#BookReview: THE WEDDING DATE by Jasmine Guillory

Synopsis: Agreeing to go to a wedding with a guy she gets stuck with in an elevator is something Alexa Monroe wouldn’t normally do. But there’s something about Drew Nichols that’s too hard to resist.

On the eve of his ex’s wedding festivities, Drew is minus a plus one. Until a power outage strands him with the perfect candidate for a fake girlfriend…

After Alexa and Drew have more fun than they ever thought possible, Drew has to fly back to Los Angeles and his job as a pediatric surgeon, and Alexa heads home to Berkeley, where she’s the mayor’s chief of staff. Too bad they can’t stop thinking about the other…

They’re just two high-powered professionals on a collision course toward the long distance dating disaster of the century—or closing the gap between what they think they need and what they truly want…

Review: I love a good meet cute, especially one that doesn't come across as cheesy or forced. From the time Alexa and Drew meet, there's definitely chemistry between the two. Jasmine Guillory doesn't lead readers on a long and winding journey to determine if they're right for each other and I appreciate that. Too many authors waste half a book just deciding if the characters like each other. This isn't high school, these are grown people.

Guillory also takes on the aspects of an interracial relationship without playing into tired stereotypes. Alexa is black and Drew is white, but it's not something  either character dwells on when sizing up the other and it's not much of a factor in their relationship. He doesn't fetishize her as a black woman, she's not looking for a white savior. I love that about their story.

The Wedding Date is a solid read with well thought out characters. Their interactions aren't limited to the bedroom and doing the horizontal hokey pokey. While the story does follow the boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy might get girl back story line, Guillory has given readers a lot more insight into the relationship of Alexa and Drew and the thought processes behind their decisions.

320 p.
Published: January 2018
Disclaimer: Copy of book received from publisher, opinions are my own.

#BookReview: The Story Hour - Thrity Umrigar

I’m so blown away by the latest from Thrity Umrigar. I was a bit underwhelmed by her previous book, The World We Found, but I loved The Space Between Us, so my hope was that her new book would lean more toward The Space than The World. It seems my prayers were answered because The Story Hour is a fantastic read.

Brought to the U.S. by a husband who is a relative stranger to her, Lakshmi’s world is extremely small, consisting of days working in the store/restaurant her husband owns and nights in the apartment above the store. So small is her world that her interactions are limited to her husband, a co-worker and customers. When a long time customer that she considers her only friend announces that he’s moving away, Lakshmi is devastated. Lonely and faced with spending the rest of her life friendless and in a loveless marriage, she tries to kill herself.

Maggie has a good life with her husband, Sudhir. She enjoys her work as a psychologist and, while she likes most of her patients, she’s always kept a personal distance from them. When she encounters the young Indian woman in the hospital, she’s immediately drawn to her and her story. As the two work to create a stronger and more confident Lakshmi, that lines between personal and professional are blurred, resulting in an unexpected friendship.

Umrigar is at her best when she explores the complexity of relationships. Whether they’re between spouses, family members, friends or strangers, she expertly peels back the complex layers and displays the simplistic nature that lies at the heart of all relationships. In The Story Hour, this is especially important as she dissects the fragile relationship between an Indian immigrant and black American woman.

Often, when immigrants arrive in the U.S., it’s with preconceived notions. Western television and media influences how they view people they’ve had little to no contact with. Because of this, immigrants are more likely to believe that African Americans are dangerous and should be avoided, while believing that white means safety and whiteness is something to aspire to. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that broached this subject and Umrigar handles it extremely well.

336pp
Published: August 2014
Disclaimer: Copy of book received from publisher, opinions are my own.

#BookReview: Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

In a family so full of secrets that it’s a wonder members aren’t choking on them, it’s really no surprise that when the eldest daughter, Lydia, goes missing, no one can fathom how or why. I was absolutely blown away by how well Celeste Ng dug into the insecurities of each family member and how it affected how they interacted with each other and the outside world. By the time I finished Everything I Never Told You, it felt like the layers had just been peeled off of the inauthentic lives the whole family had been living. Wow!

When Marilyn went off to Radcliffe in the 1950s, it was with the intention of becoming a doctor. Unlike her mother who was a home economics teacher and believed that keeping house was the most suitable job for women, Marilyn was determined to follow her passion. As fate would have it, she fell into the life that her mother predicted for her. Though she goes through an unhappy and frustrated period, outwardly she appears to be content with her life.

To his students, James is an anomaly at Harvard, an Asian-American professor teaching American history, specifically about cowboys. While the other students question how this is so, Marilyn is intrigued by the shy professor. James has never felt like he belonged anywhere; not in his small private school in Iowa as the only Chinese student and certainly not as an adult at Harvard. From the beginning, being with the white, blond Marilyn is like an acceptance letter to American normalcy.

Nath and Lydia both struggle with acceptance at school in the late 1970s. Nath makes good grades and can’t wait to escape their small Ohio town for Harvard.  While he appears to be the most well-adjusted of his family, he carries just as many secrets. His biggest one won't be revealed to readers until almost the end of the book.  At home, so much of the focus is on Lydia that neither parent really notices Nath. It’s interesting to watch Lydia complain about how much attention is paid to everything she does, but when the focus is re-directed to Nath, she always manages to swing it back her way. It’s true that her parents are much more invested in her than their other children. Hannah, the youngest child, is almost invisible to her parents and her siblings. I feel sorry for her the most because while the others are grieving the loss of Lydia, no one even thinks to check on Hannah, who likely misses her sister the most.

I have so many questions for James, like, if you know that you had a hard time being the only Asian student in school, why would you put your children in a situation where they’re the only Asian students? To be fair, I know that he felt Marilyn’s white side “normalized” the kids, but it didn’t. The kids are left dealing with the ridicule from others while, at the same time, hiding it from their parents because they know how desperately their father wants them to fit in. Lydia catches a double dose of parental guilt. James is overly invested in making sure she has friends, proving that she has been accepted; Marilyn crams her head with math and science, forcing her to shun the few potential friendships she’s been offered, instead spending her evenings and weekends studying and trying to live up to her mother’s expectations.

Hannah sees all of this. She sees Lydia sinking deeper and deeper into despair. She knows about her secret rendezvous with a neighbor. She knows that Lydia is afraid that once Nath leaves, she won’t have anyone to turn to, she won’t have anyone that can relate to what she’s going through at school and at home. I can’t help but to think that all problems could have been solved if only someone had asked Hannah earlier. Everything I Never Told You definitely proves that secrets will eat you alive.

304pp
Published: June 2014
Disclaimer: Copy of book received from publisher, opinions are my own.

#BookReview: Calling Me Home by Julie Kibbler

I’d seen so many book bloggers whose opinions I respect heap praise on Calling Me Home. I was wary of it because, from reading blurbs and reviews, it looked like a modern day version of Driving Miss Daisy and I’m so over anything that remotely resembles that. I can’t say that I was pleasantly surprised and totally changed my mind after reading it, but it wasn’t as Miss Daisy-ish as I thought it would be.

Octogenarian Isabelle McAllister is determined to make it to Cincinnati for a funeral and enlists her hairdresser, Dorrie Curtis, to help her get there. An 89 year old white woman and a 30something black woman on the road from Texas to Ohio certainly raises a few eyebrows, but Dorrie is fiercely loyal to Isabelle, who she sees as a mother figure. She’s not sure whose funeral they’re attending, but if Isabelle wants to go, she’ll get her there.

Told through a series of flashbacks, we learn that as a teen in Kentucky, Isabelle engaged in a forbidden affair with the son of her family’s housekeeper. Isabelle would disagree that it was an affair. For her, it was the great love of her life. For Robert, her lover, it was life threatening.

While I tried to keep an open mind as I read Calling Me Home, I was frustrated by Isabelle’s naivete that could have resulted in harm to Robert several times. I could blame some of it on youth, but most of the blame rests on living a privileged life without regard to how your actions affect others. In the meantime, Robert is willing to put his college career on hold to make this petulant child happy. Knowing that her brothers would kill him if given a chance, he’s still willing to risk it all for her. It feels like he makes life changing adult decisions while she’s a child playing grown up, so very annoying.

The present day story doesn’t do much for me either, as it focuses on Dorrie who is, of course, a single mother that makes bad decisions when it comes to men. And now her son is stealing money from her and probably knocked up his girlfriend. Luckily, Isabelle is going to tell her exactly what she needs to do to fix her life because…Miss Daisy.

I really tried to like this book, but the author relies too heavily on stereotypes and benevolent white women and magical Negroes, pretty much everything I hate in books.

336pp
Published: February 2013

#BookReview: In Dependence by Sarah Ladipo Manyika

Synopsis:  It is the early-sixties when a young Tayo Ajayi sails to England from Nigeria to take up a scholarship at Oxford University. In this city of dreaming spires, he finds himself among a generation high on visions of a new and better world. The whole world seems ablaze with change: independence at home, the Civil Rights movement and the first tremors of cultural and sexual revolutions.

It is then that Tayo meets Vanessa Richardson, the beautiful daughter of an ex-colonial officer. In Dependence is Tayo and Vanessa's story of a brave but bittersweet love affair. It is the story of two people struggling to find themselves and each other - a story of passion and idealism, courage and betrayal, and the universal desire to fall, madly, deeply, in love

Review: I wish I could have liked this book more than I did.  It was just an okay story line with okay characters.  Tayo's life in Nigeria pre-Oxford was far more interesting than his life in England.  In addition, Tayo's life outside of his relationship with Vanessa was much more interesting than his life with her.

When they first meet, Tayo and Vanessa are drawn to each other, him to her because she's different than women he knows in Nigeria, her to him because she seems to have a fascination with all things from the continent of Africa.  As their relationship progresses, it seems that her love for him is also rooted in antagonizing her conservative, colonialist father.  While she watches other interracial relationships around them implode, she begins to wonder if she is simply something for Tayo to do until he meets a Nigerian woman, as she's witnessed with friends of his.

Called back home to Nigeria, Tayo leaves England with every intention of returning to Vanessa.  Delayed first by his father's illness and then by a military coup, Tayo resigns himself to staying in Nigeria and marrying a local woman.  A chance meeting with Vanessa many years later provides him with an opportunity to rekindle his romance with her, but just like their earlier encounters, it feels stiff and wooden.

I can't really tell if it was the author's intention or perhaps the words she chose to describe the characters and/or put in their mouths, but at no point did I ever feel like the two characters were really in love.  Though the book did a good job of highlighting the civil uprising in Nigeria and capturing the feel of 1960s England, it just wasn't enough to really hold my attention.  I made it through the book, but left it not really caring about the characters or their future.

272pp
Published: September 2008
Disclaimer: Copy of book received from publisher, opinions are my own.

#BookReview: Mama's Child by Joan Steinau Lester

Any time you read a book, you bring your own history and experiences along with you.  They shape your perception of what you're reading.  So it wasn't surprising to me that when I looked at other reader's reviews of Mama's Child on Goodreads, the people that loved it versus those that barely tolerated were firmly divided into two camps.

Consistency is important in stories.  I expect that if an author is inconsistent, his or her editor will help them.  The author couldn't decided whether or not Ruby, one of the main characters, was 11 or 13 in 1978.  As a result, I counted no less than 10 times where her age was changed.  In one paragraph, she would be referred to as a teen, where just a sentence or two ago, the author noted that she was 11, not exactly how I would define teen.  Because of the subject matter and the way in which the daughter was expected to react to situations, it was important to get her age right.  There are matters you would expect 13 year olds to handle better than an 11 year old.  This set the tone for me and lead to my initial dislike for the book and the author.  If you're not careful and don't care about your characters, how can you expect the readers to?

There are some that thought the book was "too racial."  To quote a fellow reader on Goodreads, "To be honest, I got tired of the book going on and on about everything being racial," which is laughable, because if you're writing a book about a biracial child's conflict with her white mother that's firmly rooted in identity, I'm not sure how it can be written without touching on race.  And if I'm being honest, this book irked me because of the mother's inability to deal with race, though that's just one of the reasons I had a problem with the story.

Solomon Jordan of Atlanta and Elizabeth O'Leary of Cleveland first meet in Greenwood, Mississippi in the summer of 1963 as members of the SNCC teaching at the Freedom School.  Bonding over music and literature, the two head for Oakland, California at the end of the summer to begin their lives together.  In their infatuation with each other, neither really takes the time to wonder how the racial makeup of their relationship will affect them and those around them.

Fast forward 15 years and Solomon and "Lizzy" are parents to 13 year old Che and 11 year old (sometimes) Ruby.  While Che is content to go along to get along, Ruby finds herself questioning the white authority at school and in other aspects of her life, as she's been taught to do by her parents.  Bigger problems are in store as Solomon, who begins to feel ashamed of his white wife in the presence of his Black Panther friends, pulls away from her.  Though Ruby adores her father, I found him to be lazy when it comes to his relationship with Elizabeth.  Rather than discuss why her presence makes him uncomfortable around other black people, he instead uses the women's liberation movement against her.  The truth is, he never thought about how he would be viewed by others because of her and comes to resent her for making him appear as less than down for the cause.

With Ruby as an observer, she begins to resent her mother as well.  I'm able to sympathize with Ruby much more than Solomon or Lizzy because of all the people affected by their divorce, she received the brunt of the fallout.  With Solomon and Che gone from the house, Elizabeth/Lizzy becomes Liz, a woman who no longer cooks, who no longer wants the responsibility of parenting.  Eleven year old Ruby rebels, telling her mother that one does not simply decide that they no longer want to be a parent.  The reality is people decide everyday that they no longer want to be parents, but to expect the child in that situation to not be confused is absurd.  Then to move from that to making significant lifestyle changes with no warning and expecting Ruby to be on board with them, it's no wonder that she rebelled. 

The book begins with an adult Ruby cutting Liz off.  And though other reviewers tried to say it was all about race, I'd say it was a combination of that and resentment of bad parenting.  This was a difficult book to read.  I honestly got tired of Liz and her whining white woman tears.  As someone that prided herself on interacting with the black community and being in touch with her daughter's feelings, she quickly retreated to her privileged mindset as soon as she was called out on her actions, supported by her fellow "progressive" friends.  At no point does she ever take into consideration Ruby's point of view, choosing to believe that the fact that she was her mother trumped all.  As much as I wanted to feel sorry for Liz as a mother, I couldn't.  She entered into the relationship with Solomon with rose-colored glasses on and didn't adequately prepare herself for the road she would travel as the mother of biracial children or the difficulties she might face in an interracial relationship.  Simply wishing something is easy doesn't make it so.

I've no doubt that who you are plays a great role in how you perceive what you're reading.  I've no doubt that my opinions on Mama's Child vary greatly from others.  One glance at Goodreads' reviews will confirm that, but I stand by my low rating of the book.  I initially only gave it 3 stars on Goodreads (and later changed it to 2), only because 2 1/2 stars aren't an option. Going back and reading my notes, I think that even that half star was too generous.  The whole book reads as a "look at me, I told my black child to be aware of the world around her and when she realized I was a part of that world, and not necessarily the good part, her survival instincts kicked in and she disowned me.  Woe is me."

320pp
Published: May 2013
Disclaimer: Copy of book received from publisher, opinions are my own.

#BookReview: The House Behind the Cedars by Charles W. Chestnutt

We’ll probably never know how many blacks become white after the Civil War due to passing. For those unfamiliar with what passing is, it's when a person from one racial group assumes the identity of another racial group, generally because they have a skin tone or features that allow them to do so. Though the subject of passing is later tackled in Nella Larsen’s 1929 Passing and 1948’s Lost Boundaries, Charles W. Chestnutt was one of the first to address it with 1900’s The House Behind the Cedars.

The story opens with the return of John Warwick to the town in North Carolina where he was formerly known as mulatto. Having lived in South Carolina for some years, where the laws governing who is and is not white are less stringent, John is no longer the same person he was when he left his mother and sister behind in their small community. Now an upstanding, white attorney, he’s returned to Patesville to convince his mother to allow his sister, Rena, to return to Clarence, South Carolina with him, where she might also pass and ascend to a higher racial and social class.

Charles W. Chestnutt

As Rena takes her place in society, she catches the eye of George Tryon, a client of John’s. Caught up in a whirlwind romance with him, Rena can’t help but to wonder if he would still love her if he knew that she was really black. Though John has no problem with passing, it becomes a source of frustration for Rena. She wants to believe that George will love her regardless and is tempted to confess to him, but to do so would out her brother.

It’s been said that Chestnutt based The House on family members. Given his appearance, he would have been a candidate to pass, but chose to identify as black.  He doesn't fault though who choose to pass.  However, it would seem that the message he sends with this story is that while passing for white can indeed move you higher up on the ladder of success, it comes with a price and ultimately it’s up to an individual to determine how much he or she is willing to pay.

320pp
Published: 1900

#BookReview: No Strings Attached - Bridget Gray

Mei Jing, or MJ as she's known to friends, just met Rod, yet she already knows him.  Years ago on holiday, she saved his life, but he was unconscious and never knew who saved him.  When he re-enters her life, she's hesitant to tell him because she doesn't want him to feel like he owes her anything.

Rod has traveled the world studying sustainable architecture.  He's back home in Australia, but has never forgotten the mystery woman that saved his life years ago.  He's paid a detective to find her, but each lead comes up short.

The two meet, flames flicker and what not, you get the idea.  MJ and Rod are just okay as characters.  Much more interesting are their friends and what's going on in their lives and MJ's mom's never ending quest to find her the perfect husband.

I was taken aback by a blatantly racist statement made by one of Rod's friends in front of MJ along the line of "all Asians look alike." I was even more dumbfounded that the author thought MJ would have let such a comment slide.  I mean, it's one thing to let some crap like that fall out of your mouth, but you're going to let it fall out in front of me AND I'm not going to say a word? Like, not even mention it later like it was perfectly fine?  That just didn't ring true to me.

175pp
Published: December 2012

 

Theme: He Doesn't Know I'm Alive by Janet Jackson

 

#BookReview: The Guardian's Heart - Michel Prince

I found a lot of fault with this read from Michel Prince.  I gave it three purple arm chairs, but I was far more generous than I should have been.  I won't go into all of the reasons why I don't think it deserved three stars, but I will touch upon a few of them.

The Guardian's Heart is about a mid-20s graduate student whose parents have been killed in a car accident and left him to raise his twin toddler siblings.  The story starts off with him, Case, meeting his love interest, Gabbie, in the aisle of a store as he's trying to figure out what kind of diapers to buy for the kids.  Gabbie assists him, sparks fly, yada yada yada.

So in their initial conversations, Case mentions that he has to go back to school to finish his last six weeks before graduation.  Problem is, he never goes back!  After it's mentioned early on, no other mention of school is made until almost the end of the book when it's magically time for graduation.  Instead, those six weeks are used to bring him and Gabbie close enough that she's ready to let his sibling calls her mom and he's ready to marry her.

WDDDA???

Gabbie meets Case in a store, feels sorry for him struggling with two kids, follows him home, cleans house, bathes the kids, etc. for a man she just met.  Ummm...ma'am...WDDDA??? You don't know this dude from the man on the moon, but you're that trusting?  And that leads to the next scattered plot line.

Because of past relationships, Gabbie is hesitant to get involved or even interact with men.  But Case is so charming and what not that she dives right in with little to no hesitation.  One minute just the thought of a guy you dated in high school seven years ago is enough to have you on the brink of mental collapse, the next you're playing house with Diaper King??

I understand that magic is supposed to happen in books, but it works better if it's believable.  The author would have us believe that a group of high school seniors forfeited scholarships and going to college when one of their friends got pregnant, pooled their money together to open a day care center (when none of them had any previous experience) right out of high school.  Or that a mid-20s woman with no kids would add water and have instant family in six weeks and think nothing of it.  She would also have us to believe several other outlandish story lines that all end up wrapped in a nice bow at the end of the book.  Girl, I guess.

188pp
Published: September 2012

 

Theme: Ebony and Ivory by Paul McCartney & Stevie Wonder

#BookReview: Kinky Gazpacho - Lori L. Tharps

There aren't many people who chart their destiny in the seventh grade and follow through with it, but by that time, Lori L. Tharps already knew that somehow Spain would play a role in her life.  Kinky Gazpacho takes us on a journey as Tharps tries to reconcile her love for a place where she doesn't necessarily feel loved.  But that's not the most interesting part of the story for me.

Tharps grew up in a world of otherness.  By that I mean, she grew up as one of the few black students in predominantly white schools.  At no point does she sound bitter about it.  In fact, she seems proud of the fact that can blend into the mainstream (read: White American culture) so well.  And I think that, in part, is why she's so troubled about what she feels is Spain's rejection of her.  She's Lori the lovable.  She's fit in in the Midwest, Northeast and Morocco.  How dare this country that she's longed for for so many years not accept her in the manner she sees fit?

Lest you think I'm faulting Tharps, be assured that I'm not.  Like her, I grew up in a world of otherness.  Navigating grade school and high school as an other can be a lonely place.  There can be a need to assimilate for acceptance, especially in a classroom setting where being different can lead to bullying or avoidance.  It makes life easier.  Often in these situations, members of other learn to code switch and the face/language/actions seen in school or workplace differ from those seen with members of their own race/culture/religion.  Whether it's done consciously or not, it becomes a coping mechanism for many.  

Not completely comfortable with assimilation, Tharps headed for Smith College determined not to become friends with any White people.  In her quest to make black friends, she decided to attend the Black Students' Alliance meeting, but left before the meeting started when no one made an effort to speak to, or acknowledge, her.  It's important to note that she doesn't mention reaching out to anyone at the meeting either and that most of the students were either returning students or first years that arrived on campus earlier in the week for a student of color orientation in which they met each other.  Though she could have made more of an effort, I understand that it's difficult to make new friends and try to insert yourself in a group where it feels like everyone already knows everyone else.

Tharps' problem seemed to be that she, like so many others, had defined what blackness was and, deciding that the other black girls were the epitome of it while she was not, judged them and returned to the world in which she was most comfortable.  And that's fine, but the idea that black women had rejected her because of the way she talked (when she had yet to utter a word) or the music she listened to, was a little absurd. For someone that didn't want to be defined by her color, she seemed to have no problem doing it to others.

Studying abroad in Spain her junior year of college begins Tharps' love-hate relationship with the country.  Though she first revels in the fact that her otherness there isn't based on being black, but being American, she soon tires of the stares from people that have rarely seen a black woman.  From the hooded figures of people celebrating Semana Santa, the lusty gazes of men curious about "wild" black women, the black-faced mammy figurines and costumes, to candy, Tharps is continually confronted with things that should make her denounce her adopted country.  But in marrying her husband and becoming a more frequent visitor to Spain, she begins to find a little of herself in the country.  Unfortunately, it took far too long in story for this to happen and far too little time was spent exploring it.

207pp

Published: March 2008

Theme: Stranger in Paradise by Diana Ross

#BookReview: Imperfect Bliss - Susan Fales-Hill

In what's a clear departure from 2010's One Flight Up, Imperfect Bliss falls short of what I expected from someone that once wrote for The Cosby Show, A Different World and Linc's.  Today's television networks rely heavily on reality TV and that's the world that Fales-Hill plunges us into with her latest.

The overly dramatic Forsythia and mild mannered Harold have successfully raised four daughters.  Well, successfully may be a bit of a stretch.  Oldest daughter Victoria is just this side of becoming an old maid.  Second eldest daughter Bliss, a recent divorcee, has returned home with her four year old daughter, Bella, in tow.  Third daughter Charlotte desperately seeks attention in all of the wrong places.  And youngest daughter Diana is about to turn everyone's world upside down.

Diana undoubtedly grew up watching reality TV shows like The Bachelor, so it shouldn't have come as a shock to anyone in the family when she announces that she's been picked to star in her own reality show called The Virgin.  Always ready to claim the spotlight that is rightfully hers, Forsythia is on board from day one, but the rest of the family, especially Bliss, isn't so sure they want their everyday lives broadcast across the country for eight months.  It doesn't matter.  Eventually all of the Harcourts are swept up in the madness of The Virgin, whether they want to be or not.

There are a lot of story lines going on throughout the book and, honestly, it was hard to muster up a care about any of them.  I found Forsythia to be highly annoying with her obsession with skin color and her perceived idea of perfection.  Watching her reject her grandchild and anyone else didn't meet her standards of perfection was painful.  Charlotte as the promiscuous bad girl seeking her family's attention seemed very stereotypical.  Interestingly, the daughter upon whom the reality show is based, almost gets the smallest story line.  It's interesting that Fales-Hill would choose to build the book around Bliss, given that Diana's appearing on The Virgin is the basis for so much of the family drama and interaction.

Imperfect Bliss really could have been a much more enjoyable story  had it taken away several of the distractions in the forms of Forsythia and The Virgin and spent more time focusing on Bliss' relationship with her father, daughter and the men in her life.  I would have also loved to see more attention paid to Victoria.  In my opinion, her story line was the most interesting of all.

304pp
Published: July 2012
Disclosure: Copy received from publisher, opinions are my own.

 

Theme: We Are Family by Sister Sledge

#BookReview: black and (A)broad: traveling beyond the limitations of identity - Carolyn Vines

I stumbled upon the author's blog back in December and thought the premise was absolutely fascinating.  I don't necessarily have a desire to live abroad, but traveling abroad is definitely on the must do list.  It's too bad that this book is less about Vine's experience living abroad while identifying as a black woman and more about her self-hate.

The author spends time as a college student in Spain, which was of great interest since it's on my bucket list of places to visit.  Unfortunately, she glosses over the experience.  Instead, she chooses to dwell on meeting her Dutch boyfriend in Washington, DC; moving to New Orleans to live with him; and eventually following him back to the Netherlands.

So I'm thinking, okay, show me what the Netherlands has to offer a brown woman.  But other than a few passages here and there, I didn't get that either.  What I got was a book about a woman who was taught to distrust other black women and to marry a white man talking about how difficult it was to raise a child while working.  That happens to women all over the world daily, right? Is it book worthy? I suppose.  But it wasn't what I was looking for.

Circling back to my comment about the author's self-hate, there is no doubt based on her comments that the seeds of hatred were planted by her mother.  It lives on in the author's belief as a college student that if she were light with long hair by Lisa Bonet that she'd be more readily accepted by her peers.

I'd already heard that a girl from my high school had commented that “Carolyn isn’t black anymore; she hangs out with white people.” I kept my mouth shut and went into a self-imposed exile from the black community and took refuge in the white, where androgyny was acceptable and sexuality forbidden (so I believed), the only safe place for a black girl like me who needed to get away from the expectations of black people regarding the way I spoke, who I had sex with, the grades I got, who my friends should be, which sports I could play, what music I could listen to, and the list goes on.

I was disheartened by her view of the black community as bad overall, while the white community represented safety.  In fact, it seems that at some point she starts to see herself as "other" as if being black was less than any other race.

I couldn’t articulate my most terrifying fear of not working: I’d become a white woman, and I couldn’t have that. As a child trying to visualize what I wanted to be when I grew up, a white housewife never even made the shortlist. On the contrary, I imagined myself single and supporting my kids on my executive’s salary. In a few words – a strong, independent, black woman who didn’t need anybody, not even the father of my children. After all, it was my birthright, handed down to me from my mother who’d inherited it from her mother and so on for generations.

I would love to have a conversation with her and ask at what point did being a housewife become synonymous with being a white woman, while struggling to survive became synonymous with being a black woman. And yes, we're all aware of what TV and the media show us, but we know that women of all races are housewives and women of all races struggle.  And if you see that your mother struggled, why would you readily accept that that's your fate?

The author also seems to have a romanticized view of her current homeland.  Though a Dutch magazine did a spread in December 2011 about Rihanna with a headline calling her a "Niggerbitch," Vines would have us believe that the Netherlands are post-racial.  In fact, in her mind they don't see race at all.  However, she contradicts herself.

For example, Dutch television broadcast positive images of blacks that I’d never seen in America... Blacks were not depicted as stereotypes but as part of the Dutch community, participating in healthy relationships. They were not shown leading “black” lives, they were leading Dutch lives.

The America I grew up in disparaged black culture, relegating it to the margins of mainstream culture.Black Americans, including myself, internalized the message that we were of no consequence, mere outcasts trespassing on the American Dream. Dutch people, on the other hand, were curious about my black culture, taking a genuine interest in its particularities.

Many Dutch people were quick to deny their ancestors’ role as the oppressor, which I’d found unsettling, at the very least. Rationalizations abounded, such as Dutch slave owners not being as cruel as the Spanish or their not being involved with the slave trade as long as the French or that Dutch slavers hadn’t shipped as many Africans as the English. Dutch people themselves had admitted that their educational system, formal and informal, had glossed over Dutch colonial history.

However, the gravest problem I could see was that the Dutch didn’t question their country’s involvement in the colonization of Asia and America and the enslavement of Africans, just as they did not question Black Pete, even amidst the reproach he inspired. In my opinion Black Pete would be an ideal starting point for the Dutch to engage their racial politics.

Also disturbing to me was the author's need to talk about her sister's alcoholism in a way that almost seemed to belittle her.  It was almost if she was using that particular chapter to show that she had "made" it while her sister fell prey to the exact men and life that her mother had always predicted for her. So the author is winning at life by playing by the rules her mother laid out.

So what did I take away from this book?  The author is proud of her marriage to a Dutchman (which her mother surely approved of, though she didn't bother attending the wedding) and her biracial daughters. She finally found a group of women of color, mostly married to Dutchmen, that she can relate to, thereby disproving her mother's notion that other black women can't be trusted. Meh.

316pp
Published: October 2010
 

 

Theme: Leaving on a Jet Plane by Mos Def

#BookReview: Red Polka Dot in a World Full of Plaid - Varian Johnson

Had I not been desperate for something to listen to on a recent road trip, I probably would have never picked up this book.  That's not to say that anything was too terribly wrong with it, it just trended on the YA side and that's not really my thing.  But given the choice between listening to this and the same 10 songs over and over again on satellite radio, I went with this.

Red Polka Dot is the story of Maxine, a recent high school graduate, who learns that the father she always thought was dead is, in fact, alive and well and living in Oklahoma.  Determined to meet him, she sets off on her own from South Carolina, only to have car problems.  Her best friend Deke comes to her rescue and the two make their way to Oklahoma where Maxine discovers that not only is her father Jack alive, he's white.

This first effort from Varian Johnson was crammed with entirely too many messages for such a short book.  There was Maxine's discovery that she was biracial and how it affected her outlook after believing that she was black for 18 years. In addition, she had to deal with how others around her reacted to her as a result.   There was also a strong Christian lit element with Deke and Jack both talking about their beliefs repeatedly and trying to convince Maxine to come back to church.  And then there was the problem of defining her friendship with Deke.  In the midst of this, she had to find time to create and define a relationship with her newly discovered father.  And like a soap opera, the author managed to wrap all of these issues up with a nice neat bow within a week.  While this may have played out well for a younger reader, it was too idealistic for a cynical older reader like me.

What did you like about this book?
It had good messages, there were just too many of them to give any one proper attention and fleshing out.

What didn't you like about this book?
The narrator of the audio book has the same last name of the author.  While Johnson is a common last name, I couldn't help but wonder if she was related to him.  That could be the only plausible reason for using her as the narrator.  I picked up a distinct Caribbean lilt in her voice, which was distracting since the character was supposed to be from South Carolina.  Another problem was that the narrator was only capable of doing three voices even though she gave voice to every character in the book.  As a result, all of the male characters, with the exception of Deke, sounded like an old white man sitting on his porch holding a shotgun and all of the female characters, with the exception of Maxine, sounded like Florence Jean Castleberry (that's Flo for those that remember the TV show, Alice).  It may have been more economically feasible for the author to use a relative to narrate, but the voices she used were annoying and made listening to the book almost unbearable.

What could the author do to improve this book?
Pick a theme and stick with it.

199pp
Listening time: 5 hours, 50 minutes
Published November 2005

Theme: At Seventeen by Janis Ian

#BookReview: Sweet Jiminy - Kristen Gore

Jiminy Davis walks away from her life in law school in Chicago and finds herself in the small Mississippi town in which her grandmother, Willa, lives. She's come to get away from everything.  Realizing that being attorney is not what she wants for her future, she hopes the time away will give her a chance to regroup.

Bo, the nephew of Willa's housekeeper, Lyn, has come back to Mississippi to study for his medical school entrance exams.  Growing up in the south, Bo knows all too well how the rural Mississippi town expects blacks to behave.  He's simply there to prepare for his exam without the distractions that he might have in a bigger city.

Years before this Jiminy was born, there was another Jiminy, Lyn's daughter.  Both Lyn's husband and the first Jiminy were killed in what was called an accident, but what everyone in town knows were deliberate killings.  With time on her hands and a natural curiosity, the current Jiminy is determined to find out what happened to her namesake.  The problem is having only visited the south during summers as a child, Jiminy is not always aware of the ways race factors into interactions in the town.  So she's shocked when she finds the previously polite townspeople reacting in unexpected ways to her questioning.

It was coincidental that I read this during the time the Investigative Discovery channel was premiering the Injustice Files series.  If you're not familiar with it, it features cold cases from the Civil Rights era.  All of the stories featured involved black men killed by members of the Klan, or those of that ilk, who have never been brought to justice for their crimes because the white citizens of their town either turned a blind eye to what was going on or actively engaged in the crimes themselves.  Kristen Gore did a fine job of creating characters quite similar to the people featured in the documentaries.

What did you like about this book?
There were a few twists and turns that I didn't quite expect.  Since I hate predictable books, I was pleasantly surprised by the unexpected.

What didn't you like about this book? 
I was going to say the second Jiminy's naivete was over the top, but after some thought I  decided it really wasn't.  Her experience as a white woman from a northern city played a big factor in how she saw race and race relations.  So while one might have expected her to know the rules of the South, she would have really had no reason to since her earlier experiences there as a child would have been structured in such a way that her only interactions with blacks would have been her grandmother's housekeeper, Lyn.

What could the author do to improve this book?
The author introduces a Latino family that's come to Mississippi to open a restaurant while pursuing the American dream. Other than using them as a way to introduce immigration to the story line, they really serve no purpose.  We already know the town is full of bigots, so giving them another group of color to intimidate is overkill.  It's pretty safe to assume that someone that doesn't care for African Americans has no use for any other people of color.  Their story line could have been nixed altogether.

240pp
Published: April 2011

 

Theme: Mercy, Mercy, Mercy by The Cannonball Adderley Quintet

#BookReview: Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away - Christie Watson

An absolutely brilliant effort from first time novelist Christie Watson, Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away, is definitely a must read.  Watson tackles several issues head on and does so with ease.

Told from the point of view of Blessing, who is twelve when we first meet her, Tiny Sunbirds is the story of a Nigerian family uprooted from their comfortable existence in Lagos when the mother catches the father cheating.  Forced to move to Warri in the Niger Delta, Blessing and her brother Ezikiel are introduced to a lifestyle quite different from what they've known.  They're also re-introduced to their somewhat mysterious grandmother and their proud grandfather and this is where the adventure really begins.  Through the eyes of twelve year old Blessing, the reader is made aware of female circumcision and environmental issues resulting from foreign oil companies.

When the children first arrive in Warri, Ezikiel seems to be the responsible one while Blessing has her head in the clouds.  As they mature, and they're influenced both by the company they keep and their surroundings, their roles are reversed.  Blessing becomes the more stable of the two, while Ezikiel becomes restless and out of control.  His direct confrontations with her mother's white boyfriend are not at all in character for who he was.  It's fascinating to watch him evolve from a polite, studious teen to a disrespectful, fanatical one.

What did you like about this book?
I loved the moments shared between Blessing and her grandmother.  Even though her mother doesn't want her to, Blessing follows in the footsteps of her grandmother and I loved watching her pass on her knowledge.

Every character was fully utilized in this story.  Often secondary characters are given a line or two, but the author makes full use of them and it makes the story more complete. I was especially appreciative of Celestine.  Like a court jester, she provided comic relief at times when it was much needed.

What didn't you like about this book?
I wouldn't say it was a dislike, but when Blessing is finally reunited with the father she worships, he's in such a distasteful state.  I would have almost rather she had never reunited with him than to deal with what he had become since she last saw him.

What could the author do to improve this book?
 At first I was skeptical of the children's mother's relationship with Dan, an oil worker.  Perhaps if the author had given us a first person glimpse of Mama's life outside of the household, it would have been easier to accept.

448pp
Published: May 2011
Disclosure: Galley received from the publisher.

Theme: Bye Bye Blackbird by Rachelle Ferrell

Guest Post: Time and the River by Zee Edgell

Published in 2007, Time and the River is by far the most intriguing and enlightening work by the Belizean author Zee Edgell, author of highly acclaimed novel Beka Lamb. In the literary circles of United States, the slave narrative is an established form of writing that is read and discussed in the academia as well as in the popular sphere. What makes Time and the River an amazing tour de force is the complex thematic foci mobilized to enlighten us about the nature, functioning, and consequences of the Belizean slave economy.  Based on real-life figures from Belizean history, the novels three main characters–Leah, Will, and Sharper–teach us not just the nature of human existence under oppression but also about the destructive power of slavery as an institution and its undeniable connection to the rise of early mercantile capitalism.

Leah, the main character, is probably the most complex character in the novel: she grows up as a slave and eventually, through her marriage to a slave owner, ends up inheriting more than three hundred slaves. Edgell, using court records and other archives, reconstructs for us the experiences of a female gendered subject who does earn her freedom but is not free enough to exercise her full agency as she does not free her slaves until after her death. Leah perplexes the readers as she defies our basic hope that when the oppressed are free of oppressors, they will not become oppressors themselves. But through her we learn the all-important lesson: slavery does not end simply because it is abolished or if one has gained one’s freedom. Instead, true human freedom arrives only when the structures of the material culture that underwrite slavery are altered and restructured.

Another important aspect of the novel is that it teaches us about a different kind of slavery: that of timber extraction instead of plantation slavery. The entire edifice of Belize’s colonial economy was built around the extraction and export of mahogany. The slaves were employed to locate, cut, and move the trees to the harbor for export to Europe. This mechanism involved housing slaves in forest encampments and created a hierarchy of jobs performed by the slaves: highest on this graded scale was the role of the spotters who located suitable mahogany trees in the thick forest. Thus, the slaves were not as closely monitored as their counterparts in the Caribbean cane economy or as those in the cotton fields of American south. The slaves were also free to move about in the towns and could also learn a trade and purchase their freedom. None of this implies that their experience of slavery was any less dehumanizing than that of their counterparts elsewhere.

Will and Sharper are two characters whose real historical names are used in the novel. Edgell’s reason, as shared with me in an email: “I kept the names Will and Sharper because a number of young people would know about them from one of their elementary history books, in which Will and Sharper are listed as Belizean heroes of the last known slave revolt in Belize, in 1820.” Will and Sharper also represent two different slave subjectivities: that of a captured slave and of the one who was born as a slave respectively. Will, the perpetual fighter, was captured in Africa when he was twelve and thus retains a part of his cultural memory of his free life. Throughout the novel, during all his revolts, he struggles with the loss of his cultural memory as he slowly starts forgetting the faces of his family, even that of his mother. His story then is also a personalized account of loss of a self through the process of slavery informing us what happens when a people are deracinated and thrown into a new world without any connection to their primary culture or a bank of narratives and stories essential to articulating an individual and collective identity.

On the whole, Time and the River is a fascinating exploration of selfhood, heroism, and traumas of slavery and a fitting tribute to the resilient spirits of those who never gave up their quest for freedom no matter what the circumstances. The novel also teaches us another important lesson: slavery is not over and continues in the form of wage slavery all over the world and that like Will and Sharper, we all must come together, even when the odds are impossible, to fight oppression wherever it exists.

About the reviewer:

Author of Constructing Pakistan (Oxford UP), Dr. Masood Ashraf Raja is an Assistant Professor of Postcolonial Literature and the editor of Pakistaniaat: A Journal of Pakistan Studies. Dr. Raja can be found at http://postcoloniality.org/

#BookReview: jenniemae & james: A Memoir in Black & White - Brooke Newman

I'm not sure what I expected this book to be about.  Billed as the story of interracial friendship, it is really a love letter to the memory of the author's father and their maid.  The James of which Brooke Newman speaks is James Newman, the mathematician who coined the term googol (later used by the creators of Google).

While James may have been a brilliant mathematician, he was sorely lacking in the husband and father department.  It seems that his third wife, Ruth, recognized this early on, but low self-esteem led her to believe that it was the best she could do.  James' transgressions were so acceptable that often his girlfriends resided in the house with the family.

Observing all of this madness is Jenniemae Harrington, the family maid.  Up from the south, Jenniemae begins working for the Harringtons shortly after she arrives in Washington, DC.  An uneducated woman, she seems to have the most sense of anyone passing through the doors of the Newman house.  She and James form what the author considers a friendship, I don't know that I would go as far as to call it that.  More often than not, Jenniemae is called upon to dish out words of wisdom and heal wounds within the family.  When James' wife finally decides to leave him, it is Jenniemae that puts them back together.

Though the author can seem to remember in great detail conversations she and her family had with Jenniemae, with few exceptions, none of those conversations are about her life outside of their house.  It's almost as if she ceases to exist when not in their presence.  In one instance Jenniemae is called home to care for her daughter who has just been burned.  James drives her home and seems at a loss as to what to do next.  Before he enters the house to see if he can be of assistance, he sits in the car wondering if she'll come back to tell him or if, perhaps she'll remember he's out there and come to dismiss him.  Really? Her child has burns all over her body, but you're so self-absorbed that you really think she has time to come tell you what to do with your grown self?

I'm also somewhat confused as to how someone that has been a constant in your life for over 20 years does not rate a picture in your book, though there are several of everyone else.  My great disappoint with this books lies in the fact that I thought memoir would truly be about a friendship.  Perhaps the author is confused about what friendship is.  In my opinion, this is the story of a man that refuses to take responsibility for his actions and the woman that works for him.  I didn't need another magical Negro story.  If I were looking for that, I would have re-read Saving CeeCee Honeycutt or The Secret Lives of Bees.

What did you like about this book?
I enjoyed the brief glimpse into Jenniemae's life outside of the Newman home.

What did you dislike about this book?
I get that her father was a famous, sought after mathematician.  If the author really wanted to discuss his work and include lengthy letters and articles written by him, then perhaps she should have written a separate book.

What could the author do to improve this book?
It would have been a more interesting read if the author's brother and mother were given voices instead of being treated as a minor characters.

320pp
Published March 2010

Theme: Ebony & Ivory by Stevie Wonder & Paul McCartney

#BookReview: Who Does She Think She Is? - Benilde Little

You know how you just know you've read a book already? I could have sworn I read this a few years back. I figured the cover had changed and that's why I was so thrown by it. Turns out I hadn't read it. If Sterling had been at the library that day, I would have known because he would have told me. You would think the library could store a list of what you've read in their database or something so that people like me could keep track, but I digress.

Who Does She Think She Is? is really nothing more than Dorothy West's The Wedding shaken, not stirred.  In both books the main character is a well brought up, slightly spoiled, young, black woman engaged to a wealthy white man.  Something, or someone, happens to turn their heads in the direction of another man, in both instances he's African American, and the ladies question their decision to marry.

Who Does She Think She Is? possesses an overbearing grandmother, The Wedding has an overbearing mother. The mothers in both books are currently in or were previously in bad marriages and project their issues onto their daughters.  The only real difference in these books is that one is set in 1950s Martha Vineyard, the other in present day New York.  The similarities aren't enough to detract from the story line of WDSTSI and if you enjoyed The Wedding, you'll certainly enjoy this.

What did you like about this book?
The author flows her words and the story together very well.  It made for a quick read.

What didn't you like about this book?
Other than the fact that I felt like it was a rehash of another book, nothing.

What could the author do to improve this book?
The ending seemed a little rushed and wrapped up just a little too perfect to be believable.

269pp
Published April 2005