Black

Spin By Lamar Giles

May 6, 2019 Leave a Comment

Rating: unrated | 10 hours 50 minutes | Scholastic | YA Thriller | Release Date: 01/30/2019

Last weekend Virginia Beach hosted something In The Water Festival and they honestly should have just started throwing these books out at the audience. Spin is a love story to the underground music scene and the tradition of Tidewater musicians.

DJ ParSec started from the bottom with nothing but her best friend Kya’s tech skills, mismatch DJ equipment and a passion for music. After blowing up online and gathering a rabid fanbase DJ ParSec was on her way up— until she is found dead– now it is up to Kya and ParSec’s estranged social media manager, Fuse, to find justice.

Giles knows how to write a solid thriller, he keeps the stakes high and has his characters face danger at nearly every turn, especially from DJ ParSec’s most devoted fans whose intense network is keeping tabs on Kya and Fuse. Along the way Kya and Fuse, who have never seen eye to eye, begin to bond through their shared grief. It was great reading a story about complicated female friendship.

Giles does not hold back when it comes to violence and peril his characters face, but I’ve always found it interesting that the language remains fairly tame.

Spin really taps into the world of social media fandom with a dash of action, and suspense that will keep you guessing until the end.

Check out the audio review on Audiofile

Black Enough edited by Ibi Zoboi

March 10, 2019 Leave a Comment

I feel like there should be a category on this blog called “Books I Wish Existed When I Was A Teen” because this book would be first on this list.

Black Enough is a wonderful anthology that tells the varied experiences and stories of Black teens; from the suburbs to the hood to the country and even the inner sanctum of heavy metal rehearsals. It’s just a masterful blend of experiences. These are not struggles stories, they are funny, poignant and some of them are emotional but they never “gut” you. One of my favorites was Jay Coles’ Wild Horses, Wild Hearts which I felt was like “response” to Brokeback Mountain.

I think the book is best read straight through. I’m not a big contemporary reader, so I was glad to see there were two magical realism stories. The titular story, Black Enough, I think really sets the tone for the anthology and the last story is meant to be more reflective. I got snippets of black authors I’ve been meaning to read and right now Jay Cole is moving up on my TBR list.

I’m all in for these YA anthologies!

Audiobook Review

Five Modern Memoirs for Black History Month

February 27, 2019 Leave a Comment

February is Black History Month! To close out the month here are five of Books and Sensibility’s favorite memoirs about African-Americans who are making history today.

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Pride By Ibi Zoboi

December 28, 2018 Leave a Comment

Rating: unrated | 320 pages | Balzer + Bray| Contemporary | 9/18/18

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Finding Yvonne by Brandy Colbert

December 10, 2018 Leave a Comment

Rating: unrated | 288 pages | Little Brown For Young Readers| Contemporary | 8/07/2018

Finding Yvonne is a small slice-of-life story of a formerly ambitious and passionate violinist who has lost her spark for music. Losing her passion is a big struggle for Yvonne because to her father– a successful chef /restaurateur–and Warren, her potential boyfriend/ father’s sous chef, passion is everything. Then a fateful meeting with a pair of talented eclectic street musicians in Venice Beach sends Yvonne spiraling down a path that leads to inspiration, heartache, and possibly love.

My first thought on this book was that this was totally a book teenage me would have liked. Yvonne is a black middle-class girl who is learning to bake and loves food. I’ve been reading a lot of books with black girl protagonists from all sort of background and it’s made me realize just how limited the options were back when I was a teen.

One of my biggest pet peeves in YA is what I call the Jerk!Dad, where the Dad is a jerk for no apparent reason. Yvonne’s father manages to straddle the line and I’m glad we are starting to see more nuance in the YA dad department. Yvonne’s father is successful and supportive but he uses pot and work to keep barriers up between him and Yvonne.

Colbert does an amazing job of building the specific world and community her characters live with less than 300 pages.

Check out the audiobook review on AudioFile !

Let’s Talk About Love by Claire Kann

November 12, 2018 Leave a Comment

Rating: unrated | Swoon Reads | Contemporary New Adult | Release Date: 1/23/2018

Let’s Talk About Love is an upbeat, modern romance-y novel that feels way more like millennial (Gen Z ?) women’s fiction than like a true romance.

Alice loves a pleasing aesthetic, her best friends and herself–asexuality and all. When she meets her new co-worker the sweet, generous and soon-to-be teacher Takumi she finds herself on a journey to balances her smoldering attraction with her identity as asexual.

I think I basically agree with Carrie’s review on Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, this book has a lot of drama and angst that comes from characters not talking to each other but I also like following them around as they try to tackle this whole adulting thing.

Alice was recognizable as a young person today, she loves Tumblr, fandom, bingeing tv and making memories with her friends.

I personally had a hard time seeing this book as a romance because Takumi felt–to use a term Kat uses a lot–unknowable to me. Perhaps it’s because I’m used to romances where we get into the other characters but he never felt like a real person to me. He was just a little too perfect.