Thursday, December 31, 2020
Most Anticipated New Releases, January 2021
Sunday, December 27, 2020
How to Catch a Queen by Alyssa Cole
Now can I get an encore, do you want moreCooking raw with the Brooklyn boySo for one last time I need y'all to roar
Second Chance on Cypress Lane by Reese Ryan
Top 10 Reads of 2020
10) 𝑮𝒊𝒓𝒍, 𝑾𝒐𝒎𝒂𝒏, 𝑶𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 by Bernardine Evaristo - 2019 Booker Prize Winner, Girl, Woman, Other connects the lives of 12 Black British woman while telling each ones story in a series of shorts.
Wednesday, November 11, 2020
Fifty Words for Rain by Asha Lemmie
Wednesday, September 30, 2020
500 Miles From You by Jenny Colgan
Thursday, September 24, 2020
Before the Ever After by Jacqueline Woodson
Tuesday, September 22, 2020
Living Color: Angie Rubio Stories by Donna Miscolta
Thursday, September 10, 2020
His Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medie
The bride, Afi, has been given a mission by the family of her betrothed - force the break up of your husband and his girlfriend and return him to the family fold. That's not a small order, is it? But it seems a small price to pay for all Aunty Faustina Ganyo has done for Afi and her mother. And it's a win-win for Afi. She gets to leave her small town for Accra and an opportunity to study fashion design. Indeed, a small price to pay for marrying someone you've only met in passing and never with the intention of marrying him.
Initially I thought His Only Wife might be reminiscent of Lola Shoneyin's The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives, but that notion is quickly disavowed with Afi's arrival in Accra. While the author's description of Afi's life back in her home town is full of family members and detailed descriptions of their personalities, their backgrounds, etc., giving readers a chance to get to know them, descriptions of the people she meets in Accra tend to be more superficial. I never really felt like I got to know them so I had difficulty determining if their motives were sincere.
I think I expected more of His Only Wife than the author was able to give. Afi reads more like an impressionable early teen than an adult woman. Her story line is steady in some parts and rushed in others. It's the rushed parts that needed more detail and consistency to give the book some balance.
Disclaimer: Copy of book received from publisher but in no way influenced my review.
Tuesday, September 1, 2020
When No One is Watching by Alyssa Cole
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.
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw
The Secret Lives is not non-fiction, and I feel like that needs to be emphasized before it's tosssed aside as such. This is a collection of nine short stories that explore a variety of experiences in the lives of women. From the great-grandmother who frets over whether it makes more sense to keep her 14 year old granddaughter home from church so she can't openly lust over the first lady of the church or if she should send her to Sunday School in hopes that she'll have the sin knocked out of her to the daughter of a dying woman who seeks relief with a stranger in a parking lot; from a girl who lives her mother's shame as a preacher's mistress to a woman who has strict instructions for her married lovers — Philyaw brings the reality of these women's lives to our attention and shines a light on those subtle nuances that we tend to overlook.
Within these pages, you're sure to find a woman or girl whom you connect with, I know I did.
Tuesday, August 25, 2020
You Had Me at Hola by Alexis Daria
From the beginning, readers are introduced to Jasmine and her cousins Ava and Michelle, and I immediately want books about Ava and Michelle too because they are snarky and awesome and insightful and I want to see more of this family, especially their abuela. It's said that cousins are your first friends and Ava and Michelle know Jasmine's history of falling for men better than most and are determined to keep her on track with her plan to becoming a leading lady.
Ashton Suarez is a sexy man with secrets. As soon as I understood he came from the telenovela world and was hoping to go more "mainstream" by doing a bilingual show, I immediately thought of Rojelio De La Vega from Jane the Virgin and couldn't get him out of my head, which is fine because have you seen Jaime Camil? You haven't? Ok, I'm going to pause while you go Google him because you need to understand the levels of fineness we're talking about. 💃🏾salsas to Celia while I wait💃🏾 Ok, you've seen him? Good, let's continue.
Jasmine has a plan, Ashton has a plan, can they both get what they want and stick to the plan? Yes and no.They can get it but there has to be some compromising on the parts of the both. Do they slide into the sheets and do the horizontal hokey pokey? Yes, it's a telenovela within a telenovela, did you really think there'd be no sex? And it's hot and steamy and whew!
As you can tell, I really enjoyed You Had Me at Hola, so much so that I'm adding Alexis Daria's backlist to my TBR!
The Secret Women by Sheila Williams
This book was an absolute "can't put down, must finish reading this or I won't be able to sleep because I'll be wondering what the characters are doing" read. I loved that the women were older and that their ages ranged from their 40s to their 60s, because that's life, right? Growing up, your friends tend to be your age, but as an adult, you make friends with people you have things in common with. So at 21, you probably never imagined you'd be hanging out with a 45 year old, but at 40something, the concept of age-based friendship becomes an illusion.
The other aspect of the book that I was really loved as the recognition of mothers are fully realized beings outside of being mothers. Ask yourself how old you were when it first dawned on you that your mother had a whole life before you came along, one that didn't include you. She didn't just wake up as your mother, she was out doing things, living (and probably well) long before you came along. These are things that all three ladies discover in The Secret Women. And learning these kinds of things then lead you to reconcile what you knew and what you thought you knew about your mother. Talk about a wig snatching read!
Sex and Vanity by Kevin Kwan
The book opens in Italy with an elaborate over the top wedding and the extravagant events leading up to it, so we're still looking at life through the crazy wealth lens. And that would be fine if the story line and characters weren't so dreadfully boring. Kwan spends a great deal of time telling readers what schools each character attended, from nursery school all the way through college or finishing school. Honestly, who cares? It didn't make any of them any more interesting.
The most interesting characters, in that they weren't so boring, so bland, SO vanilla, were the protagonist's mysterious love interest and his mother. Even the protagonist, Lucie, is boring. Though she's biracial (white and Chinese), her world is ridiculously white and she absorbs microaggressions daily from her family and friends without ever clapping back. I just ... Kevin Kwan, what were you trying to do with this book? Because you didn't.
Destination Wedding by Diksha Basu
There were almost too many characters to keep up with, which made it difficult for me to initially keep them straight and/or care about their story line. At times, it felt like the story lines were meandering and characters who could have made the overall book more enjoyable were relegated to minor roles (e.g., the bride and groom).
It's also interesting to note the gratuitous white characters who were included in a story that centered Indian protagonists. I honestly can't say that the presence of either of them added much to the story and have to wonder if their addition was meant to broaden the writer's audience.
Always the Queen: The Denise LaSalle Story by Denise LaSalle
Written in a conversational tone, Always the Queen felt like I was sitting at my aunt's house listening to her reminisce about her version of the good old days, whether factual or as she remembered them. At times, I had a difficult time determining whether the events Ms LaSalle wrote about were real or simply embellishments. Regardless, this was a quick and enjoyable read for anyone familiar with her music and her many business adventures.
Love's Recipe by Mila Nicks
The author does characters and their story lines really well. There's a bit of her next book, Wild, Dark Horses included at the end of Love's Recipe. Sign me up because the little I read of it already has me hooked.