If Beale Street Could Talk

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by James Baldwin
First sentence: “I look at myself in the mirror.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There is some swearing, including multiple f-bombs. It’s in the fiction sections of the bookstore.

This is the story of Tish and Fonny, a young Black couple who are looking forward to a life together. Until Fonny is falsely arrested and imprisoned for rape. But Tish, pregnant with Fonny’s baby, and her family and Fonny’s father, are determined to get him out.

It’s a pretty basic plot when you sketch it out, but Baldwin is more about the words and the feel than the plot. He’s a very lyrical writer, which sometimes (for me) got in the way of the characters and the story, but mostly just enhanced it. I do love the way he characterizes the people in the book, fleshing them out so they feel whole. It did feel dated with some of the language, but that’s to be expected for a book written in 1973. But, the themes — of white supremacy and systemic racism in the police force — are still relevant.

I read this for a book group discussion (which I missed… boo on me!) and I’m sad I missed the discussion; there is much to talk about here. At any rate, I’m glad I missed it.

Audio Book (sort of): James and the Giant Peach

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by Roald Dahl
Read by Taika Waititi and friends
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: It’s silly, but much like most of Roald Dahl books, mostly harmless.

I don’t know how I stumbled upon Taika Waititi (and friends) reading James and the Giant Peach, but it has been something that has utterly delighted me these past few weeks. It’s a silly story, one I’ve read maybe once (there’s a bit about the wicked aunts killing spiders I think about every time I deep clean, though), one I have usually dismissed as “lesser” Dahl.

But in Waititi’s hands, it was magical. He’s a gifted storyteller, and the people he’s assembled to help him are wonderful as well. Some are more memorable than others: Meryl Streep and Benedict Cumbertbatch as the aunts in Episode 2 were hilarious, Cate Blanchett as the Centipede in Episode 3 was absolutely perfect, and YoYo Ma as the grasshopper was simultaneously incredibly earnest and utterly endearing. I listened to three episodes every Friday, which was about an hour, and I was always charmed.

It’s still a silly story, with an utterly pedantic ending, but Waititi made it wonderful.

State of the TBR Pile: June 2020

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I have thought the past few weeks about what I can do to make a change in my life to support BIPOC. Yes, I can vote (and I’m toying with getting more involved in helping people get to the polls or something like that). But, I read a lot, and I have decided to be more purposeful in both my reading and my book buying. I have decided that at minimum of 50% of my reading pile at any time will be by BIPOC authors. And at least 50% of my book buying will be books by BIPOC authors. It’s not a lot, but it’s a start.

Black is the Body by Emily Bernard
Dragondrums by Anne McCaffrey
Dear Universe by Florence Gonsalves
Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang
Muse Squad by Chantel Acevedo
10 Things I Hate About Pinky by Sandhya Menon
The Blossom and the Firefly by Sherri L. Smith
Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera
I’m Not Dying With You Tonight by Gilly Segal and Kimberly Jones
Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones

What’s on your TBR pile?

Aurora Burning

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by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
First sentence: “The disruptor blast hits the Betraskan right in her chest.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Others in the series: Aurora Rising
Content: There is mild swearing, including three (very well placed) f-bombs. There is some alluding to sex but none actual.

Spoilers for the first book, obviously.

So the team of seven is down to six, their pilot, Cat, falling victim to the ancient and terrible enemy Ra’haaam, who absorbed her consciousness into their own. They’re wanted by the Terran Defense force and the GIA, which has been infiltrated by the Ra’haam, even if the rest of the ‘Way doesn’t know it. But, they discover the Hadfield, the ship Aurora was on before Tyler rescued her, and Squad 312 decides to go after it. The only problem: Kal’s sister Saedii is after them, and she’s got a whole Syldrathi army at her beck and call.

This is very much a middle book in a series: it’s a lot of moving the plot forward, but also setting up the Big Climax that will happen in the final book. Aurora learns more about her powers, we learn more about the Squad (including several shocking revelations). They become more of a unit even as the book is tearing them apat.

Which is one thing I can say about Kaufman and Kristoff: nothing is off limits for them. I think it was Kristoff who said, if there sin’t any stakes, the conflict doesn’t work. There ARE stakes in this. Not just big, life-changing ones, but smaller ones as well. And they balance the multiple and changing narrating perspectives quite admirably.

It’s an excellent, page-turning series. Even if I have to wait to read the third one.

Audio book: Me and White Supremacy

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by Layla Saad
Read by the author
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: There is some mild swearing. It is in the Self-Help section (I think?) of the bookstore.

I am going to say this up front: I read this book wrong. It was meant to be an interactive 28-day journey with journaling and extensive deep reflection. However, that just doesn’t work (for me) in audio format. I listen in the car or doing a puzzle, and it’s just not conducive to a lot of serious reflection. So. I am going to purchase this book (when it’s reprinted; it’s on backorder now) and do the actual work.

Some thoughts though:

This book, by a Black woman, centers on how white people are privileged by the system we live in. Saad asks some tough questions, explains some tough concepts (like white privilege and white fragility), and encourages readers to do the work to become anti-racist and more inclusive. She also asks about concrete commitments we (white people!) can make in order to continue the lifelong pursuit of becoming anti-racist. It’s a challenging book to read, if only because she (very calmly and eloquently) challenges the very fabric of the society white people are used to.

And for that, it’s very much worth reading.

The Chicken Sisters

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by KJ Dell’Antonia
First sentence: “The hit TRC series Food Wars is back!”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: December 1, 2020
Content: There’s swearing, including multiple f-bombs. It will be in the adult fiction section of the bookstore.

First, some background: in Pittsburg, Kansas, there are two fried chicken places: Chicken Annie’s and Chicken Mary’s. There is some bit of controversy over which is better (I’ve eaten at one, but I don’t remember which) and they’re both pretty famous. Dell’Antonia is taking that idea — of two fried chicken places in a small Kansas town — and spinning a story around it. This time, there’s a feud between the two places, going back generations to the two sisters who started the restaurants: Frannie and Mimi. The feud has gotten so bad that when Amanda, one of Mimi’s descendants, marries Frank, one of Frannie’s she’s disowned, practically speaking, from her own family. And so, when on a whim, Amanda invites Food Wars to town to judge between Frannie’s and Mimi’s she has no idea what she has unleashed.

There’s more to the story; Amanda is distant from her older sister, Mae, who has made a career in reality television as someone who can clean and organize the heck out of everything. It doesn’t help that their mother, Barbara, is a hoarder. Or that Amanda’s husband and father-in-law died in a crash about 15 years prior, and so Amanda’s basically been holding on, raising two kids on her own.

It’s a sweet little book, nothing to deep or out of the ordinary. Just two sisters and their families trying to figure out how on earth they got where they are, and maybe, just maybe, they can figure out how to fix it.

A perfect summer read. (Also, I really want some good fried chicken now!)

Beach Read

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by Emily Henry
First sentence: “I have a fatal flaw.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There are swear words, including multiple f-bombs. There are also two on-screen, but not overly graphic, sex scenes. It’s in the fiction section of the bookstore.

January Andrews has a problem: she’s a romance (sorry: “women’s fiction”) writer and has hit a roadblock in her writing: she no longer believes in happily-ever-afters. Her dad died and at his funeral, January found out he’d been cheating on her mom. And then her long-time boyfriend broke up with her. In a hot tub. So, she moves back to her dad’s hometown in Michigan (the upper part of the lower peninsula) into the house her dad bought to share with his mistress. Not fun, but also cheap. As it turns out, she moved in next door to her college writing nemesis: Gus Everett. And (of course) they reconnect. This leads to (after a bad evening) a bet: Gus, who writes Literary Fiction, will take on writing a Romance book, and January will write a Novel. In order to help facilitate this, they will take the other one on excursions as “research” (definitely not dates). The catch: Absolutely NO falling in love.

Of course, it doesn’t work out that way (it is Women’s Fiction, after all). But it’s incredibly fun getting to the end of this book. Henry’s dealing with more than just falling in love: she’s dealing with grief and loss, grappling with the idea that parents aren’t always who we think they are, and with perceptions (or misperceptions) of other people. In between all this, there is a smart love story, with some fun, sassy moments, and I felt like the development of the relationship between Gus and January wasn’t contrived. It was defiantly a happy-making book. Perfect for a, well, beach read.

Audiobook: Over the Top

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by Jonathan Van Ness
Read by the author
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen on Libro.fm
Content: Jonathan has not lived a PG-13 life, and his book reflects that. It’s in the biography section of the bookstore.

Much like Tan France’s memoir, I listened this for the sheer pleasure of getting to “know” another person’s story. Jonathan grew up in Qunicey, Illinois, as one of the few out gay people in the town (as he said: “Hunny, I was never in!”). It wasn’t easy. He’d experienced sexual abuse at a young age at the hands of a family friend, and spent most of his childhood and 20s trying to suppress the shame and trauma that came along with that abuse. It doesn’t make for a light, fluffy, fun book, but that’s the point. JVN is known on Queer Eye for being the positive, optimistic one, and he sets out in this book to share all the parts of himself with us. Part of that is bubbly and optimistic, but there’s a lot that isn’t. He’s been through a lot. And I’m glad he’s talking about it.

He was absolutely delightful as a narrator, as well. I liked that he made himself giggle at times and that his voice was choked with emotion at other times (the death of his stepdad, whom he loved, was particularly hard). It’s a very personal story, and I’m glad I chose to experience it in this personal way.

It’s not high literature, but I never expected it to be. It is engaging and entertaining and enlightening, though. And I loved it for those reasons.

Monthly Round-Up: May 2020

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It was a month. At least I’m reading again?

My favorite came at the beginning:

Aurora Rising

I still need to read the next in the series. I’ve been putting it off….

As for the rest:

YA:

The Gravity of Us
Tigers, Not Daughters
Dragonsong
Dragonsinger
The Midnight Lie

Middle Grade:

Coo

Non-Fiction:

Mobituaries (audiobook)
Why We’re Polarized

Adult Fiction:

Carpe Jugulum
The Glass Hotel (audiobook)

Graphic Novel:

Almost American Girl

What was your favorite this month?

The Midnight Lie

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by Marie Rutkoski
First sentence: “There were warning signs in the War that day that anyone could have seen.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There is a lot of emotional abuse and some physical abuse. There is off-screen sex. It’s in the YA section (grades 6-8) of the bookstore, but it’s probably better for the older end of the range (depending on the kid).

Nirrim has grown up as an orphan in the Ward, a place on this remote island where they stick the lowest caste, the Half-Kith. She works for Raven, both in Raven’s tavern and as a forger of passports for Half-Kith to escape the Ward. Then, one day, a rare bird is sighted in the Ward, which Nirrim catches and turns in. Which gets her arrested and thrown in jail to be tithed (they take the blood of the Half-Kith), which is where she meets Sid. And her life completely changes.

The plot is a bit convoluted to get into, but it involves gods and magic and Nirrim waking up to her situation and acting for change. The book is more character and inner-dialogue driven than plot-driven, but it worked for me. Rutoski has written a beautifully worded book (it reminded me of Laini Taylor’s work), that drew me in and kept me turning pages, even when it felt like nothing was happening.

And the love story is gorgeous as well. I enjoyed the push and pull between Sid and Nirrim, how they bring out the best in each other. Though one word of warning: it’s a first book (though it reads like a stand alone) and knowing that may cushion the blow of the brutal ending.

Definitely worth reading.