Friday, October 27, 2017

New Books Coming Your Way, October 31, 2017

Invocation to Daughters by Barbara Jane Reyes
96 p.; Poetry

Invocation to Daughters is a book of prayers, psalms, and odes for Filipina girls and women trying to survive and make sense of their own situations. Writing in an English inflected with Tagalog and Spanish, in meditations on the relationship between fathers and daughters and impassioned pleas on behalf of victims of brutality, Barbara Jane Reyes unleashes the colonized tongue in a lyrical feminist broadside written from a place of shared humanity.

Have You Met Nora? by Nicole Blades
320 p.; Fiction

She’s blossomed from a wealthy surgeon’s beautiful daughter to elegant socialite to being the top fashion stylist in the country. And Nora Mackenzie is only days away from marrying into one of New York’s richest, most powerful families. But her fairy tale rise is rooted in an incredible deception—one scandal away from turning her perfect world to ashes…

What no one knows is that Nora is the biracial daughter of a Caribbean woman and a long-gone white father. Adopted—and abused—by her mother’s employer, then sent to an exclusive boarding school to buy her silence, Nora found that “passing” as a white woman could give her everything she never had.

Now, an ex-classmate who Nora betrayed many years ago has returned to her life to even the score. Her machinations are turning Nora’s privilege into one gilded trap after another. Running out of choices, Nora must decide how far she will go to protect a lie or give up and finally face the truth.

The King Is Always Above the People: Stories by Daniel Alarcón
256 p.; Short stories

Migration. Betrayal. Family history. Art. Doomed love. In Alarcon’s hands, these topics are taken to heights of emotion and revelation. In “The Thousands,” people are on the move and forging into new lands, hopes and heartbreak abound. A man deals with the fallout of his blind relatives’ mysterious deaths and his father’s mental break down and incarceration in “The Bridge.” And in the tour de force story, “The Auroras”, a man severs from his old life and seeks to make a new one in a new city, only to find himself acting out the manipulations and desires of a powerful woman.

Deeply humane and richly drawn, full of unforgettable characters, these stories reveal a time and a place that is both foreign and yet eerily familiar. Throughout the book, you are in the hands of an accomplished master.

Justice for All: Selected Writings of Lloyd A. Barbee edited by Daphne E. Barbee-Wooten
304 p.; Political Science

Civil rights leader and legislator Lloyd A. Barbee frequently signed his correspondence with "Justice for All," a phrase that embodied his life’s work of fighting for equality and fairness. An attorney most remembered for the landmark case that desegregated Milwaukee Public Schools in 1972, Barbee stood up for justice throughout his career, from defending University of Wisconsin students who were expelled after pushing the school to offer black history courses, to representing a famous comedian who was arrested after stepping out of a line at a protest march. As the only African American in the Wisconsin legislature from 1965 to 1977, Barbee advocated for fair housing, criminal justice reform, equal employment opportunities, women’s rights, and access to quality education for all, as well as being an early advocate for gay rights and abortion access.

This collection features Barbee’s writings from the front lines of the civil rights movement, along with his reflections from later in life on the challenges of legislating as a minority, the logistics of coalition building, and the value of moving the needle on issues that would outlast him. Edited by his daughter, civil rights lawyer Daphne E. Barbee-Wooten, these documents are both a record of a significant period of conflict and progress, as well as a resource on issues that continue to be relevant to activists, lawmakers, and educators.

Wednesday, October 25, 2017

#BookReview: WE'RE GOING TO NEED MORE WINE by Gabrielle Union

Summary: One month before the release of the highly anticipated film The Birth of a Nation, actress Gabrielle Union shook the world with a vulnerable and impassioned editorial in which she urged our society to have compassion for victims of sexual violence. In the wake of rape allegations made against director and actor Nate Parker, Union—a forty-four-year-old actress who launched her career with roles in iconic ’90s movies—instantly became the insightful, outspoken actress that Hollywood has been desperately awaiting. With honesty and heartbreaking wisdom she revealed her own trauma as a victim of sexual assault: “It is for you that I am speaking. This is real. We are real.”

In this moving collection of thought provoking essays infused with her unique wisdom and deep humor, Union uses that same fearlessness to tell astonishingly personal and true stories about power, color, gender, feminism, and fame. Union tackles a range of experiences, including bullying, beauty standards, and competition between women in Hollywood, growing up in white California suburbia and then spending summers with her black relatives in Nebraska, coping with crushes, puberty, and the divorce of her parents. Genuine and perceptive, Union bravely lays herself bare, uncovering a complex and courageous life of self-doubt and self-discovery with incredible poise and brutal honesty. Throughout, she compels us to be ethical and empathetic, and reminds us of the importance of confidence, self-awareness, and the power of sharing truth, laughter, and support.

Review: Early on in her book, Gabrielle Union encourages you to grab a seat, get comfortable and grab a glass of wine because she has a lot to say, and she's not kidding. We're Going to Need More Wine is a thoughtful, honest and sometimes funny portrayal of the life and times of the ageless actress and activist.

Union tackles subjects that others might shy away from with tact and grace. Her willingness to share not only the highs of her life, but also the lows, is refreshing. Rape and the aftermath, the anxiety that comes with raising black boys, and growing up as an only (as in one of the few black people in her area, not an only child), are just some of the lows that she shares with us. She celebrates the sisterhood of black women in Hollywood, marrying her best friend, and reconnecting with her roots by spending summers in Nebraska (I know, right?).

We're Going to Need More Wine gives you an up close and personal, unflinching view of Gabrielle Union and I love it. I kind of want to be her best friend now. I don't really drink wine, but I'd curl up on the couch for a session of girl chat with her with a mai tai in hand. I'm willing to bet you would too.

272 p.
Published: October 2017
Disclaimer: Copy of book received from publisher; opinions are my own.

Friday, October 20, 2017

New Books Coming Your Way, October 24, 2017

A Good Cry: What We Learn From Tears and Laughter by Nikki Giovanni
128 p.; Poetry

The poetry of Nikki Giovanni has spurred movements, turned hearts and informed generations. She’s been hailed as a firebrand, a radical, a healer, and a sage; a wise and courageous voice who has spoken out on the sensitive issues, including race and gender, that touch our national consciousness.

As energetic and relevant as ever, Nikki now offers us an intimate, affecting, and illuminating look at her personal history and the mysteries of her own heart. In A Good Cry, she takes us into her confidence, describing the joy and peril of aging and recalling the violence that permeated her parents’ marriage and her early life. She pays homage to the people who have given her life meaning and joy: her grandparents, who took her in and saved her life; the poets and thinkers who have influenced her; and the students who have surrounded her. Nikki also celebrates her good friend, Maya Angelou, and the many years of friendship, poetry, and kitchen-table laughter they shared before Angelou’s death in 2014.

Longthroat Memoirs: Soups, Sex and Nigerian Taste Buds by Yemisi Aribisala
357 p.; Cooking/Essays

A sumptuous menu of essays about Nigerian cuisine, lovingly presented by the nation's top epicurean writer. As well as a mouth-watering appraisal of Nigerian food, Longthroat Memoirs is a series of love letters to the Nigerian palate. From the cultural history of soup, to fish as aphrodisiac and the sensual allure of snails, Longthroat Memoirs explores the complexities, the meticulousness, and the tactile joy of Nigerian gastronomy.

Calling My Name by Liara Tamani
320 p.; Young Adult

Liara Tamani’s debut novel deftly and beautifully explores the universal struggles of growing up, battling family expectations, discovering a sense of self, and finding a unique voice and purpose. Taja Brown lives with her parents and older brother and younger sister, in Houston, Texas. Taja has always known what the expectations of her conservative and tightly knit African American family are—do well in school, go to church every Sunday, no intimacy before marriage. But Taja is trying to keep up with friends as they get their first kisses, first boyfriends, first everythings. And she’s tired of cheering for her athletic younger sister and an older brother who has more freedom just because he’s a boy. Taja dreams of going to college and forging her own relationship with the world and with God, but when she falls in love for the first time, those dreams are suddenly in danger of evaporating.

Told in fifty-four short, episodic, moving, and iridescent chapters, Calling My Name follows Taja on her journey from middle school to high school. Literary and noteworthy, this is a beauty of a novel, a divine and tender enchantment. Calling My Name deftly captures the multifaceted struggle of finding where you belong and why you matter.

Courage Is Contagious: And Other Reasons to Be Grateful for Michelle Obama edited by Nick Haramis
128 p.; Essays

In October of 2016, in response to Michelle Obama’s now famous campaign speech—a powerful salvo for women’s rights and common decency—T Magazine published a dazzling feature called “To the First Lady with Love,” edited by Nicholas Haramis. Here, Haramis expands the T Magazine tribute, by gathering together nineteen essays, fifteen of which have never been published before, from a stunning array of prize-winning writers, Hollywood stars, fashion gurus, and famous chefs including Chimamanda Ngochi Adichie, Tracee Ellis Ross, Alice Waters, Charlamagne tha God, Issa Rae, Jason Wu, and Gloria Steinem—and two of the new essays are by eighth-grade girls.

Not only did Michelle Obama use her time in the White House to build a substantial legacy for women, minorities, and health and education advocates, she’s vowed to keep fighting for the causes that matter, now that her husband is out of office. And her impact continues to transcend easy categorization; her cultural imprint is as nuanced as it is indelible. Her influence, it was clear, had been felt in many different ways. Michelle’s persona freed people—especially women—to speak, engage, even dress as they wanted to; she was an accessible insider, representing a thrilling combination of establishment culture (Princeton, where she went to school) and the striving middle class (the South side of Chicago, where she grew up); she was an equal partner in her marriage and parenthood; she had an unabashedly ethical bent; and she had genre-busting style.

Still Can't Do My Daughter's Hair by William Evans
96 p.; Poetry

Still Can't Do My Daughter's Hair
is the latest book by author William Evans, founder of Black Nerd Problems. Evans is a long-standing voice in the performance poetry scene, who has performed at venues across the country and been featured on numerous final stages, including the National Poetry Slam and Individual World Poetry Slam. Evans's commanding, confident style shines through in these poems, which explore masculinity, fatherhood, and family, and what it means to make a home as a black man in contemporary America.

100 Amazing Facts About the Negro by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
496 p.; History

The first edition of Joel Augustus Rogers’s now legendary 100 Amazing Facts About the Negro with Complete Proof, published in 1957, was billed as “A Negro ‘Believe It or Not.’” Rogers’s little book was priceless because he was delivering enlightenment and pride, steeped in historical research, to a people too long starved on the lie that they were worth nothing. For African Americans of the Jim Crow era, Rogers’s was their first black history teacher. But Rogers was not always shy about embellishing the “facts” and minimizing ambiguity; neither was he above shock journalism now and then.

With élan and erudition—and with winning enthusiasm—Henry Louis Gates, Jr. gives us a corrective yet loving homage to Roger’s work. Relying on the latest scholarship, Gates leads us on a romp through African, diasporic, and African-American history in question-and-answer format. Among the one hundred questions: Who were Africa’s first ambassadors to Europe? Who was the first black president in North America? Did Lincoln really free the slaves? Who was history’s wealthiest person? What percentage of white Americans have recent African ancestry? Why did free black people living in the South before the end of the Civil War stay there? Who was the first black head of state in modern Western history? Where was the first Underground Railroad? Who was the first black American woman to be a self-made millionaire? Which black man made many of our favorite household products better?

Friday, October 13, 2017

New Books Coming Your Way, October 17, 2017

We're Going to Need More Wine: Stories That Are Funny, Complicated, and True by Gabrielle Union
272 p.; Memoir

One month before the release of the highly anticipated film The Birth of a Nation, actress Gabrielle Union shook the world with a vulnerable and impassioned editorial in which she urged our society to have compassion for victims of sexual violence. In the wake of rape allegations made against director and actor Nate Parker, Union—a forty-four-year-old actress who launched her career with roles in iconic ’90s movies—instantly became the insightful, outspoken actress that Hollywood has been desperately awaiting. With honesty and heartbreaking wisdom she revealed her own trauma as a victim of sexual assault: “It is for you that I am speaking. This is real. We are real.”

In this moving collection of thought provoking essays infused with her unique wisdom and deep humor, Union uses that same fearlessness to tell astonishingly personal and true stories about power, color, gender, feminism, and fame. Union tackles a range of experiences, including bullying, beauty standards, and competition between women in Hollywood, growing up in white California suburbia and then spending summers with her black relatives in Nebraska, coping with crushes, puberty, and the divorce of her parents. Genuine and perceptive, Union bravely lays herself bare, uncovering a complex and courageous life of self-doubt and self-discovery with incredible poise and brutal honesty. Throughout, she compels us to be ethical and empathetic, and reminds us of the importance of confidence, self-awareness, and the power of sharing truth, laughter, and support.

Unseen: Unpublished Black History from the New York Times Photo Archives
304 p.; Photography/History

It all started with Times photo editor Darcy Eveleigh discovering dozens of these photographs. She and three colleagues, Dana Canedy, Damien Cave and Rachel L. Swarns, began exploring the history behind them, and subsequently chronicling them in a series entitled Unpublished Black History, that ran in print and online editions of The Times in February 2016. It garnered 1.7 million views on The Times website and thousands of comments from readers. This book includes those photographs and many more, among them: a 27-year-old Jesse Jackson leading an anti-discrimination rally of in Chicago, Rosa Parks arriving at a Montgomery Courthouse in Alabama a candid behind-the-scenes shot of Aretha Franklin backstage at the Apollo Theater, Ralph Ellison on the streets of his Manhattan neighborhood, the firebombed home of Malcolm X, Myrlie Evans and her children at the funeral of her slain husband , Medgar, a wheelchair-bound Roy Campanella at the razing of Ebbets Field.

Were the photos--or the people in them--not deemed newsworthy enough? Did the images not arrive in time for publication? Were they pushed aside by words at an institution long known as the Gray Lady? Eveleigh, Canedy, Cave, and Swarms explore all these questions and more in this one-of-a-kind book.

The Floating World by C. Morgan Babst
384 p.; Fiction

A dazzling debut about family, home, and grief, The Floating World takes readers into the heart of Hurricane Katrina with the story of the Boisdorés, whose roots stretch back nearly to the foundation of New Orleans. Though the storm is fast approaching the Louisiana coast, Cora, the family’s fragile elder daughter, refuses to leave the city, forcing her parents, Joe Boisdoré, an artist descended from a freed slave who became one of the city’s preeminent furniture makers, and his white “Uptown” wife, Dr. Tess Eshleman, to evacuate without her, setting off a chain of events that leaves their marriage in shambles and Cora catatonic--the victim or perpetrator of some violence mysterious even to herself.

This mystery is at the center of C. Morgan Babst’s haunting, lyrical novel. Cora’s sister, Del, returns to New Orleans from the life she has tried to build in New York City to find her hometown in ruins and her family deeply alienated from one another. As Del attempts to figure out what happened to her sister, she must also reckon with the racial history of the city, and the trauma of destruction that was not, in fact, some random act of God, but an avoidable tragedy visited upon New Orleans’s most helpless and forgotten citizens.

Where the Past Begins: A Writer's Memoir by Amy Tan
368 p.; Memoir/Writing

In Where the Past Begins, bestselling author of The Joy Luck Club and The Valley of Amazement Amy Tan is at her most intimate in revealing the truths and inspirations that underlie her extraordinary fiction. By delving into vivid memories of her traumatic childhood, confessions of self-doubt in her journals, and heartbreaking letters to and from her mother, she gives evidence to all that made it both unlikely and inevitable that she would become a writer. Through spontaneous storytelling, she shows how a fluid fictional state of mind unleashed near-forgotten memories that became the emotional nucleus of her novels.

Tan explores shocking truths uncovered by family memorabilia—the real reason behind an I.Q. test she took at age six, why her parents lied about their education, mysteries surrounding her maternal grandmother—and, for the first time publicly, writes about her complex relationship with her father, who died when she was fifteen. Supplied with candor and characteristic humor, Where the Past Begins takes readers into the idiosyncratic workings of her writer’s mind, a journey that explores memory, imagination, and truth, with fiction serving as both her divining rod and link to meaning.

River Hymns by Tyree Daye
72 p.; Poetry

Winner of the 2017 American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Prize, River Hymns invites the reader into the complex lineage of the values, contradictions, and secrets of a southern family. These poems reflect on the rich legacy of a young black man’s ancestry: what to use, what to leave behind, and what haunts.

Wednesday, October 11, 2017

#BookReview: THE TWELVE-MILE STRAIGHT by Eleanor Henderson

Summary: Cotton County, Georgia, 1930: in a house full of secrets, two babies-one light-skinned, the other dark-are born to Elma Jesup, a white sharecropper’s daughter. Accused of her rape, field hand Genus Jackson is lynched and dragged behind a truck down the Twelve-Mile Straight, the road to the nearby town. In the aftermath, the farm’s inhabitants are forced to contend with their complicity in a series of events that left a man dead and a family irrevocably fractured.

Despite the prying eyes and curious whispers of the townspeople, Elma begins to raise her babies as best as she can, under the roof of her mercurial father, Juke, and with the help of Nan, the young black housekeeper who is as close to Elma as a sister. But soon it becomes clear that the ties that bind all of them together are more intricate than any could have ever imagined. As startling revelations mount, a web of lies begins to collapse around the family, destabilizing their precarious world and forcing all to reckon with the painful truth.

Review: So 1930's Georgia is a lot to take in, right? Like slavery ended decades before, but it just rebranded itself as sharecropping and black bodies are still subject to the abuse of white people. Slavery by any other name is still slavery.

The Twelve-Mile Straight is a lengthy read at almost 600 pages, but not once did I ever want to give up on reading it because I was fascinated by the characters. Juke, the white overseer (for lack of a better word), is a poor man with little power, but the power that he does have he exerts over his daughter and others around him that he deems to be lower than him. He loathes blackness, yet he loves it. In this way, his daughter Elma is no better. Driven by jealousy, she easily denounces someone that's only been kind to her, resulting in his death. It's a rare moment that readers will see her remorseful for her actions.

The direct recipient of so much wrongdoing throughout the story is Nan, referred to as their housekeeper who's like a sister, but Nan is a prisoner of the Jesups. While Elma and Nan are both held captive by the lies Juke has forced upon them, Nan's mother and Elma have their own ways of keeping Nan captive. The actions of Nan's mother early on ensure Nan will never have a voice to speak for herself. And Elma's selfishness keeps Nan tethered to her with little regard for whether or not that's what Nan wants.

I spent so much of the book wanting both girls, then women, to get free, to find a piece of happiness. And it comes eventually, but it's a long time coming.

560 p.
Published: September 2017
Disclaimer: Copy of book received from publisher, opinions are my own.

Friday, October 6, 2017

New Books Coming Your Way, October 10, 2017

The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao
by Martha Batalha
272 p.; Fiction

Euridice is young, beautiful and ambitious, but when her rebellious sister Guida elopes, she sets her own aspirations aside and vows to settle down as a model wife and daughter. And yet as her husband's professional success grows, so does Euridice's feeling of restlessness. She embarks on a series of secret projects from creating recipe books to becoming the most sought-after seamstress in town — but each is doomed to failure. Her tradition-loving husband is not interested in an independent wife. And then one day Guida appears at the door with her young son and a terrible story of hardship and abandonment.

As Lie Is to Grin by Simeon Marsalis
160 p.; Fiction

David, the narrator of Simeon Marsalis’s singular first novel, is a freshman at the University of Vermont who is struggling to define himself against the white backdrop of his school. He is also mourning the loss of his New York girlfriend, whose grandfather’s alma mater he has chosen to attend. When David met Melody, he lied to her about who he was and where he lived, creating a more intriguing story than his own. This lie haunts and almost unhinges him as he attempts to find his true voice and identity.

On campus in Vermont, David imagines encounters with a student from the past who might represent either Melody’s grandfather or Jean Toomer, the author of the acclaimed Harlem Renaissance novel Cane (1923). He becomes obsessed with the varieties of American architecture “upon land that was stolen,” and with the university’s past and attitudes as recorded in its newspaper, The Cynic. And he is frustrated with the way the Internet and libraries are curated, making it difficult to find the information he needs to make connections between the university’s history, African American history, and his own life.

In New York, the previous year, Melody confides a shocking secret about her grandfather’s student days at the University of Vermont. When she and her father collude with the intent to meet David’s mother in Harlem—craving what they consider an authentic experience of the black world—their plan ends explosively. The title of this impressive and emotionally powerful novel is inspired by Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem “We Wear the Mask” (1896): “We wear the mask that grins and lies . . .”

We Wear the Mask: 15 True Stories of Passing in America edited by Brando Skyhorse & Lisa Page
216 p.; Social Science

For some, “passing” means opportunity, access, or safety. Others don’t willingly pass but are “passed” in specific situations by someone else. We Wear the Mask, edited by Brando Skyhorse and Lisa Page, is an illuminating and timely anthology that examines the complex reality of passing in America.

Skyhorse, a Mexican American, writes about how his mother passed him as an American Indian before he learned who he really is. Page shares how her white mother didn’t tell friends about her black ex-husband or that her children were, in fact, biracial.

The anthology includes writing from Gabrielle Bellot, who shares the disquieting truths of passing as a woman after coming out as trans, and MG Lord, who, after the murder of her female lover, embraced heterosexuality. Patrick Rosal writes of how he “accidentally” passes as a waiter at the National Book Awards ceremony, and Rafia Zakaria agonizes over her Muslim American identity while traveling through domestic and international airports. Other writers include Trey Ellis, Marc Fitten, Susan Golomb, Margo Jefferson, Achy Obejas, Clarence Page, Sergio Troncoso, Dolen Perkins-Valdez, and Teresa Wiltz.

Run For It: Stories Of Slaves Who Fought For Their Freedom by Marcelo D'Salete
180 p.; Graphic novel

Run For It — a stunning graphic novel by internationally acclaimed illustrator Marcelo d’Salete — is one of the first literary and artistic efforts to face up to Brazil’s hidden history of slavery. Originally published in Brazil — where it was nominated for three of the country’s most prestigious comics awards — Run For It has received rave reviews worldwide, including, in the U.S., The Huffington Post. These intense tales offer a tragic and gripping portrait of one of history’s darkest corners. It’s hard to look away.

Chuck D Presents This Day in Rap and Hip-Hop History by Chuck D
352 p.; Music

Based on Chuck's long-running show on Rapstation.com, this massive compendium details the most iconic moments and influential songs in the genre's recorded history, from Kurtis Blow's "Christmas Rappin'" to The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill to Kendrick Lamar's ground-breaking verse on "Control." Also included are key events in hip hop history, from Grandmaster Flash's first scratch through Tupac's holographic appearance at Coachella.

Throughout, Chuck offers his insider's perspective on the chart toppers and show stoppers as he lived it. Illustrating the pages are more than 100 portraits from the talented artists specializing in hip hop.

Wednesday, October 4, 2017

#BookReview: LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE by Celeste Ng

Summary: In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is meticulously planned—from the layout of the winding roads, to the colors of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principal is playing by the rules.

Enter Mia Warren- an enigmatic artist and single mother- who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenaged daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the alluring mother-daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past, and a disregard for the rules that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community.

When the Richardsons’ friends attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town and puts Mia and Mrs. Richardson on opposing sides. Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Mrs. Richardson becomes determined to uncover the secrets in Mia’s past. But her obsession will come at unexpected and devastating costs to her own family—and Mia’s.

Review:
"The firemen said there were little fires everywhere," Lexie said. "Multiple points of origin. Possible use of accelerant. Not an accident."

Little Fires Everywhere is very much a Pretty in Pink meets Sixteen Candles meets The Breakfast Club. That is to say initially it seems like a John Hughes '80s infused light-hearted story line. The Richardsons are a picture perfect family - two parents with four children: Trip the golden boy, Lexie the most popular girl in school, Moody with a name that befits him, and awkward youngest sister Izzy. And as in any John Hughes movie, their perfect lives are turned upside down when people that don't quite fit into their carefully crafted world crash into it.

Mia Warren is a rebel, a free thinker. And she's raised her daughter Pearl to be the same way, but secretly, Pearl craves the normalcy of a family like the Richardsons. As Pearl ingratiates herself with the Richardson clan, she finds a best friend in Moody, an older sister in Lexie and a crush on Trip.

While Pearl is spending her time swooning over the Richardsons, Izzy is soaking up Mia's presence in her life. When Mia is caught up in helping Bebe Chow, a Chinese immigrant who gives birth to and abandons her baby at a fire station, only to try to reclaim her later, Izzy is a witness to the battle between Mia, her mother and the McCulloughs, the white family that plans to adopt and raise Bebe's baby as their own.

And let's talk about Elena Richardson, because if anyone is threatened by Mia's presence, it's her. It's not enough that she's given Mia and Pearl a place to stay, treated Pearl as her own child and given Mia a job. Mia's decision to side with Bebe instead of Elena and the McCulloughs is an affront to Elena and whiteness. It's unfathomable to Elena that Bebe could care for her own child and she begins digging into Mia's past in hopes of finding what? A way to push the Warrens out of her life? A way to embarrass Mia? Or is Elena simply a mean girl that doesn't know when to quit?

Battle lines are drawn, though the rest of the Richardson children are somewhat indifferent. But words mean things and if Izzy later sets little fires everywhere, Mia is the accelerant. She is the one adult that listens to Izzy and takes her seriously. So it's no wonder that when she finds her world crashing down with the threat of losing Mia, Izzy recalls her words.

Like after a prairie fire… It seems like the end of the world. The earth is all scorched and black and everything green is gone. But after the burning the soil is richer, and new things can grow… People are like that too, you know. They start over. They find a way.

Was Mia telling Izzy to burn everything down and start over? Was she referencing the new starts that she and Pearl made each time they packed up and moved on to a new city? I'd say that's up to each reader's interpretation.


352 p.
Published: September 2017
Disclaimer: Copy of book received from publisher, opinions are my own.