#BookReview: The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat - Edward Kelsey Moore

Friends for over 40 years, Odette, Clarice and Barbara Jean have seen each other through everything.  From forbidden love to a cheating husband, the Supremes have been there for each other. And if one of them got out of hand, the other two were there to steer her back on course.

Unlike THE Supremes, Odette, Clarice and Barbara Jean aren’t singers. They’re just friends that happen to reside in the same small Indiana town. But Big Earl, owner of Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat diner, gave them the front window spot while they were in high school and, from there, they’ve watched over and gossiped about the comings and goings of Plainview, Indiana residents for decades.

The plainest and rowdiest of the group, Odette is a no nonsense kind of woman and always has been. If anyone knew that she had conversations with her dead mother, they’d think she was losing a few screws. If they knew that her mother’s ghost hangs out with Eleanor Roosevelt’s, they’d lock her away for sure.

As teens, Clarice’s cheating boyfriend Richmond, now her cheating husband, had a hard time finding someone to double date with because Clarice’s mother insisted she bring Odette along. But, as the saying goes, there’s a pot for every lid and James fit Odette to a tee. Clarice never would have imagined that her homely friend would wind up in a more successful marriage. She never imagined she’d be married at all.

Growing up poor, and with the skankiest mother in town, Barbara Jean vows that she’s going to have a much better life. Rescued from a future that was starting to resemble her mother’s, by the Supremes and Lester, her much older husband, Barbara Jean has been on a slippery slope for the longest. Clarice and Odette see it for what it is, but are too polite to say anything.

These were the tender considerations that came with being a member of the Supremes.We overlooked each other’s flaws and treated each other well, even when we didn’t deserve it.

When one of the Supremes becomes ill, not only is she forced to confront some truths, the others are as well. While the results may not be pretty, you can guarantee that the path they take to get there is pretty entertaining. As Sophia stated in The Color Purple, “things gone be different around here from now on.” Indeed, they are.

352pp
Published: March 2013
Disclaimer: Copy of book received from publisher, opinions are my own.

 

Theme: With a Little Help From My Friends by Ike & Tina Turner

#BookReview: Kitchen - Banana Yoshimoto #BP2W (Japan)

I knew when I started this challenge that there might be some books I wouldn't get because of cultural differences.  Two weeks in and I've come across that first book.  I really wanted to like Kitchen, but it was strange and otherworldly.  It was a huge hit in Japan though, so perhaps it's just me.

Though the book has one name, it's actually two short stories.  The first, Kitchen, tells the story of Mikage.  Most people have a favorite room in their house and for Mikage, it's the kitchen.  However, it's more than just her favorite room, it's where she feels most comfortable.  So when her last living relative dies and she's offered a chance to move in with a classmate and his crossdressing father, she gladly accepts, based on the level of comfort she feels in their kitchen.

In the second short, Moonlight Shadow, young Satsuki mourns the loss of her boyfriend.  Though she's comforted by the presence of her deceased boyfriend's brother, who dresses in the school uniform of his deceased girlfriend, she longs to see Hitoshi again.  An encounter with a stranger on her morning run offers her that opportunity, but only if everything goes according to plan.

Both stories dealt with death and crossdressing men.  I don't even know what to do with that honestly.  I've not read anything else from the author, so I don't know if these are focused on in her other works.  It just seems strange that both topics would play such prominent roles within the same book.

152pp
Published: 1988

In 1603, after decades of civil warfare, the Tokugawa shogunate (a military-led, dynastic government) ushered in a long period of relative political stability and isolation from foreign influence. For more than two centuries this policy enabled Japan to enjoy a flowering of its indigenous culture. Japan opened its ports after signing the Treaty of Kanagawa with the US in 1854 and began to intensively modernize and industrialize. Following three decades of unprecedented growth, Japan's economy experienced a major slowdown starting in the 1990s, but the country remains a major economic power. In March 2011, Japan's strongest-ever earthquake, and an accompanying tsunami, devastated the northeast part of Honshu island, killing thousands and damaging several nuclear power plants. The catastrophe hobbled the country's economy and its energy infrastructure, and tested its ability to deal with humanitarian disasters. - CIA World Factboo

Location: Eastern Asia, island chain between the North Pacific Ocean and the sea of Japan, east of the Korean Peninsula 

Size: 377,915 sq km, slightly smaller than California 

Population: 127,368,088 

Ethnic groups: Japanese 98.5%, Koreans 0.5%, Chinese 0.4%, other 0.6%. Up to 230,000 Brazilians of Japanese origin migrated to Japan in the 1990s to work in industries; some have returned to Brazil (2004)

Languages: Japanese

Theme: Kimigayo

#BookReview: Loving Donovan - Bernice L. McFadden

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.

226pp
Published: January 2003

Theme: Hello Like Before by Bill Withers

#BookReview: The Twelve Tribes of Hattie - Ayana Mathis

Is there a limit on the amount of love a parent can have for their child?  If you have more than one child, is it possible to have loved your other children so much that you have nothing left for the others?  Or is it just possible for life to beat you down so much so that you have nothing left to give your children except a place to stay, food to eat and a determination to survive?

I can't find fault with Hattie Shepherd.  Giving birth to your first children at the age of 19 in a new city can be overwhelming.  To find yourself giving birth years later at the age of 46 is surprising.  Then to turn around at 74 and find yourself mothering your grandchildren, is not an easy road.  But how do you explain that to your children who only see you as cold and uncaring?

"Somebody always wants something from me," she said in a near whisper.  "They're eating me alive."

As you read, you'll be caught up in the lives of Lloyd, the musician; Six, the wonder boy preacher; the high strung and insecure Alice, who pretends her brother Billups needs her when, in reality, she's the one that desperately needs him; Bell, who seeks revenge against Hattie when all she really wants is to know the secret joy her mother found once upon a time; and countless others.  Mathis dedicates chapters to the various offspring, but their interactions as children aren't explored as much as they are as adults.  She wants you to see who they've become as a result of living in the house.

I love the set up of the book.  It feels like a compilation of short stories that are loosely tied together, with the only common thread being that Hattie and August have given birth to them.  With the exception of Alice and Billups, we see very little interaction among the siblings once they leave home.  It's as if Hattie's lack of love spread to them and there's nothing that bonds any of them together.

Part of the great migration to the north, I wonder how much of Hattie's coldness is a reflection of her surroundings.  While her husband, August, longs for the Georgia he remembers, minus Jim Crow, Hattie refuses to even speak its name.  Still, you have to wonder if August lamenting over leaving the south is valid.  Would Hattie have been different, would the children have had different lives, had they been surrounded by paper shell pecans, sweet gum trees, gigantic peaches and neighbors whose names they could recite years later? 

256pp
Published: December 2012
Disclaimer: Copy of book received from publisher, opinions are my own.

 

Theme: A Song for Mama by Boyz II Men

#BookReview: Where Did We Go Wrong? - Monica Mathis-Stowe

Ahhh, to be young and dumb.  You couldn't pay me to go back to those days.  Reading Monica Mathis-Stowe's Where Did We Go Wrong? certainly did nothing to make me miss them.

Joy, Maxine and Gabby have been friends since their days at Morgan State University, though I'm unsure as to why Joy and Maxine have tolerated Gabby's foolishness for so long.  If you were to look up the word golddigger in the dictionary, you'd find a perfectly posed picture of Gabby.  And she's not ashamed of it either.

Never mind that she was in a relationship with a good man, when the opportunity to hook up with a pro football player came along, she hopped on it.  The day he signed a $ 75 million dollar contract was the day she stopped taking birth control.  The fact that he was already married with kids was just a small stumbling block.  When Gabby wanted something, nothing stood in her way.

Former teacher and current homemaker Maxine has the perfect family life, if you're on the outside looking in.  But she sees her attorney husband sinking them deeper into debt as he tries to keep up with the Joneses.  They can't afford their home, cars or any of the other luxury items he insists on.  Things would be much more manageable if he would allow her to go back to work, but Trent doesn't want the mother of his children to have to work, like his own mother did after leaving his abusive father.

Joy's fear of her mother has kept her from being truly happy.  Mind you, her mother isn't abusive, but she is very opinionated and, in her opinion, Joy has no business thinking about any man until she's completed her doctoral program.  She and her longtime boyfriend Allen have been sneaking around behind her mother's back since they were teens, but Allen is tired of being her secret.  If she can't be open about their relationship, he'd rather not be with her.

While Joy and Maxine seem to have each other's backs, they also have Gabby's, even though she's undeserving.  Joy and Maxine are likable enough characters, though Joy does make some rash decisions that I really questioned, but Gabby? This chick is the skankiest of all skanks.  The way she schemes and plots against others without any remorse is unconscionable.  Like Mitt Romney, even when it's obvious that she's playing a losing game, she continues to play it.  I don't know how the two of them tolerated her in college and beyond.

I'm eager to read the sequel to the book because I'm interested in finding out what happened with Joy and Maxine.  More than anything, I want to know if Gabby has changed at all and, if she hasn't, has karma finally slapped her in the face.  I can only hope so.

242pp
Published: May 2012

Theme: What About Your Friends by TLC

#BookReview: Home - Toni Morrison

For the last few years I've told myself and anyone that would listen that I'm just not smart enough to read Toni Morrison.  I watch ToMo stans like Tayari Jones expound on her greatness and all I can think is, it must be over my head.  The last time I read a ToMo book and was able to comprehend it the first time around was pre-Beloved.  I read Song of Solomon, Sula and The Bluest Eye in high school and college and loved them.  Then Beloved came along and I had to read the book, see the movie and read the book again before it finally made sense to me.

After that came Jazz, Paradise, Love and A Mercy. I struggled with the first three and didn't even try with A Mercy.  I gave it to my mother as an audio book for Christmas and I swear she wrote me out of her will.  So when I saw that Morrison was publishing a new book, I was hesitant to request a copy from the publisher.  But they sent it and so I read it.  And I loved it!  I feel like the ToMo that wrote Song of Solomon is back.  Or maybe she never left. Maybe I've just come full circle.

Before I get into the review, let me just say that Tayari Jones has written a brilliant review of this also.  Mine isn't nearly as eloquent as hers.  When I talked to her about Home a few weeks ago, she tied characters & stories from previous ToMo works together in ways I would have never imagined.  So I'll give you my regular reader thoughts on why I loved the book, but if you're looking for something deep and meaningful, read her review when you finish reading my ramblings.

Simply put, Home is the story of Frank Money, a Korean War veteran returned home a fraction of the man that he was before he left.  While he returns whole physically, mentally, he is shattered. Back in the states a little over a year, he receives the news that his beloved sister, Cee, is ill.  As he journeys from Seattle, Washington to Atlanta and then Lotus, Georgia, the reader begins to understand that something is not quite right about Frank.  His anxiety levels are high and he can be impulsive.  As to whether or not his anxiety is a result of the war or his life prior to the war, it’s hard to tell.  He works hard, though, to keep the anxiety at bay.

From the moment her step-grandmother Noella saw Cee, she hated her.   Cee represents everything she resents about her husband Salem and his family.  Forced to flee Texas, in a scene repeated too often in towns like Rosewood, Florida and Tulsa, Oklahoma, Frank and Cee end up in Lotus, Georgia with their parents.  While their parents work the fields, Frank is responsible for Cee.  He sees the way Noella treats her and vows to always be responsible for her.

 “Misery don’t call ahead.  That’s why you have to stay awake - otherwise it just walks on in your door.”

With Frank off at war and no one else to guide her, Cee falls for the first pretty boy that looks her way. Ditched by him shortly after arriving in Atlanta, Cee is determined to stay there and make a decent life for herself instead of returning to Lotus and Noella.  She lands a dream job working in a doctor’s office, but we already know that all that glitters isn’t gold.

The biggest takeaway for me, and I feel like this was Cee’s “a-ha” moment, came in the form of a conversation with Miss Ethel, a local woman who nursed Cee back to wholeness after a run-in with the good doctor nearly killed her:

“See what I mean? Look to yourself.  You free.  Nothing and nobody is obliged to save you but you.  Seed your own land.  You young and a woman and there’s serious limitation in both, but you a person too.  Don’t let Noella or some trifling boyfriend and certainly no devil doctor decide who you are.  That’s slavery.  Somewhere inside you is that free person I’m talking about.  Locate her and let her do some good in the world.”

Though those words were said to Cee, I felt like that were meant for Frank as well.  While Cee was held back by physical pain, Frank’s pain was mental.  Those words and that way of living allowed both to move forward and become the complete people they were meant to be.

160pp
Published: May 2012
Disclosure: Copy received from publisher, opinions are my own.

 

Theme: Zoom by The Commodores 

Tayari's review

#BookReview: Red Hats - Damon Wayans

No, that's not a typo.  Damon Wayans, the comedian, has written a book about a sixty-plus year old woman.  Let that marinate for a minute, I'll wait... You done? Okay. There are a lot of people online that loved this book, I'm not one of them.

Meet Alma, wife of Harold for twenty-seven years, mother of three adult children, and the meanest, moodiest and downright evil lead character of Red Hats.  Alma may have been happy once upon a time, but if she's had a good day in the last twenty years, everyone around her has missed it.  Never one to have a kind word for her patient husband, Harold, she's at a loss when Harold drops dead and no one, not even her kids, wants to stick around to help her pick up the pieces.

In all of the years that she's lived in the neighborhood with her husband, she has managed to alienate just about everyone.  Couped up in her apartment, she watches the world go by without her, until the day that the ladies of the Red Hat Society come to her rescue.  Alma has never depended on anyone before and it will take a leap of faith for her to let this lively group of women into her life.

What did you like about this book?
The front and back covers have the most gorgeous red hats on them.  At just 211 pages, this was a very quick read.

What did you dislike about this book?
There were so many opportunities for the author to go more in depth about the reasons why Alma acted the way she did.  Instead, he decided that a paragraph would suffice.  There was also an opportunity to develop the character of Harold more, perhaps to give insight as to why he would stay with a woman so mean that she wouldn't pee on him if he were on fire.  Once again, it was a missed opportunity.

What could the author do to improve this book?
While I understand that this book was done as some sort of tribute to his mother, he may want to try his hand at writing from the male point of view going forth.  He has yet to find the voice of women.

211 pp
Published May 2010



Theme: Meanest Woman by Deborah Coleman & Joe Willie (I was looking for the Muddy Waters' version, but couldn't find it).

#BookReview: Roadrunner - Trisha R. Thomas

Former major league baseball player Dell "Roadrunner" Fletcher is in danger of losing his wife and kids if he can't get himself together. A baseball injury leaves him addicted to painkillers and feeling sorry for himself. His wife and kids have tried to be understanding and given him room to grieve for his former life, but when he hits his wife, they begin to realize that he's spiraled out of control.

The patrolman that responds to his wife's 911 call removes Dell from the home, but instead of booking him, takes him for a long ride that results in his disappearance.

Officer Lopez manages to inject himself in every aspect of the grieving family's life in a way that borders on stalking. Dell's son is loving the fatherly attention he's receiving, but his daughter is sure the handsome cop is up to something sinister.

This was a decent book, a quick read and a nice departure from the author's "Nappily..." series.

#BookReview: Black Pain: It Just Looks Like We're Not Hurting - Terrie Williams

This is not a feel good book, and it's not meant to be. Depression runs rampant in the black community and I don't think we talk about it nearly enough. Black Pain is full of stories and quotes from celebrities, athletes, activists and every day people that have all suffered from some form of depression.

While we, and especially women, have become good at masking what's really bothering us, this book helps to shed light on why your best friend seems to have it all together when you know she doesn't or why you gauge your interactions with your father on his mood for the day. All too often black women suffer from Super Woman Syndrome and make everyone except themselves a priority in their world. This can lead to resentment, stress which manifests itself in different ways, or just being plain evil. Ever wonder why Sister So and So always seems so nasty? Chances are she's depressed and doesn't even know it. As someone that suffers from depression and encourages anyone that thinks they need therapy to RUN to a good therapist, the book gives an accurate portrayal of what those suffering from this disease go through.