The Reformatory by Tananarive Due

 

Hello my lovely readers! After a rough August, I'm finally coming out of the fog and reading more! Funny that even in a "low" reading month, I was still able to get through eight books LOL Let's get into it.

SYNOPSIS
Twelve-year-old Robbie Stephens, Jr., is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, a reformatory, for kicking the son of the largest landowner in town in defense of his older sister, Gloria. So begins Robbie’s journey further into the terrors of the Jim Crow South and the very real horror of the school they call The Reformatory.

Robbie has a talent for seeing ghosts, or haints. But what was once a comfort to him after the loss of his mother has become a window to the truth of what happens at the reformatory. Boys forced to work to remediate their so-called crimes have gone missing, but the haints Robbie sees hint at worse things. Through his friends Redbone and Blue, Robbie is learning not just the rules but how to survive. Meanwhile, Gloria is rallying every family member and connection in Florida to find a way to get Robbie out before it’s too late.

A Harlem Wedding by Tiffany L. Warren

Hello my lovely readers!

This has been a slow reading month for me. I'm working through two THICK biographies (hi #MegaMay!)  one is about poet Ted Hughes and the other is about the father of who this book review is about, W.E.B. DuBois. Both are good, but incredibly dense and more than 500 pages. I'll finish them this month, but in the mean time, I blew through this book. Let's get into it!

SYNOPSIS
A century ago, Harlem’s glittering social scene had a single Yolande Du Bois, the only child of N.A.A.C.P. icon W.E.B. Du Bois. Yolande was bold, vivacious, and beloved of every gossip columnist. A true daddy’s girl, Yolande followed her father’s advice on from where she went to college (Fisk—Papa’s alma mater) to which sorority she joined (Delta Sigma Theta). But in matters of the heart, Yolande and her father did not agree. Dr. Du Bois himself curated a string of handsome suitors from the “Talented Tenth” for her, but Yolande’s true love was jazz musician Jimmie Lunceford, son of a working-class family from far-off Denver, Colorado. Their romance was an open secret, and more than a little scandalous.

Despite it all, Yolande wound up marrying her father’s famed poet Countee Cullen. Their lavish uptown wedding was the hottest social ticket of 1928. With three thousand attendees, sixteen bridesmaids, and Langston Hughes as a groomsman, it was truly a sight to behold.

But, immediately after the wedding, Yolande’s carefully constructed fairy tale begins to crumble. Torn between the expectations of her father and society and her heart’s true desire, Yolande is forced to decide whether she must leave Harlem to create a more authentic life on her own terms.

The Seven Daughters of Dupree by Nikesha Elise Williams

Hello my lovely readers!

This book blew me away. Let's get into it!

SYNOPSIS
It’s 1995, and fourteen-year-old Tati is determined to uncover the identity of her father. But her mother, Nadia, keeps her secrets close, while her grandmother Gladys remains silent about the family’s past, including why she left Land’s End, Alabama, in 1953. As Tati digs deeper, she uncovers a legacy of family secrets, where every generation of Dupree women has posed more questions than answers.

From Jubi in 1917, whose attempt to pass for white ends when she gives birth to Ruby; to Ruby’s fiery lust for Sampson in 1934 that leads to a baby of her own; to the night in 1980 that changed Nadia’s future forever, the Dupree women carry the weight of their heritage. Bound by a mysterious malediction that means they will only give birth to daughters, the Dupree women confront a legacy of pain, resilience, and survival that began with an enslaved ancestor who risked everything for freedom.

Mornings in Jenin by Susan Albuhawa

Hello my lovely readers! I'm definitely finding my niche with fiction that I like to read and I think it comes down to international or Black American historical fiction or off-beat literary fiction. Let's get into it.

SYNOPSIS
In the refugee camp of Jenin, Amal is born into a world of loss—of home, country, and heritage. Her Palestinian family was driven from their ancestral village by the newly formed state of Israel in 1948. As the villagers fled that day, Amal's older brother, just a baby, was stolen away by an Israeli soldier. In Jenin, the adults subsist on memories, waiting to return to the homes they love. Amal's mother has walled away her heart with grief, and her father labors all day. But in the fleeting peacefulness of dawn, he reads to his young daughter daily, and she can feel his love for her, "as big as the ocean and all its fishes." On those quiet mornings, they dream together of a brighter future.

This is Amal's story, the story of one family's struggle and survival through over sixty years of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, carrying us from Jenin to Jerusalem, to Lebanon and the anonymity of America. It is a story shaped by scars and fear, but also by the transformative intimacy of marriage and the fierce protectiveness of motherhood. It is a story of faith, forgiveness, and life-sustaining love.

Junie by Erin Crosby Eckstine

 

Hello my lovely readers! Another day, another book. Let's get into it.

SYNOPSIS
A young girl must face a life-altering decision after awakening her sister’s ghost, navigating truths about love, friendship, and power as the Civil War looms.

Sixteen years old and enslaved since she was born, Junie has spent her life on Bellereine Plantation in Alabama, cooking and cleaning alongside her family, and tending to the white master’s daughter, Violet. Her daydreams are filled with poetry and faraway worlds, while she spends her nights secretly roaming through the forest, consumed with grief over the sudden death of her older sister, Minnie.

When wealthy guests arrive from New Orleans, hinting at marriage for Violet and upending Junie’s life, she commits a desperate act—one that rouses Minnie’s spirit from the grave, tethered to this world unless Junie can free her. She enlists the aid of Caleb, the guests’ coachman, and their friendship soon becomes something more. Yet as long-held truths begin to crumble, she realizes Bellereine is harboring dark and horrifying secrets that can no longer be ignored.

With time ticking down, Junie begins to push against the harsh current that has controlled her entire life. As she grapples with an increasingly unfamiliar world in which she has little control, she is forced to ask herself: When we choose love and liberation, what must we leave behind?

Harlem Rhapsody by Victoria Christopher Murray

Hello my lovely readers!

I am really in my fiction era right now....and I have A LOT of thoughts about this book. Let's get into it.

SYNOPSIS
In 1919, as civil and social unrest grips the country, there is a little corner of America, a place called Harlem where something special is stirring. Here, the New Negro is rising and Black pride is evident everywhere…in music, theatre, fashion and the arts. And there on stage in the center of this renaissance is Jessie Redmon Fauset, the new literary editor of the preeminent Negro magazine The Crisis.

W.E.B. Du Bois, the founder and editor of The Crisis, has charged her with discovering young writers whose words will change the world. Jessie attacks the challenge with fervor, quickly finding sixteen-year-old Countee Cullen, seventeen-year-old Langston Hughes, and Nella Larsen, who becomes one of her best friends. Under Jessie’s leadership, The Crisis thrives, the writers become notable and magazine subscriptions soar. Every Negro writer in the country wants their work published in the magazine now known for its groundbreaking poetry and short stories.

Jessie’s rising star is shining bright….but her relationship with W.E.B. could jeopardize all that she’s built. The man, considered by most to be the leader of Black America, is not only Jessie’s boss, he’s her lover. And neither his wife, nor their fourteen-year-age difference can keep the two apart. Their torrid and tumultuous affair is complicated by a secret desire that Jessie harbors — to someday, herself, become the editor of the magazine, a position that only W.E.B. Du Bois has held.

In the face of overwhelming sexism and racism, Jessie must balance her drive with her desires. However, as she strives to preserve her legacy, she’ll discover the high cost of her unparalleled success.

The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins

 Hello my lovely readers!

Sigh. Alright, I'm making a bold declaration, but I just can't take it anymore. I'm not reading anymore modern fiction by Black female authors unless it's by Dorothy Koomson. I know, I know it's a bold statement, but it's like I'm reading the EXACT SAME THING in each book regardless of plot, regardless of genre, regardless of author. This was another failure. Let's get into it.

SUMMARY
A slave woman is accused of murdering her employer and his wife in Georgian London.

The whole city is abuzz at the loss of renowned scientist George Benham and his eccentrict French wife, Marguerite. Crowds pack the courtroom, newspapers print lurid theories and the testimonies against servant and former slave, Frannie Langton, are damning.

Frannie can't recall what happened that fateful evening, but she does have a story to tell about her childhood on a Jamaican plantation, her apprenticeship under a debauched scientist and a passionate and forbidden relationship.

Roots by Alex Haley

 

Hello my lovely readers!

I don't think a book has EVER made me as emotional as Roots by Alex Haley. I can't believe it took me this long to read this book. I've had it on my shelf since 2005! Let me tell you how and where I bought it....

BACKGROUND

It was June 2005. I was 15 and embarking on my first ever overseas trip (but second international trip ever) to London, England for a writing trip with Teen Ink's Summer Writing Program.

This was only the second iteration of the program and I, along with 27 other high school ladies, were lucky enough to be selected to go on the trip! I'd applied the year before, but was too young.

Now as a rising junior in high school, I'd be able to hone my creative writing skills and take in the sights of London. It was absolutely divine.

While on our way to our next destination, also known as pounding the London pavement, I laid my eyes on the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. A SIX STORY BORDERS.

 For those of you who don't know, Borders was the better, cleaner version Barnes and Noble. It officially shut its doors in 2011 and I've never been the same since!

There was a SIX-FLOOR Borders in London.  Our group stopped and we were able to look around and buy any books we wanted. I bought six. Roots was one of them.

The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers

 

Hello my lovely readers!

I just finished this chonker of a book and oh.my.goodness. The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers. What a book. What a beautiful, beautiful book. It's 800 plus pages and every single word is so meaningful, so wonderful, so eloquent. Let's get into it.

SUMMARY

Ailey Pearl Garfield comes from a maternal line reaching back two centuries. She is raised up North in the city most of the year, but spends her summers in the South in the small Georgia town of Chicasetta. It's where her mother's family has lived since their ancestors arrived from Africa.

As Ailey grows, we see her confront the issues of her family's past, present and future. To come to terms with her own identity, Ailey embarks on a journey through her family's past, uncovering the tales of generations of her ancestors--Indigenous, Black and white--in the deep South.

Wild Women and the Blues by Denny S. Bryce

 

Hello my lovely readers!

Sigh.

This book....let's just get this over with.

SUMMARY
In 1925 Chicago, The Dreamland Cafe is the ritziest Black club in town. Celebrities like Louis Armstrong and Oscar Micheaux stop through and the young Honoree Dalcour works there as a dancer with dreams to making her way to the top. But Chicago is also awash in bootleg whiskey, gambling and gangsters making it risky for an ambitious young woman to dare to dream.

Now, it's 2015 and 110-year-old Honoree is visited by film student Sawyer Hayes who is looking to speak with her to finish his thesis about the only living link to Oscar Micheaux.

Together, they discover each other's pasts and secrets and it's more than what either of them bargained for.

MY THOUGHTS
I'm sorry but this was a disjointed mess. I ended up DNFing it. The crazy thing is, I knew I would because the plot didn't really move me. I felt no real connection with it. I was right. 

I didn't like the writing and it was just too all over the place for me. Oh well. Here' to better reading selections for the rest of the year!