I’ve been lusting after Alyssa Cole’s When No One is Watching ever since I saw it pop up in the publisher's catalog. And I patiently waited as I saw others post about it, but my day has come! This creepy thriller landed on my doorstep a few days ago and I couldn't wait to dig in ... in the daylight hours.
Described as Hitchcock’s Rear Window meets Jordan Peele’s Get Out, it’s the story of a Brooklynite who starts to dig into what happened to her old neighbors who left for the suburbs when the gentrifiers started moving in. Cole really shines with historical fiction and royal romances but I was excited to see what she could do with the thriller genre.
Y'all! I read this during the day time for a reason. I'm scary af. But even reading it during the day wasn't enough. I literally had to remind myself to breathe at time. Like did the Rona get me? Is that why I can't breathe? No fool, it's because you're holding your breath, afraid of what will happen next.
Cole might possibly have written the scariest take on gentrification that I've ever read or seen. Whew, this book, y'all. This book! Go ahead and add it to your TBR list because yes.
Disclaimer: Copy of book received from publisher but did in no way influence my review.
Charlie Wong has led a sheltered life in New York's Chinatown. At 22, she still lives at home with her father and her younger sister, Lisa. Thanks to her father, the best noodle maker in Chinatown, she has a job washing dishes at the restaurant where he works. But Charlie is clumsy and washing dishes for a living certainly isn't her passion. Her late mother was once a star ballerina in Beijing, but Charlie must have taken after her father because she has not an ounce of her mother's grace, or does she?
Thanks to an ad Lisa sees in the paper, Charlie lands a new gig as a receptionist at a dance studio. Wearing her aunt's hand-me-down bras and baggy clothes, she's nowhere near as glamorous as the dancers at the studio, but she loves being around them. Unfortunately, Charlie is no better as a receptionist than she was a dishwasher. Luckily, someone at the studio sees her potential as a dancer.
I loved Charlie's time at the studio. It was light and carefree in comparison to the issues she dealt with at home. As the eldest daughter of a man that spends most of his time in Chinatown, it's Charlie's responsibility to deal with the world outside of Chinatown. She's the person that oversees Lisa's homework, deals with her teachers and fights for Lisa's chance to attend a prestigious school. She's also the one person that questions her father's undying loyalty to her Uncle Henry, a doctor specializing in Chinese medicine. It's true that Uncle Henry and Aunt Monica have helped her family out, but the way her father accepts his advice without any question puts Lisa in danger and Charlie is the only one that realizes just how much danger.
Jean Kwok is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors. I appreciate that Mambo in Chinatown keeps one foot in the dreamy world of "will the girl get the guy and win while doing so" and the other foot in the realistic world of what life is like for the children of immigrants. Charlie's world is a little off-balanced overall, but thanks to Kwok's writing, she manages to find the balance in both and her happy ending.
384pp
Published: June 2014 Disclaimer: Copy of book received from publisher, opinions are my own.
That was so rude of me, wasn't it? To make it up to you, I've dedicated a page just to live streaming the conference so you can feel like you're there. Not sure of what BEA stands for or what it is? Check out this post, then follow along here or by clicking on the BEA 2013 Live Stream tab at the top of the page.
That's still not enough? Okay, the lists of authors I want to see and books I want to nab are pretty short, so if you click on the links below and find author autographs or books that you want, let me know and I'll make every effort to grab them for you. Limit your requests to no more than two books and one autograph.
I'll try to post on the blog, but I'm not sure how much time I'll have for that. I'll definitely be live tweeting my time at BEA and in New York, in general, so be sure to follow me on Twitter (@Reads4Pleasure)for updates.
In a few weeks, New York will be overrun with book lovers and I'll be one of them! Ever since I started blogging, I've wanted to attend BookExpo America. Their website describes it as, "the #1 event in North American publishing and the ideal place for content creators and consumers to discover new books/titles, meet favorite and new authors, learn about trends shaping the book industry, and network with those have a passion for books and reading." I call it a chance to hang out with my book blogging partner in crime, JNic aka @litfangrl, while we drool over soon to be released books and stalk some of our favorite authors.
There's also a book blogger's conference the first day, so I'm hoping to come back with plenty of new ideas to keep you guys interested and engaged. If you'll be in the New York area and you're interested in attending, but don't want to stay for the whole conference, there's a Power Reader event on June 1 that will allow you access to the convention floor. I'm planning to take in a few Broadway shows and do a little sightseeing, but if you're going to be around for BEA or live in the area, I'd love to meet you, so please don't hesitate to reach out.
Last, but not least, I've toyed with the idea of providing a monthly newsletter for those that don't have time to read full reviews, but want to know what I've reviewed for the month. I've also thought about a newsletter that highlights upcoming releases. I know Goodreads does this by genre, but wondered if my readers might like something along that line that focuses on authors and characters of color. Fill out the survey below and let me know.
Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey , the world's leading questionnaire tool.
Mika Walters loves being a photographer. She does not, however, enjoy being an assistant to Alejandro Vega, the photographer. Mika has worked long hours for three years, putting her own dreams on the backburner. She's finally been offered her dream job and she's sure Ale will be as happy to see her leave as she is to go.
For three years Mika has been his right hand, so why has it taken so long for Ale to realize that he feels something for her? He's never given a thought to how his life would be without her, but Mika will always be there. So when she drops a bombshell on him, he's not sure how to react.
Formulaic and predictable, Through the Lens is still a pretty decent read. Even so, I would have restructured the chapter order. When we meet Mika and Ale, they're on an isolated island for a photo shoot. The author plunges right into their story without giving much personal background. It's not until over halfway through the book that we're given a better sense of their history and the events that have shaped them.
Globetrotting journalist Raquel Cepeda takes readers around the world from New York to the Dominican Republic to Morocco and back again in Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina. If ever there was a book that meets the guidelines for the Books: Passports to the World challenge, this is it. There's a lot of information to digest within the pages, but it's well worth the read.
Born the daughter of an idealistic mother and an unaffectionate father, the young Raquel spends much of her time trying to figure out where she fits. That applies to both her home life, which is turbulent, and, later, her school life. Upon being sent to the Dominican Republic to be raised by her grandparents following her parent's divorce, her childhood happiness peaks. Her mother brings her back to the States, a puzzling decision since she seems to have no use for her, where she witnesses domestic violence on a daily basis. Eventually, Raquel is sent to her father and stepmother in New York, and they seem to have little use for her either. Verbally abused by her father, and occasionally a victim of domestic violence, Raquel merely bides her time until she can leave for college.
While most teens seek solace in her friends and classmates, the author finds little comfort there either. In America, there is a tendency to categorize people. We want people to fit into a "checkable" box. As a daughter of the diaspora, Raquel felt a kindred connection to other people of color, but for her black classmates, she was too white and for her white classmates, she was too black. So there was a separation by skin tone and even more, a separation between those Dominican students who had been in America for a while and those who had recently emigrated.
I believe that everything happens for a reason and after reading this book, I think Cepeda does too. Her childhood and young adult experiences eventually lead her on a journey to find out more about her family's ancestry. While she could go the genealogical route, she's more interested in finding out where her people originated. Yes, they ended up in the Dominican Republic, but how did they get there? What is their ethnic origin? What is the history of relations between Africa and the island? And why does she feel so drawn to una india, an Amerindian or Indigenous-American spiritual guide?
Occasionally I have a-ha moments with books, I had quite a few with Bird of Paradise. The one that stands out most is the whitening of the country. While Hitler was killing Jews in Europe, Rafael Trujillo was doing the same to Haitians, sanctioning the killing of 20,000 Haitians in what became known as the Parsley Massacre. To further whiten his nation, he encouraged Europeans, those fleeing Hitler especially, to emigrate to the Dominican Republic. Trujillo's suppression of all things African was continued by his successors up until 1996.
Another a-ha moment came as I read about the fluidity of race in the Dominican Republic. The U.S. has long practiced the one drop rule, in which one drop of African/African-American blood means you're black. In the DR, it is the opposite. One sixteenth of white blood means you're white. Darker Dominicans who have attained a higher financial or social status can be deemed white as well. Fascinating stuff indeed.
So I know I've rambled on much longer in this review than usual, but it's the perfect blend of storytelling and science. It's a fascinating read for all of my genealogical/anthropological readers, as well as my memoir readers. It should be noted that there are phrases sprinkled throughout in Spanish, but that shouldn't dissuade you from reading it. Some of them are translated, others are not. If you have a basic knowledge of any of the romance languages, you should be able to infer what is being said.
336pp
Published: March 2013 Disclaimer: Copy of book received from publisher, opinions are my own.
The Dominican Republic has long been viewed primarily as an exporter of sugar, coffee, and tobacco, but in recent years the service sector has overtaken agriculture as the economy's largest employer, due to growth in telecommunications, tourism, and free trade zones. The economy is highly dependent upon the US, the destination for more than half of exports. - CIA World Factbook
Location: Caribbean, eastern two-thirds of the island of Hispaniola, between the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, east of Haiti Size: 48,670 sq km; slightly more than twice the size of New Hampshire Ethnic groups: Mixed 73%, white 16%, black 11% Languages: Spanish (official) Population: 10,088,598
As a "twenty-first century white girl from New York," what does Lina Sparrow, a first year litigator at New York's most prominent law firm, know about slavery? By her own admission, slavery and its legacy never crossed her mind. When a reparations case lands on her desk, she wonders why she doesn't know the names of the faceless and forgotten individuals that built America, why there's no monument to them and what they wished for, worked for and loved.
Even though her law firm really does not have an appetite for taking on reparations for descendants of slaves, a wealthy client does. To appease him, the firm brings in Lina and Garrison, an African-American second year associate, to do the research and find the perfect plaintiff. In this case, they would prefer a plaintiff that can show indisputable evidence proof of familial ties to a slave. And this is where it gets good.
The House Girl shifts between present-day New York and 1850s Virginia, between Lina and Josephine. As a slave at Bell Creek, Josephine serves as the house girl for the Bells, Missus Lu in particular. Prone to dizzy spells and forgetfulness, Lu fancies herself an artist, but Josephine is the real artist. Raised, as it were, in the Bells' home, she has been Lu's faithful servant and confidante from an early age. As Lu has learned how to draw, so too has Josephine. But Josephine is a much better artist, and while Lu's works focus on scenic landscapes, Josephine draws the children and adults of the plantation, capturing their faces as no one else can.
Josephine knows no other life than that of the plantation, but she knows there's something better and longs to escape north to a better life. In present-day New York, Lina is still searching for the perfect plaintiff when a conversation with her father leads her to an exhibit of Lu Anne Bell's work. It's always been rumored that Lu Anne's work was actually that of her house girl, Josephine. With help from her artist father, Oscar, and her own due diligence, Lina sets out to prove that Josephine is indeed the artist.
I was much more fascinated with Josephine's story than I was with Lina's, though I can appreciate that Lina's research brought me Josephine's story. Equally as fascinating was Garrison's lack of desire to work on the reparation case, believing that the African American population in the U.S. is in a far better position today in comparison to those who stayed in Africa. I also got the feeling that he believed that since he had achieved a certain level in life, there was no need to entertain the thought of reparations for those that had not been as fortunate. In a speech from Dresser, the client who has tasked them with the case, comes a compelling argument for why reparations may be necessary.
"Let me ask you something else. You walk down the street here, outside this building, Midtown Manhattan, center of the world in many ways. People coming, going, important people, people with money, people with power. Now how many black people do you see... How many black men driving cabs, selling hot dogs, hauling garbage or furniture or what have you? how many black women getting off the night shift, or pushing a stroller with a white woman's child inside? How many do you see? And then step inside this building, how many black men and women do you see in here? How many are wearing suits? How many are giving the orders? How many are emptying the garbage? How many are dishing out the macaroni? Now multiply your little life by forty-one million, and is there a need for some acknowledgement that the deck is stacked? Of course there is. This case, the reparations idea, won't lift those men and women out of their disadvantage, but it will cause the whole rest of the world to take notice, to do some counting on their own. An not just the Caucasians, but you too, boys like you who have achieved success in this world easier than you thought you would. Easier than your parents thought you would. We're talking about a conversation here, not a public whipping. It's just that money is the quickest way to get people's attention. You call in the legacy of slavery and nobody bats an eye. You call it six point two trillion dollars and it's a different story."
Regardless of where you stand on reparations, if you even have a stance on it, The House Girl is an interesting read and take on the topic.
336pp
Published: February 2013
Theme: Black Gold by Esperanza Spalding featuring Algebra
I'm not really sure when Carl Weber started to dislike women. To be honest, I can't say for sure that he doesn't like them, but his portrayal of them in his latest is less than complimentary. If I'm being fair, the men don't seem to do much better. Quite frankly, there's not really one likable character in The Man in 3B.
When Daryl Graham moves into the building, the women (married, single and otherwise engaged) are quick to take notice. While the women swoon over him, the men admire him. It comes as a surprise then when he's found murdered. What isn't a surprise is that the police suspect several of the residents of committing the crime.
The slightly overweight Connie has just been dumped by her furniture salesman husband. So when Daryl starts to pay her attention and offers to help her with an exercise plan, she's more than willing to let him. For Benny the electronics genius, Daryl is the older brother he never had. While his fireman father is busy sleeping with the women of the building, Benny is taking his first forays into adulthood with Daryl as his guide. Daryl is the one man Krystal never got over. Even though she's engaged to Slim, she can't get Daryl out of her mind and when he happens to move into her building, she doesn't want to let him out of her bed.
As charming as he sounds, it's hard to imagine that everyone has a reason for wanting to see the mysterious Daryl Graham dead. They do and now it's up to the police to sort out who killed him and why.
Though Weber's writing kept me interested enough to continue reading the book, I was taken aback by quite a few of his characters comments about women. For example, when Ben first meets Daryl he offers him advice about the women in the building, saying:
"Take my advice when it comes to the women in this building. Hit it and quit and don't get too attached 'cause all of em ain't nothing but a bunch of gold diggers and whores."
The usually respectful character of Bennie also speaks ill of women,
"Those damn cackling, conniving, low-life wenches on the stoop were half the reason I hadn't been out of my apartment..."
The blatant and unnecessary disrespect of women isn't limited to men though. Even Krystal gets in on it, referring to other women as whores and belittling her stepmother, Connie, unmercifully. As I said, the repeated verbal attacks on women made this book difficult to stomach. Some of the story lines were too unbelievable and it seemed quite convenient that some of the characters just happened to live in the same building. While I usually like Weber's writing, and I know others will disagree, this one was just too far reaching for me and seems to be his worst work to date.
336pp
Published: January 2013 Disclosure: Copy of book received from publisher, opinions are my own.
When you choose to love someone, you agree to take on all of their baggage, knowingly or not. The day Campbell chose to love Donovan was the day she took on the voice of ghost in his head, a domineering and ever present grandmother in his ear and a life time of watching his father just exist. Indeed, Campbell took on much more than she knew.
Growing up, Campbell watched her father cheat on and leave his wife for another family. As a teen mother, Campbell watched her daughter's father leave her. As an adult, Campbell watched her best friend give herself away because the man she loved didn't love her enough. With all those factors working against her, it would be easy to write off men, to write off love altogether. Yet Campbell still believes in love and, though she's hesitant to seek it for herself, she's willing to take a chance.
Donovan had no business looking for love. In all fairness, it feels like he knew that, but then he met Campbell and, for a time, logic and reasoning escaped him. Everyone is entitled to love, but Donovan had things in his past he needed to work through before bringing anyone else into the picture. Having been loved the wrong way in the past and the present, it's no wonder that he doesn't know how to accept being loved well and right.
Though both Donovan and Campbell come from "broken homes," Donovan's demons are more difficult to overcome. In great part, it's because he's faced with one of them daily. We often hear or experience mothers raising their daughters and loving their sons. One of Donovan's biggest problems is that he's been raised by a weak father and an overbearing grandmother. Shrouded in her love for Donovan is a need to keep him broken down enough to stay with her and, should he find the strength to leave, playing on his insecurities and fears enough to make him stay. I find fault with Solomon, Donovan's father, as well, because its his weakness and his mother's forked tongue that is to blame for the demise of his marriage to Daisy and drives him and the young Donovan back to his mother's home.
The underlying reason for Grammy keeping first Solomon and then Donovan so close to her is selfishness and her fear of being left. Being domineering and demeaning drove her husband away, but that's not enough to make her change her ways. Instead, she directs her attention at Solomon, at first building him up, only to break him down later when he dares to love Daisy. And when Donovan dares to love Campbell, she steps in and begins to slowly whittle away at the confidence that Campbell's love has given Donovan, planting seeds of doubt.
I've spent this year going back and listening to McFadden works that I've previously read. I've heard and learned something new from each book by listening that I didn't get from reading and Loving Donovan is no exception. Perhaps it's because there's a tendency to skim pages when reading that you can't do when listening. However you choose to, you absolutely must give McFadden's works a try.
At the age of 46, Norma Reyes graduated with her law degree, fully expecting to be offered a spot as a first year associate at Robertson, Levine & Shemke (RLS), the firm where she'd clerked the previous summer and received such high praise. Twenty years of working her way up to supervisor of phone operators while going to school at night have finally paid off. And even though her ailing mother ridicules her dreams, Norma is determined to make it.
The partners at RLS have never taken Norma seriously. Yes, she did good work in her summer position, but they would never hire an associate from a less than prestigious law school. Norma didn't look like them and certainly wouldn't fit in with their client base, given her ethnic background. Luckily, the recession gives them an excuse when they deny her employment as an attorney. While they won't hire her as an attorney, they will hire her as a floater. Grudgingly, Norma accepts the job, believing that it will only be temporary and that once she passes the bar, she'll be offered the position she deserves. Poor, gullible Norma.
Weeks of being belittled by everyone from senior partners to first year associates (a group she should have been a part of) start to wear on Norma. A chance encounter with Oscar Peterson, the mail room supervisor, makes Norma's life a little more bearable. But their happily ever after is disrupted when Oscar gets wind of a memo about Norma, drafted by one of the senior partners. Norma will have the fight of her life on her hand if she can get her courage up enough to do something about it.
I was torn between liking, pitying and hating Norma. It was obvious from the beginning that dealing with her family and men had bruised her self-esteem, but she had to have guts to go back to law school at night at her age. So while I loved that she was courageous enough to do that, I was mad that she let the attorneys mistreat and lie to her repeatedly while she accepted it.
I also vacillated between liking and disliking Oscar. He seemed to have Norma's interests at heart, but he was so overly aggressive and insensitive at times that I kept waiting for him to break her heart like her previous boyfriends. Even by the end of the book, I wasn't sure that she should be with him and wanted to yell out like Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost, "You in danger, girl!" Perhaps the author didn't develop Oscar enough to make him likable or maybe it was her intent to make the reader distrust him. Either way, I can't say that I was happy to see Norma with him.
Another thing that bothered me was how long Norma stayed with the firm, because surely working there as a floater was not the first time she witnessed the assholeness of the place. As a clerk during the summer, she had to see the way partners treated the support staff. Or perhaps it was okay with her then because she saw herself as one of them (attorney) instead of one of them (support staff). Which lends itself to the question, is the mistreatment of others excusable based on their rank in the company hierarchy? Apparently it was at RLS.
344pp
Published: August 2012 Disclaimer: Copy of book received from publisher, opinions are my own.
Sending your daughter away from London, the only home she's ever known, to your native country of Ghana, may seem extreme to some. But that's just what Lila's mother does when she suspects her 14 year old daughter is becoming too wild and loose. Telling her that they're going to visit her Auntie Flora, Lila's mother instead takes her to the airport and puts her on a flight to Kumasi.
Just as she's adjusted to life with Auntie Irene, for what she believes is a short visit, Lila learns that her mother intends for her to stay in Ghana for the duration of the school year. At the Dadaba Girls' Secondary School, Lila is forced to endure water shortages, harassment because of her British accent, and finally learns the real reason her mother sent her away. She needed time for herself. WHAT? I almost threw this book across the room when I read that. Lila's father lived in United States. He was perfectly willing to have Lila come live with him, but her mother sent her to Ghana because she needed time to herself AND to spite him? Ugh.
Eventually Lila's mother brings her back to England. In the six months that Lila has been gone, her mother has managed to get engaged to a man with a daughter Lila's age and they all live together. Ma'am, you couldn't deal with your own child, who by all accounts was a good kid, but you're parenting someone else's child while yours is living in less than favorable conditions for months?
When her mother again decides she can't deal with Lila, she tells her she's going to visit her father for the summer in New York. Look, I don't know why this woman wasn't just upfront with her daughter each time she shipped her off. And I don't know why Lila kept falling for the okey doke, because by this time I already knew her mother was sending her there permanently.
Lila is much more optimistic than I am though. Even after getting shuttled from house to house, continent to continent, she was able to find the good in the situation. I would have been really interested in reading this story from the mother's point of view. Without hearing her side of the story, she just comes across as extremely self-centered and uncaring. That made it difficult to enjoy the book. While Brew-Hammond has been compared to Edwidge Danticat and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, I have to say she's not even close to being in their league.
280pp
Published: April 2010
Theme: Unconditional Love by Donna Summer & Musical Youth
90s R & B superstar Raine Omari had the career most people dreamed of, but she walked away from that life to fully embrace her love of the Lord. More than that, she wanted the freedom to express her Christianity through her music and use her life's testimony as a witness to others. And she decided to bring along a few more singers to help her out.
Twenty something Sierra Dixon is certifiably nuts. Actually, calling her nuts is an understatement. Damaged goods, she was raised in a home with an alcoholic mother who dictated to her a list of things to do, and not to do, to trap and keep a man. Sierra has more issues than the New York Times, but she doesn't see it that way. She's just doing what she has to do to get ahead, even if that means lying about being celibate to retain her membership in the country's hottest new group, Destiny's Divas.
First lady Liza Washington has been hiding a secret for twenty-eight years. From the outside, she appears to have the perfect marriage to her mega church pastor-husband. As the forty something member of the group, her life is supposed to be a testimony to longevity and endurance in marriage. In actuality, her husband has been shadier than an oak tree of late and Liza fears that it's just a matter of time before his actions bring the world crashing down around her.
The group organizer, Raine Omari, has it all. She's in love with her husband and would do anything for her daughter. But how can she testify about unconditional love when she can't stand her mother-in-law? Truth be told, her mother-in-law, Beerlulu, could drive anyone ever the edge, but her meddling ways threaten to harm Raine's daughter and drive a wedge between Raine and her husband.
I found that though I felt sorry for Raine and Liza, I didn't have much sympathy for Sierra. While the other women seemed changed by their situations, Sierra's damaged thoughts were too deep to have simply been changed without benefit of therapy or medication. You don't go off the deep end one day and hop back up a month later like everything is everything. Perhaps she talked it out with someone, but the author didn't mention it, so I have to assume that she was as nutty at the end as she was in the beginning.
Even though Destiny's Divas is 400 pages, it's a quick read as you try to find out how each woman will deal with her situation. I was amused by the author's reference to current places and people. She referenced Hue-Man bookstore, an actual bookstore in Harlem that's scheduled to close soon, and a comment she heard Melissa Harris-Perry, host of the Melissa Harris-Perry Show, make. If you're a fan of Victoria Christopher Murray's previous works, this does not disappoint.
400pp
Published: June 201 Disclaimer: Copy of book received from publisher; opinions are my own.
Never one to shy away from sensitive topics, Bernice McFadden takes readers into the world of the Trokosi. In simple terms, Trokosi are girls given by their family to a deity as a sacrifice in exchange for better luck, fortune or things along those terms. Adebe Tsikata is such a girl, but she's also a survivor.
Growing up in Accra, Ghana, Adebe leads a charmed life. Her father, Kwasi, with a degree from an English university, works as a government accountant. Her mother, Lemusi, a former model, is a teacher. They lead an extremely comfortable life and Adebe is the apple of their eye.
Adebe is just as fortunate to have an aunt that adores her. Aunt Serwa spoils Adebe whenever she visits from the United States. The two share an unbreakable bond and Serwa promises that one day she'll send for Adebe to visit her in the states.
With so many people that love her, how does Adebe become Trokosi? Superstition, lack of faith and jealousy on the parts of her grandmother and father are probably the easiest explanations, but it goes farther than that. The end result, though, is that Adebe is forced from the only home she's known into an existence that bares great resemblance to hell on earth.
My Name is Butterfly is a remarkable story of surviving some of the worst circumstances known to men, rebuilding yourself and learning to survive again and again. McFadden is indeed a master storyteller.
Available in Nook & Kindle format only
Published: April 2012
What would it take for you to go sit at the deathbed of the person that brought you the most unhappiness? As a child, Kenzie Lowe watched her father abuse her mother physically and emotionally, all the while losing his battle with alcoholism. But Kenzie's father wasn't just abusive when drinking, he was down right mean. So why does she catch buses and trudge through the snow daily to sit at his bedside as he dies?
I've said it before, but it bears repeating. Bernice McFadden sure can tell a tale. Sitting at her father, Hy-Lo's, bedside, Kenzie reminisces on her childhood and once she starts, there's no way you can put the book down until she finishes. Through her flashbacks you learn that the mother that used to protect her and her brother became an alcoholic and that Kenzie, herself, is a recovering alcoholic, continuing the cycle that started with her paternal grandmother. Hy-Lo gets his nasty spirit honestly from his mother, a woman that would turn her back on her fleeing daughter-in-law and grandchildren in their time of need.
The bright spot in Kenzie's world is her maternal grandmother. Escaping to Mable's house is a welcome respite from the verbal and emotional abuse Kenzie deals with at home, but her mother, Delia, is never strong enough to keep Hy-Lo at bay. In a way, it reminded me of people that commit suicide, but feel the need to take someone else with them. Instead of Delia recognizing and putting her children's happiness ahead of Hy-Lo's and allowing them to stay with Mable, she took them back each and every time, as if to say, "If I'm going to suffer, you're going to suffer too." It's Mable who eventually gives Kenzie the tools to escape her parents, but with an already shattered foundation, Kenzie is set up to fail and repeat the cycle herself.
One of the things I found quite interesting was that Kenzie was angry with her father, but not her mother. Her father was the abuser, but her mother was the enabler. Perhaps Kenzie had already made peace with her mother, but their conversations as adults seemed stunted, so it was difficult to tell. Of all things, The Warmest December is a story of forgiveness, not necessarily out of love, but out of a need to close a bad chapter in life so that one can move on to other things.
Typically when I read a jacket cover and find that one of the characters in a book about mostly white characters is black, I prepare myself to cringe. Far too often authors that are not of color get characters of color wrong. In the wrong hands, black female characters are sassy or they’re cold and distant. My favorite is when they’re “of regal stature.” It’s like authors don’t know any black women in real life, so they create characters based on what they’ve seen on TV (and that’s another conversation for another time) or what they imagine the barista at Starbucks is like when she’s not making their venti grande blah blah blah. And then there’s Valerie Frankel.
This is my first Frankel novel, so I’m not sure how her other work reads, but I could kiss her for Four of A Kind. Why? A story of four women that become friends because their kids attend school together, and they serve on a committee together, is likely. Even more likely is that each of those women brings something to the table, holds back some things and doesn’t easily let her guard down. These are not cookie cutter characters. Each is unique. Now let’s talk about why I personally loved the character of Dr. Carla Morgan.
As I stated previously, so many authors don't know anyone of color personally (and by personally I mean someone they actually talk to/socialize with outside of work), so they make the character of color one-dimensional. She's angry or she's bitter or she's "exotic." What does that even mean? I don't know, but I can't count how many times exotic pops up in books to describe these women. But Frankel's Carla is like any other mother, she just happens to be black. She's a married doctor with a passive aggressive husband and two kids. She wonders how she fits in with this group of women with which she has nothing in common, but so do the other characters. Her blackness isn't on display. It's a part of her, but it doesn't define her.
The same can be said of characters Robin, a Jewish single mother; Alicia, an unhappily married mother; and Bess, the blond WASP that seems to have it all. I found all of the characters and their interactions with each other, their spouses and their children to be believable. The story lines were fully fleshed out and I felt like I really knew these women by the time I finished the book. This was my first read of Frankel's work, but I'll definitely be checking out her other writing.
352pp
Published: February 2012
Disclosure: Copy received from publisher. Opinions are my own.
Theme: Sisters Are Doin' It for Themselves by Aretha Franklin & Annie Lennox
From the outside looking in, Camilla Rose has everything - a good looking husband, a beautiful daughter, a successful career and a nice home. If you googled 'living the American dream,' there would probably be a picture of her front and center. But it's all a facade that's slowly, but surely crumbling.
Before you're able to dive too deep into Camilla's issues, Bernice McFadden takes us back a few generations. All of the women in Camilla's family have the middle name Rose, and Velma and Maggie are no exception. Raised in the South, the beautiful, but dimwitted Maggie, and the homely Velma move north for better lives. When tragedy leaves the beautiful Maggie disfigured, she moves in with Velma and her husband and becomes a constant presence in the lives of their children. And while it's true that Maggie doesn't see as well as she used to, she misses absolutely nothing.
Audrey Rose is Velma's baby girl and she has such a promising future. Then she meets Lloyd and suddenly the future is not so bright. Succumbing to pressure, Audrey throws everything away and leaves her own baby girl, Camilla to be raised by Velma and Maggie. In a house that's already running over with countless cousins, all left behind by their own parents, Camilla is just another mouth to feed. She's determined to be different though.
As we watch Camilla grow up, it becomes obvious that she's working to distance herself from this family and this life that she didn't ask for. So it's no surprise that she sheds her skin and her loved ones the moment she leaves for college and she's perfectly content to keep living in a world without them until she realizes that they're what she's been missing and they're what she needs the most.
I read this a number of years ago and remembered it being good, but I went back and listened to it and was blown away. The narrator breathed life into the story and made it absolutely unforgettable, so much so that I'm tempted to go back and listen to everything McFadden has written.
You know those books called From Homeless to Harvard or From Jail to Yale or From Skid Row to Skidmore? They’re these inspirational memoirs about young people overcoming the bleakest of circumstances and going on to succeed in college. I was worried I would be the subject of a reverse kind of book: a pathetic tale of a girl with a great education who frittered it away watching syndicated Law & Order episodes on a sofa in Brooklyn. From Dartmouth to Dickhead it would be called. I needed a job.
and this:
I always identified with Peppermint Patty, in case you were wondering—the loud, opinionated man-girl who chased around her crush without even fully knowing she liked him.
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? should have been hilarious. And it was, at first. Halfway through it, I realized that it wasn't as funny as I initially thought it was. Her childhood? Hysterical. Post college? It was just okay.
I don't watch The Office, so I was unfamiliar with Kaling and her brand of humor. I think the only reason I added it to my "to be read" list was because so many people I follow on Twitter and Goodreads recommended it. Maybe you have to be a fan of hers already for this to really click for you. I'm not, so with a chuckle here and a cackle there, it was just a meh read for me.
240pp
Published: November 2011
Theme: The Song That Doesn't End by Sheri Lewis & Lamb Chop
I’ve been lusting after Alyssa Cole’s When No One is Watching ever since I saw it pop up in the publisher's catalog. And I patiently waited as I saw others post about it, but my day has come! This creepy thriller landed on my doorstep a few days ago and I couldn't wait to dig in ... in the daylight hours.
