As an avid reader of literary fiction, I make it a habit to read the Man Booker Prize winning novel each year. I’m always curious to see what the committee selects, as well as their rationale for the prize. For two years in a row, a black male author has won the prize—last year’s winner, Marlon James, wrote a hefty tome about Jamaica, A Brief History of Seven Killings. This year’s winner, American Paul Beatty, wrote a much shorter book that took me almost the […]
A stunning debut about police brutality and teenagers.
As you all know, I’ve been trying to expand my diverse books knowledge, and The Chancellor recommended a few that he thought would be great companion pieces to one of my new YA favorites, All American Boys. I’ve already read and reviewed Kekla Magoon’s How It Went Down, and today, I finished Angie Thomas’s extraordinary debut, The Hate U Give. The novel begins when our protagonist Starr witnesses her childhood best friend Khalil being shot by a police officer while she sits in the passenger […]
Unpacking the ripple effects of a shooting
I’m always on the lookout for diverse books, especially if they are culturally relevant. The Chancellor recommended me two books: Kekla Magoon’s How It Went Down and Angie Thomas’s The Hate You Give. I’m currently reading the latter, so you’ll get to read my review later this weekend (I hope), but I just finished the former, and it was an interesting, engaging, thought-provoking book. Tariq Johnson leaves a convenience store buying groceries, when the owner chases after him, shouting, “Come back!” A white man stops […]
When dystopia and documentary begin to merge..down to sexist male fantasies.
I feel like the last week or so has been spent chasing down book club selections (and I even missed the CBR Book Club, which was unfortunate, although the reviews have not exactly been glowing—so maybe it wasn’t a tragedy to have missed out?). This Sunday marks my regular book club meeting—A has chosen George Orwell’s 1984, which seemed terribly fitting, since the United States has a president who is being praised for not pooping on stage (that’s only the barest of exaggerations. I mean, […]
A much-hyped middle-grade book that wasn’t my cuppa, but still worth the read.
My library book club is reading R.J. Palacio’s Wonder for March, which has been on my to-read list for several years now. I like reading young adult and middle-grade fiction, because I get a sense of what kids read and what they like. I’ll be interested to hear how my peers found Wonder, because I just finished it yesterday and am processing a whole bunch of thoughts. Wonder is the story of August (or Auggie) Pullman, a ten-year-old boy with craniofacial anomalies, starting with a […]
A second disappointment from another debut author.
I’m always on the lookout for new talent and newly published books. My friend B had posted a picture of her reading Emily Fridlund’s debute novel History of Wolves, which I found intriguing. I decided to place a library hold and see what I thought of the book. Linda is our story’s protagonist, and she is determined to tell us about her life, albeit in a messy and unorganized fashion. We find out that she was part of a cultish religion, which abandoned her family, […]
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