QUICK REVIEWS PT. IX

 Hello my lovely readers! It's time for some more quick reviews! Lets get into it.

The Finalist by Joan Long
Five authors each with their own secrets, are chosen to complete a deceased novelist’s unfinished manuscript on a remote island as part of a one million dollar contest. But then someone dies and accusations fly.

*Meh. It was entertaining enough. A simple vacation or beach read, but it felt pretty thin. 3 out of 5 stars

Strange People on the Hill by Michael Edison Hayden
A gripping story that reveals what happened to a small American town when an influential white nationalist group relocated its headquarters there, illustrating how radical changes in American politics impact our psyches and divide our communities.

*Too much of a memoir with random bits on Berkeley Springs sprinkled throughout it. Also, way too heavy on the social media aspect of everything. I feel as though there's a way to talk about how residents thought/felt without reducing it to social media fights. 2 out of 5 stars

10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World Elif Shafak

 

Hello my lovely readers! More and more books are coming off my personal shelves and I'm so happy. This is one of them. Let's get into it.

SYNOPSIS
In the pulsating moments after she has been murdered and left in a dumpster outside Istanbul, Tequila Leila enters a state of heightened awareness. Her heart has stopped beating but her brain is still active--for 10 minutes 38 seconds. While the Turkish sun rises and her friends sleep soundly nearby, she remembers her life--and the lives of others, outcasts like her.

Tequila Leila's memories bring us back to her childhood in the provinces, a highly oppressive milieu with religion and traditions, shaped by a polygamous family with two mothers and an increasingly authoritarian father. Escaping to Istanbul, Leila makes her way into the sordid industry of sex trafficking, finding a home in the city's historic Street of Brothels. This is a dark, violent world, but Leila is tough and open to beauty, light, and the essential bonds of friendship.

In Tequila Leila's death, the secrets and wonders of modern Istanbul come to life, painted vividly by the captivating tales of how Leila came to know and be loved by her friends. As her epic journey to the afterlife comes to an end, it is her chosen family who brings her story to a buoyant and breathtaking conclusion.

London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family's Search for Truth by Patrick Radden Keefe

 

Hello my lovely readers! Patrick Radden Keefe never misses. Let's get into it.

SYNOPSIS

In the early morning of November 29th, 2019, surveillance cameras at the headquarters of MI6, Britain’s spy agency, captured video of a young man pacing back and forth on a high balcony of Riverwalk, a luxury tower on the bank of the river Thames. At 2:24 a.m., he jumped into the river.

In a quiet London neighborhood several miles away, Rachelle Brettler was worried about her son. Zac had told her that he had gone to stay with a friend, but then he did not come home. Days later, a police car pulled up and two officers relayed the dreadful news: her son was dead.

In their unbearable grief, Rachelle and her husband, Matthew, struggled to understand what had happened to Zac. He had his troubles, but in no way seemed suicidal. As they would soon discover, however, there was a lot they did not know about their son. Only after his death did they learn that he had adopted a fictitious alter-ego: Zac Ismailov, son of a Russian oligarch and heir to a great fortune. Under this guise, Zac had become entangled with a slippery London businessman named Akbar Shamji, and a murderous gangster known as “Indian Dave.” As the Brettlers set about investigating their son’s death, they were pulled into a different and more dangerous London than the one they’d always known, and came to believe that something much more nefarious than a suicide had claimed Zac’s life. But to their immense frustration, Scotland Yard seemed unable—or unwilling—to bring the perpetrators to justice.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Hello my lovely readers! Re-reading this as an adult made me fall in love with this book. Let's get into it!

SYNOPSIS

The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it, To Kill A Mockingbird became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was later made into an Academy Award-winning film, also a classic.

Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, To Kill A Mockingbird takes readers to the roots of human behavior—to innocence and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, humor and pathos. Now with over 18 million copies in print and translated into ten languages, this regional story by a young Alabama woman claims universal appeal. Harper Lee always considered her book to be a simple love story. Today it is regarded as a masterpiece of American literature.

Forbidden Fruit: Love Stories from The Underground Railroad by Betty DeRamus

Hello my lovely readers! This has been on my shelf for a while and I'm glad I finally picked it up! Let's get into it.

SYNOPSIS
Forbidden Fruit is a collection of fascinating, largely untold tales of ordinary men and women who faced mobs, bloodhounds, bounty hunters, and bullets to be together -- and defy a system that categorized blacks not only as servants, but as property.

Here you'll meet, among other extraordinary characters, a fugitive slave from Virginia who spends seventeen years searching for his wife. A Georgia slave couple that sails for England with federal troops trailing behind. A white woman who falls in love with her deceased husband's slave. A young slave girl who is delivered to her fianc inside a wooden chest.

Acclaimed journalist Betty DeRamus gleaned these anecdotes from descendants of runaway slave couples, unpublished memoirs, Civil War records, census data, magazines, and dozens of previously untapped sources. This is a book about people pursuing love and achievement in a time of hate and severely limited opportunities. Though not all of the stories in Forbidden Fruit end in triumph, they all celebrate hope, passion, courage, and triumph of the human spirit.

Let the Dead Bury Their Dead by Randall Kenan

Hello my lovely readers! I'm happy that I stumbled upon this at a bookstore and decided to check it out from my local library. Let's get into it!

SYNOPSIS
This remarkable collection of twelve short stories is about the diverse folk--black and white, young and old, rich and poor, rural and sophisticated--who live in the eastern North Carolina town of Tims Creek. Among the memorable characters are Clarence Pickett, who at age three began receiving messages from beyond the grave and whose gift seems tied to a hog's ability to talk; matronly Ida Perry, haunted by a boy her judge husband may have drowned years before; Dean Williams, hired to seduce the richest black man in Times Creek, yearning after innocence while he betrays love.

The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation by Anna Malaika Tubbs

Hello my lovely readers! You know, I had a planned TBR for this year regarding biographies as part of the 12 Lives Challenge but I've only read one off my list. Funnily enough, I've read three separate biographies this year. I should probably just add them to my challenge because this biography was fantastic. Let's get into it!

SYNOPSIS
Much has been written about Berdis Baldwin's son James, about Alberta King's son Martin Luther, and Louise Little's son Malcolm. But virtually nothing has been said about the extraordinary women who raised them, who were all born at the beginning of the 20th century and forced to contend with the prejudices of Jim Crow as Black women.

Berdis, Alberta, and Louise passed their knowledge to their children with the hope of helping them to survive in a society that would deny their humanity from the very beginning--from Louise teaching her children about their activist roots, to Berdis encouraging James to express himself through writing, to Alberta basing all of her lessons in faith and social justice. These women used their strength and motherhood to push their children toward greatness, all with a conviction that every human being deserves dignity and respect despite the rampant discrimination they faced.

These three mothers taught resistance and a fundamental belief in the worth of Black people to their sons, even when these beliefs flew in the face of America's racist practices and led to ramifications for all three families' safety. The fight for equal justice and dignity came above all else for the three mothers.

These women, their similarities and differences, as individuals and as mothers, represent a piece of history left untold and a celebration of Black motherhood long overdue.

QUICK REVIEWS PT. VIII

Hello my lovely readers! It's time for another round of quick reviews! Let's get into it.

Good People by Patmeena Sabit
The Sharaf family achieved the "American dream." The Afghan refugee family moved to the U.S. raised their children and became wealthy and successful. But then their teenage daughter Zorah brought shame upon their family, resulting in a tragedy. But what really happened? It depends on who you ask.

*I loved this book! It was incredibly original in how Sabit chose to tell their story solely through interviews with friends, co-workers and other members of the community. I listened to this on audio and the full cast was AMAZING. Also, I love an ambiguous ending. 5 out of 5 stars.

Inharmonious by Tammye Huf
When three young Black men enlist in the US Army hoping to serve their country with honor during World War II, their lives are forever changed. Lee, Benny, Roscoe have been friends for ever but the war forces them to do things they wouldn't dream of doing. Benny begins to pass as white. Roscoe marries Benny's sister, Cora, but is unhappy. And Lee, who always loved Cora betrays her and must forgive out how to get back in her life. Based off their decisions, they must all navigate a new sense of self.

*Meh. It was entertaining enough, but it felt uneven. It felt like a majority of this book was about the love triangle between Roscoe, Lee and Cora. I would've appreciated more insight on Benny's passing as well as Roscoe's life with Megan. Oh well. 3 out of 5 stars.