Book Reviews

Tiffany Sly Lives Here by Dana L Davis

August 11, 2018 3 Comments

Rating: unrated | 334 pages | Harlequin Teen Inknyard Press ? | Contemporary | 05/01/2018

I was really excited to read this book after hearing about it on the Hey, YA podcast. I firmly remember actress Dana L. Davis in the 2000s for being “that black lady” who showed up on TV shows in the early 2000s. I was also interested in a book that deals with respectability politics and all the shades of the black experience.

Tiffany Sly has had it rough. After losing her mother to cancer this music-loving rocker girl is headed from Chicago to the mansions and private school of Simi Valley, California; to live with the wealthy and successful father she’s never met. Anthony Stone (get it ? Sly…Stone ? Get it ?)

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Mini Reviews: YA Summer Reading

August 10, 2018 Leave a Comment

When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon

Just like it’s namesake,When Dimple Met Rishi has all the hallmarks of a 90’s rom-com and so much more. Taking place entirely during a web developer summer program, the plot felt a little claustrophobic at times, but the relationship was developed wonderfully. Both narrators on the audiobook give great performance, though Vikas Adams’ voice for Dimple had a tendency to sound shrill. This book is everything you’ve heard and I want this movie. I want it now. – ★★★★

Dear Martin by Nic Stone

After experiencing a violent encounter with the police, high school senior Justyce McAllister begins writing letters to Martin Luther King, Jr. to unpack his newly developed complex feelings about race and policing. Dear Martin is definitely an important book because so few YA novels are explicitly written and marketed for black teen boys the way this book has been but the story left me wanting more. I was annoyed that the white love interest got to explain the complexities of race in America, the MLK portrayal felt sanitized and Justyce reads as younger and more naive than a 17-year-old from the hood at an elite boarding school about to study policy at Yale. Author Zetta Elliot has made some criticisms of this books portrayal of black women and I agree with a lot of what she says. I think Dear Martin would have made a great middle-grade book, but as a YA it felt like a missed opportunity for a more nuanced discussion. – ★★★ + .5

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Around The Way Girl by Taraji P. Henson

July 24, 2018 Leave a Comment

7 hours and 27 minutes | Simon & Schuster Audio | Memoir | 10/11/2016

I’ve been a fan of Taraji P. Henson since she played Raina Washington on Lifetime’s The Division when I was younger, it was one of the first “adult” shows I watched. The show was ahead of its time and I sometimes think about how Henson was playing a Black female police officer with lesbian moms in the early 2000’s. I can only imagine if they put that on TV nowadays it might be called “too diverse.”

Anyway, this memoir begins with Henson’s childhood in Southeast DC during the crack epidemic and the years of hustle and hard work that lead to her Hollywood success in her mid-thirties. Henson is a trained actress who worked with some of the best at Howard University and there is a lot of craft talk in this book. Henson really digs into the minds of the character she plays. The title of the book comes from her concern of always being typecast as the around the way girl from the hood and her hesitation to take the role of Cookie Lyon–the role that has brought her the most notoriety.

This book shares a lot of DNA with the two other memoirs of black women in Hollywood I’ve read, Last Black Unicorn and We’re Going to Need More Wine. They all touch on the importance of having a support system and other black women helping them navigate the Hollywood scene.

I especially liked what Hensen had to say about the stigma of a single black motherhood and how these mothers aren’t afforded the same considerations and respect as married mothers.

Around The Way Girl is an inspiring and insightful look into the making of an actress and some of Henson’s most memorable moments.

Relative Strangers by Paula Garner

July 11, 2018 Leave a Comment

Unrated | 368 pages | Candlewick Press | Contemporary | 04/10/2018

I am all for quiet YAs that have interesting premises and haven’t been put through the giant hype machine. Relative Strangers is about Jules, a teen girl, who has always felt like there was something missing from the humdrum life she leads with her emotionally distant mother. Jules has a vintage adventurer’s sensibility and wants more than what her small town can offer.

When she discovers she was in foster care she goes off to reconnect with the foster family that raised her for the first year of her life. She forms a relationship with her former foster-brother, now a handsome pianist who gives her the confidence she’s been looking for.

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Audiobook Review: Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl by Carrie Brownstein

June 29, 2018 Leave a Comment

Penguin Audio | 7 hours and 4 minutes | Memoir | 10/27/2015

I find Carrie Brownstein really interesting. She’s one of those people who has managed to have two very distinct yet very successful careers in the public eye. Depending who you are you may know her from the rock band Sleater-Kinney or, if you’re like me, from the award-winning show Portlandia.

This memoir is focused exclusively on her relationship to music and Sleater-Kinney. I picked up this book because it was like a window to the eclectic and chaotic world of 90’s punk rock band life during the riot grrrl movement–a world I knew nothing about.

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A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E Schawb

June 24, 2018 Leave a Comment

354 pages | Tor Books | Historical Fantasy | 4/21/15 | 11hrs and 34 Minutes

If there is a super popular hyped novel you can bet I will read it years after it comes out. I’m always fascinated by series that have huge fandoms and I’ve seen so much fanart and generally squeeing about this series that I don’t know what took me so long to get to it.

In A Darker Shade of Magic, there isn’t just one London, there are four–red, gray, black and white. At least that’s how Kell likes to think of it. He is an Antari, one of only two people with the ability to travel to the other Londons.

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