House. The paperback version will be published by Anchor in 2022. A romance novelist, Stacey said she’s excited to join the legal thriller genre.
As an avid consumer of legal suspense novels and political thrillers, I am excited to add my voice into the mix. Drawing on my own background as a lawyer and politician, WHILE JUSTICE SLEEPS weaves between the Supreme Court, the White House and international intrigue to see what happens when a lowly law clerk controls the fate of a nation.
As we wait for Stacey’s next book, she spent 2020 becoming an icon in the political world and in the literary world.
*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.
With most of the U.S. population under some type of stay-at-home measure, it may feel like we’re Madeline Whittier from Nicola Yoon’s 2015 blockbuster young adult novel Everything, Everything. The 17-year-old character stays home her entire life after her doctor mother diagnosed her with severe combined immunodeficiency, meaning she’s allergic to pretty much everything.
Maddy’s illness keeps her indoors all day every day. Her mother takes every precaution to make sure Maddy’s bubble stays clean, with the assistance of Maddy’s home nurse Carla. But once Maddy lays eyes on her new neighbor Olly outside her bedroom window, she questions the lifestyle her mother put her in after her father and younger brother died years before.
Since Maddy stayed inside for 17 years, she has moments in the book that reflect on what many may be experiencing now amid the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.
KEEP THE CONSTANT ONLINE INTERACTION
At the start of the chapter “Secrets,” Maddy expresses how her online communication is reducing her sleep: “My constant IMing with Olly is catching up with me. I fall asleep during not one but two movie nights with my mom. She begins worrying that something’s wrong, that my immune system is compromised somehow.”
As Maddy and Olly mostly depend on online interaction, they exhibit the qualities many people are feeling now with using social media like Instagram Live and videoconferencing tools like Zoom to stay in touch because they can’t see each other in person. Authors are using IG Live to read their works, give writing lessons, and interview each other. Book clubs have found refuge with Zoom to keep their book selections on schedule and continue or start face-to-face meetings.
MAKE FANCY HOME-COOKED DINNERS
The “Menteuse” chapter describes the dinner traditions between Maddy and Pauline, which sometimes include Carla. “Everything at Friday Night Dinner is French. The napkins are white cloth embroidered with fleur-de-lis at the edges. The cutlery is antique French and ornate. We even have miniature silver la tour Eiffel salt and pepper shakers.”
She goes on about how Pauline likes to make cassoulet, “a French stew with chicken, sausage, duck, and white beans.” Except their cassoulet only contains the white beans because of Maddy’s allergies.
One of the conversations that keeps coming up online during the coronavirus isolation is people are either learning to cook or taking pleasure in cooking their own meals. To dress up dinner night, incorporate a theme to keep spirits high at least once a week for yourself or your family.
EXAMINE STRANGE DREAMS
In “My White Balloon,” Maddy describes a dream she had about the house breathing in line with her. On an inhale, walls collapse, but on an exhale, they expand.
According to the World Economic Forum, a sleep expert says the reportedly high rate of vivid dreams people are having during the coronavirus lockdown may be due to information and emotional overload. Maddy is having similar dreams early on in the book when she first sees Olly, which revs her up to find out more about him and how to communicate with him.
MOVE THROUGH THE BOOKSHELF
In “Madam, I’m Adam,” Maddy tells us she returns to a lot of her favorite books: “Sometimes I reread my favorite books from back to front. I start with the last chapter and read backward until I get to the beginning. When you read this way, characters go from hope to despair, from self-knowledge to doubt.”
If you have an obsession to outpace your book consumption with buying more books before finishing most of the ones already on your shelf, then this may be the perfect time to make a dent in your home readership. With physical libraries closed, it makes us value the books we own and revisit the ones we love. More people, not really bibliophiles, have done Marie Kondo makeovers on their bookshelves, so bulking up a skimpy bookshelf can still be done with supporting independent bookstores and checking out library e-books through a mobile device.
Everything, Everything was also made into a motion picture in 2017, starring Amandla Stenberg, Anika Noni Rose, and Nick Robinson.
In January, Henry Holt and Co. 
