Book Review: Code Name Verity

Book Review: Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein 

Goodreads Description: Two young women from totally different backgrounds are thrown together during World War II: one a working-class girl from Manchester, the other a Scottish aristocrat, one a pilot, the other a wireless operator. Yet whenever their paths cross, they complement each other perfectly and before long become devoted friends.

But then a vital mission goes wrong, and one of the friends has to bail out of a faulty plane over France. She is captured by the Gestapo and becomes a prisoner of war. The story begins in “Verity’s” own words, as she writes her account for her captors.

My Review: Classifying this book as YA was a bit of a strange choice. While the coming of age and friendship aspects are very YA, the voice feels off. The book spends a lot of time on female war pilots -- how they lived, worked, and were promoted -- to the point where it slows down the narrative. It adds to the historical accuracy at the cost of pacing, and makes me think this book would fit better in the adult market. It often reads like a report more than a novel, and while that works with the WW2 setting, it doesn't really jive with a teenage voice. Wein does insert some obvious teenage moments to make the characters feel younger, but these moments stick out, and read like they were added later in order to age the manuscript down. 

Other than that, the book is fairly solid. The framing of "Let me tell you how I ended up in this situation" is a little cliche, but Wein shakes it up by focusing the story on Maddie, the pilot back home, rather than Verity, the spy captured by the Nazis. This creates an air of mystery around Verity and her circumstances, as we only learn about her through the way she tells the story of her friend. Honestly, my biggest gripe with this book is that it's not sapphic. There's a weird romantic tension between the two main girls that I wish would have been expanded on. It would have deepened the stakes and tension while also exploring queerness during the time period. I have no problem with friendship stories -- in fact I love them, and wish there were more -- but these girls did not read like friends. Friendships feel more genuine to me when there's a sense of unconditionality - when people know that they can fully be themselves, because the other person loves them for who they are. Yet with romantic interest, there's always a bit of tension and the players are more cautious, because they can sense something powerful building, and they have no idea what's going to happen to their relationship when that "something" comes to light. In every scene with Maddie and Verity, I could feel the weight of that romantic tension, but it never boils over into anything real, leaving me rather unsatisfied by the end. It felt like eating a dish that was missing a key ingredient.

 

All in all, if you're a history buff, then absolutely snatch this up. If you're not interested in WW2 history, you're not missing much by passing on this one. 

TL;DR: 3/5 stars. A deep dive into WW2 pilots in novel form. 

Book Review: The Narrows

Book Review: The Narrows by Ann Petry 

Goodreads Description: Link Williams is a handsome and brilliant Dartmouth graduate who tends bar for a lack of better opportunities for an African American man in a staid mid-century Connecticut town. The routine of Link’s life is interrupted when he intervenes to save a woman from a late-night attack. When they enter a bar together after the incident, “Camilo” discovers that her rescuer is African American and he that she is a wealthy, married, white woman who’s crossed the town’s racial divide to relieve her life’s tedium. Thus brought together by chance, Link and Camilo draw each other into furtive encounters against the rigid and uncompromising social codes of their town and times.

My Review: I really wanted to like this book. Over her life, Ann Petry worked as a social worker and a journalist, taught courses and wrote for the NAACP, and conducted sociological studies on the influence of segregation on children. This work gave her a very sociological perspective on the world and ultimately influenced the creation of The Narrows, which breaks down systematic racism to illustrate how many moving pieces intersect to justify the vilification and murder of black people. In Petry’s own words: “My aim is to show how simply and easily the environment can change the course of a person’s life.” When I step back and consider the book in whole, it’s so beautiful I could cry, because Petry demonstrates a nuanced understanding of how sociology and psychology shape oppression. However, the experience of reading this book is painful. Beyond that, when taking any of the book’s parts on their own, there’s almost nothing to like about them. It’s like throwing a bunch of garbage at a canvas, yet it somehow makes the Mona Lisa. 

Petry wrote the book with a reflective perspective, using repetition and flashbacks to show how the past continuously interjects into the present and influences our behaviour. It doesn’t matter that Othello was written over 500 years ago, the story of a successful black man marrying a white woman to the displeasure of white men still influences the world around us, shaping perspectives and stereotypes. Petry also uses this reflective structure to demonstrate how childhood trauma shapes us long into adulthood. This reflective style is the crux of my problem with this book, because on the one hand, it is utterly brilliant. It artfully (and accurately) represents how the brain processes memory, how our social environment builds our identity from the ground up, and how we fall back onto sociological programming in times of stress. Yet on the other hand, this writing style is frustrating and boring to read. At times, the repetition becomes so overwhelming that it borders on obnoxious, which robs it of its power. Some scenes took forever to get through simply because the story had to continuously stop to repeat mantras or plot points that we've already seen a dozen times already. If not for this reflective perspective, the book could have easily been half or a third its size. While I think there's something meaningful to be found in this style, it certainly could have been cut down. 

On top of the irritating writing style, every character is terrible. Not even in a “they have flaws” kind of way, but in a "they're a freaking monster" way that left little for me to relate to, attach to, or root for. Link, the main character, beats his love interest (though this is played off as romantic "lovers' quarrels," which... certainly says something about the author and the time period). Bill Hod, a quasi-father figure, beats Link as a child, Camilla betrays her love interest in a sickeningly anti-feminist way, and Abbie cares more about being an upstanding citizen of “the Race” than being a good mother. Even characters who don’t do anything overtly wrong are presented with a kind of sleaziness – from Mamie Powther who is presented as sexually devious, to Jubine the photographer who exposes injustices perpetuated by the rich, but is described as little more than a "greedy voyeur." While this is largely influenced by the POV character and often reveals more about the speaker than the subject (Abbie perceives Mamie as disgustingly sexual, for example), every character's perspective is coloured by this pessimism towards other people, and by the end of the book, all that negativity begins to weigh on the narrative. While the book attempts to present every character with duality, it leans too far into their flaws, leaving little good behind to appreciate. There’s lots of fascinating psychological angles to this story, but likeability is hard to come by. 

As you can see, this book is a frustrating one for me. On the whole, I think it brilliantly explores how historical sociological scripts intersect with an individual's trauma and environment to shape oppression, but I can’t point to a single character or scene that I actually like. The reading experience is so dreadful that I can't in good faith recommend it to anyone, unless you're a literary scholar that's more interested in meaning than your own enjoyment. It's a real shame, too, because I do believe this book is something special, if only reading it wasn't such a drag. 

TL;DR: 2/5 stars. A painfully dreadful read that culminates in an insightful deconstruction of systematic racism. 

Book Review: Passing

Book Review: Passing by Nella Larsen 

Goodreads Description: Irene Redfield is a Black woman living an affluent, comfortable life with her husband and children in the thriving neighborhood of Harlem in the 1920s. When she reconnects with her childhood friend Clare Kendry, who is similarly light-skinned, Irene discovers that Clare has been passing for a white woman after severing ties to her past--even hiding the truth from her racist husband.

Clare finds herself drawn to Irene's sense of ease and security with her Black identity and longs for the community (and, increasingly, the woman) she lost. Irene is both riveted and repulsed by Clare and her dangerous secret, as Clare begins to insert herself--and her deception--into every part of Irene's stable existence. First published in 1929, Larsen's brilliant examination of the various ways in which we all seek to "pass," is as timely as ever. 

My Review: "It's funny about 'passing.' We disapprove of it and at the same time condone it. It excites our contempt and yet we rather admire it. We shy away from it with an odd kind of revulsion, but we protect it." 

Nella Larsen's Passing is a tour-de-force of character study and political commentary. As the title implies, it takes a closer look at the act of passing, where a minoritized person is able to pass as a member of the dominant group, and the resulting effects on one's psyche. 

The story follows Irene, a light-skinned black woman who has spent her life doing everything she's supposed to - she's a good wife and mother, a law-abiding citizen, and an upstanding member of "the race." Yet within the first few pages, we can see Irene's repressed desires lurking just below the surface. She wants to be a good representative of "the race," yet she wants freedom from that responsibility. She wants her husband to want her, yet she's so enamored with her beautiful friend, Claire, that it borders on homoerotic. Claire is a light-skinned black woman who has been living her life as a white person, passing even to her racist white husband. For some reason, Claire can have it all - life as a white person and confidence in her black identity, and it drives Irene mad. Envy becomes obsession, until Irene starts to feel threatened by Claire's challenge to her worldview, and decides she must defend herself. Though the book is a character study on the psychological effects of repression and racism on identity, Larsen never lets us get too close to Irene's thoughts, inviting an air of mystery. Does Irene hate Claire because she passes as white? Is she jealous? Does Claire actually threaten Irene's marriage, or was it all in her head? 

This book has so much longing slammed in its less than 100 pages - desire to be someone else, desire to be free, desire for a better life, desire to return home to your people, desire for queer love - and it's contrasted against intense repression and restraints - racism, segregation, heteronormativity, doing what's expected - making it a masterwork of tension. Irene wants so much, but the major thing holding her back is herself, which becomes very obvious once Claire re-enters her life. She is both victim and oppressor, having internalized society's messages about what she's expected to do to the point where she's sacrificed her own wants and happiness in exchange for security. This book is not a queer story, but it is heavily queer coded. Irene is very focused on Claire's beauty and irresistibility throughout the text. She insists to herself that she wants nothing to do with Claire, but as soon as Claire makes contact, Irene falls over herself to see her. She also expresses that she's powerless against Claire's influence, which gives the impression of a queer person struggling with their attraction. Irene's eventual vilification of Claire also speaks to Irene's attempt to distance herself from those feelings in order to retain the stability and safety that comes from her straight marriage. 

I really loved this book. As someone who can relate to the act of passing, it offers an incredibly interesting perspective on the practice. I also love diving into the minds of unreliable, flawed narrators, especially when they make you doubt if you're really getting the whole story. 

TL;DR: All in all, 5/5 stars. A high tension, psychological character study exploring the nuances of passing, deception, and repression. 

Book Review: Their Eyes Were Watching God

Book Review: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston 

Goodreads Description: Fair and long-legged, independent and articulate, Janie Crawford sets out to be her own person—no mean feat for a black woman in the '30s. Janie's quest for identity takes her through three marriages and into a journey back to her roots.

My Review: When it was originally released in 1937, Their Eyes Were Watching God drew considerable backlash for its depiction of "average" black Americans, especially from other prominent writers of the Harlem Renaissance. The authors of this movement used art to argue for social change by depicting black people as educated, artistic, and activist - bucking against long-held racist beliefs that black people were intellectually or culturally inferior. However, these authors were largely trapped within, and often conformed to, white standards of success in order to gain equality and approval in America. Zora Neale Hurtson's book took a completely different approach. Hurston worked as an anthropologist as well as a writer, and was more interested in examining what made black communities unique. She depicted "average" black Americans without judgement -- reveling in various accents and speaking habits, depicted communal storytelling and humour that some might consider Vaudeville-esque -- and even critiqued the educated black characters within her text for their condescension and arrogance. This drew a fair bit of backlash from other black writers who argued that the book resembled caricaturesque minstrel shows, however, this feels like a grave misunderstanding of the nuance within Hurston's book. When analyzed today, we can see how Hurston's book is a celebration of black culture in America, with its insistence to see these people fully realized, with all their jokes, language, and culture accepted as is. While respectability politics has had its uses throughout civil rights movements, Hurston's book reminds us that if people of colour only measure their success through white standards, it ultimately leaves them isolated from themselves and their community. In that way, Their Eyes feels ahead of its time, pushing for a radical acceptance of people as they are rather than purposing an ideal for what they should be. 

As you can tell from the short summary, it's difficult to pin down the exact plot of Their Eyes. This book is a lot of things. It's a love story, a coming-of-age tale, it's a feminist text, a story of self-actualization, it's an anthropologic and linguistic exploration of black culture, with a profoundly optimistic look on race relations. It focuses on Janie Crawford as she grows up through her three marriages, coming to understand the meaning of love, marriage, and agency. As many coming of age stories are, the book is slow paced, focusing on slow-burning character arcs and mundane plot events over dramatic twists. Over the course of the book, Janie subtly moves away from the expectations of white culture and finds self-actualization and agency through embracing "blackness." Janie's first husband unquestioningly follows white culture and heteronormativity, expecting Janie to fall into her "wifely" role. Despite living in a black community, her second husband pushes both himself and Janie towards classist elitism that pits "respectable blackness" against the "common folk," and ends up isolating Janie from her community and culture. Janie resists this influence, and through her third husband, connects with the black community and finds more happiness, passion, equality, and agency, despite living closer to poverty and instability. In this way, Hurston bucks against respectability politics and shows that if black people "behaved like whites wanted them to," it would leave them isolated from each other, their culture, and themselves. 

Hurston's novel also showcases a profound optimism when it comes to race relations - focusing very little on racism and instead showing black people living their lives, largely unhindered by oppression. She features the town of Eatonville as a major setting, which was a real town and the first self-governing all-black municipality in the United States (incorporated in 1887). Eatonville in the book faces no trouble from white people and exists unremarkably. Hurston doesn't fluff up the town's importance or incite any racist drama, it's just another setting. The book still features racism in pieces, such as when one of Janie's husbands is forced by the Red Cross to do manual labor and he has to run from gunfire to escape, but the book doesn't linger on these moments, giving it a strange sort of optimism and freedom, despite the time period it's set in. 

The book features a lot of heavy accents, phonetic spelling, and slang to really capture the "language" these communities spoke, and don't get me wrong, Hurston does an excellent job with these accents. She captures their mannerisms and culture in a way that feels rich, realistic, and nuanced, but every character speaks with a heavy accent. Every. One. Not to mention, this book is very dialogue heavy. There are whole pages where two or more characters are talking, wherein the conversation is lobbed between two speakers without much to break it up. Even white characters, when they appear, speak in their own heavy, difficult-to-read accents. While this dialogue is fascinating from an anthropological/sociological/linguistic point of view, I really hated reading it. Just trying to decode what characters are actually saying, with all the dropped letters, creative spelling, and phonetic sounds was a nightmare. I read this book at a snail's pace and all the decoding left little energy to actually enjoy the story. Many words had to be sounded out aloud, because they were spelled to recreate a sound, rather than a real word. "Ah" is used almost exclusively instead of "I," for example. Despite that, I have a hard time imagining this book without the accents. It feels like something would be lost without them, which reminds me of the saying, "it's not about the destination, it's about the journey." For these characters, it's not so much what they say, but how they say it. 

Aside from the heavily accented dialogue, the narrative is written in gorgeous prose that's littered with wise insights on the world, love, marriage, and growing up. Hurston especially has a lot to say about the intersection of race and gender (and to a lesser extent, class), commenting often on how oppression affects black men versus black women, while also exploring the power dynamics between married couples. The book culminates in a storm and legal trial that tests Janie's beliefs about love and marriage, both in personal and legal frameworks, and pushes her to establish agency and self-advocacy. The climax feels believable but dramatic. It fits in well with the humdrum normalcy of married life, but also instills the larger-than-life, once-in-a-lifetime type of conflict that elevates the text to the next level - pushing Janie to fully embody what she's learned about love, marriage, and agency in order to survive and thrive going forward. 

TL;DR: 3/5 stars. A fascinating text that analyzes the intersection of race, gender, and class from a black feminist perspective.

Book Review: The Book Thief

 

Book Review: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak 

Goodreads Description: It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will be busier still.

By her brother's graveside, Liesel's life is changed when she picks up a single object, partially hidden in the snow. It is The Gravedigger's Handbook, left behind there by accident, and it is her first act of book thievery. So begins a love affair with books and words, as Liesel, with the help of her accordian-playing foster father, learns to read. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor's wife's library, wherever there are books to be found.

But these are dangerous times. When Liesel's foster family hides a Jew in their basement, Liesel's world is both opened up, and closed down.

My Review: There will be mild spoilers for Max's arc in this review. 

I have... many conflicting feelings about this book. The one I can't shake is this work is problematic AS HELL. It reminds me of the politically correct mentality that was in its relative infancy in the mid 2000s, when our understanding of feminism was 'girl power' marketed by men, when allyship was enveloped by white saviour mentalities, when minorities were fetishized for their pain and their stories commodified by privileged folk. 

I mean, we still have all that going on, but at least we're somewhat more aware of it happening these days.

Before we dig our digits in the dirt, let's take a walk on the brighter side and focus on the book's positives. The Book Thief's use of language is gorgeous and evocative, its diction thick with richness and flavour that oozes off the page. Death's preoccupation with colour lends an extra edge to emotional scenes as colour is used as metaphor for individuals and feelings, as well as pathetic fallacy. Because of this, the colour descriptions infuse deep emotionality into the mundane, which reinforces the hollowness of experiencing an apocalyptic moment in history while you still have to buy milk and go to work. Zusak also uses creative verbs and descriptors to imbue life into his scenes, from "the sound of the turning page carved them in half" to "the conversation of bullets." While some of his descriptions  could be considered flowery, it's kept to a minimum so it doesn't drag down the pacing. A lot of careful thought was placed into the use of words throughout, both as a theme and a practical application. 

I wish the book's beautiful language could carry it alone, yet some of that early 00s thinking held it back from what it could have been. As my creative writing teacher would say, death is a source of instant drama that immediately cranks up the tension and intensity of the story, and when your novel is narrated by Death himself, taking place in one of the most genocidal periods in modern history, you're responsible for depicting the nuance of all that drama. Zusak juggles a boatload of suffering, death, grief, hope, and resiliency in The Book Thief, but centers the narrative around the day-to-day life of the Germans. By focusing on the German perspective, Zusak inserts a lot of domestic normalcy that readers can relate to, and contrasts it against the most dramatic and harrowing events in modern memory. 

I understand that focusing specifically on the Jewish experience -- hiding, life in the ghettos, or surviving concentration camps-- would make it harder for average readers to relate. I also understand the appeal to feature a story about the Germans who resisted, as that's a narrative with a lot of potential that isn't usually addressed when talking about WW2. The problem comes in when understanding that the story of the Holocaust, which this and most WW2 stories center back on, is a Jewish story to tell. Jews were dehumanized and their stories were de-emphasized so much that it took decades to re-center the narrative back onto the Jewish experience. At the time this book was written, white saviour mentality was still ripe in mainstream culture i.e., white people pleading the case for what black Africans needed, Indigenous history taught by and through the perspective of white people, etc. The Book Thief manages the major missteps of any white saviour narrative: focusing the story away from the marginalized minority and onto the privileged majority, while also objectifying the minority characters and fetishizing their pain in order to prop up the virtues of the privileged group. While I think a story that looks at the Germans who resisted Nazi ideology can be good, that's not what this book is about. It's about Max's suffering and how good Lisel's family is for caring about his well-being, instead of focusing on what a life of resistance would really look like. Where are the narratives about Sophie Scholl and her resistance efforts? Books that seek to tell the stories of Germans who resisted should focus on that experience, and not the suffering of Jews. The closest the Book Thief gets to depicting what it would be like living two lives was the scene where Hans smacks Liesel for speaking out against the Nazis, and yet this scene is undermined by the threat that Max may be discovered if they do not behave like proper Nazis, bringing the focus again back onto Jewish suffering. 

Before starting the book, I knew that Max, a Jewish man, comes to live in Liesel's basement, as it's part of the back cover blurb, but I was surprised how little the story featured his perspective or gave him any opportunities to demonstrate autonomy. While there are some scenes from his perspective when he lives with Lisel's family, they focus on his suffering with brief moments of joy thrown in to enhance the drama of his pain later. He has dreams about boxing Hitler and laments about being a burden, but again these only highlight his helplessness and misery. Even when he eventually leaves Liesel's house, we don't see how he survives on his own - instead we are left in the dark until it's revealed he was picked up by the Nazis and taken to a concentration camp. He becomes a lamp in the narrative after he leaves the house, as once Liesel sees him marching with Jewish prisoners through the city to the concentration camp, he's merely an object for her to demonstrate her virtue around. There were plenty of opportunities to give him some autonomy over his circumstance - show his wit, resilience, and ingenuity as he's surviving on his own - and it might have mitigated some of the narrative's exploitative feel. I understand this may have taken away from the day-to-day mundane perspective that Zusak was going for, to which I will argue: then Max should have been removed from the story. At the very least, it may have lessened the blow since seeing Max the Sympathy Lamp up close only highlighted how the narrative sidelined Jewish voices in a story about a major event in Jewish history. 

It's been a couple weeks between finishing the book and writing this review, and in that time my feelings on the book have only soured. Despite its critical acclaim, the book's attempts at allyship have aged considerably in the 17 years since it was published. Instead of diving into the psychology and real experience of Germans resisting Nazi rule, Zusak took the lazy way and focused on the suffering of a marginalized group to squeeze out easy drama for his narrative. 

TL;DR: 3/5 stars. Sideling Jewish voices in a Holocaust narrative? Bold move, Captain. 

Book Review and Giveaway: Coming Up Cuban

I've got a good one for you today, folks. I'm thrilled to be a part of the the COMING UP CUBAN by Sonia Manzano Blog Tour hosted by Rockstar Book Tours. Check out my review below and make sure to enter the giveaway!

 

About The Book:

Title: COMING UP CUBAN: Rising Past Castro’s Shadow

Author: Sonia Manzano

Pub. Date: August 2, 2022

Publisher: Scholastic Press

Formats: Hardcover, Paperback, eBook, Audiobook

Pages: 320

Find it: Goodreads, Amazon, Kindle, Audible, B&N, iBooks, Kobo, TBD, Bookshop.org

From Pura Belpré Honoree and Emmy-award winning actor Sonia Manzano--best known as "Maria" from Sesame Street--comes the expansive and timeless story of four children who must carve out a path for themselves in the wake of Fidel Castro's rise to power.

Fifteen-time Emmy Award winner and Pura Belpre honoree Sonia Manzano examines the impact of the 1959 Cuban Revolution on four children from very different walks of life. In the wake of a new regime in Cuba, Ana, Miguel, Zulema, and Juan learn to find a place for themselves in a world forever changed. In a tumultuous moment of history, we see the lasting effects of a revolution in Havana, the countryside, Miami, and New York. Through these snapshot stories, we are reminded that regardless of any tumultuous times, we are all forever connected in our humanity.

 

My Review: Coming Up Cuban takes a look at Fidel Castro's rise to power through the eyes of four young Cubans and their families. Through multiple novellas, each centering on a different protagonist, Sonia Manzano offers various perspectives on a turbulent political uprising, allowing her to highlight the nuances of the situation while also breaking down complex ideas for middle grade readers. Filled with love, both for Cuba as well as its resilient peoples, Coming Up Cuban is a story full of joy and heartache that celebrates the vibrancy of Caribbean culture while educating readers on a crucial historical moment.

Coming Up Cuban keeps its politics centered on its target audience -- 9-12 year olds. Through their eyes, we see Cuba's transformation, demonstrating how political upheavals can effect every corner of a country. In this way, the book doesn't focus on fighting and war, but the aftereffects -- refugees scrambling to leave the country, schools closing, forced surrendering of property, new government initiatives, etc. The book also features a cast of characters from differing backgrounds -- poor to upper middle class -- that offer various perspectives on Castro's takeover -- from those who hate Castro and his changes (which seems to be the dominant opinion), to people who praise him, to people that agree with parts of his revolution but not all, etc. In this way, most perspectives are held on equal ground, with few "right" or "wrong" perspectives pushed to the forefront, allowing readers to form their own opinions on Castro's rule. This equalization of perspectives did have a limit. Every character seemed to hold America in high regard, as a land to escape to, full of compassionate people who were alluded to be outright saviors a few times. The only 'negative' opinion of the US came from older characters who did not want to immigrate, mostly due to a love of Cuba and an unwillingness to change. This felt a little propagandist to me, as the US was a long-term colonizer of Cuba after Spain and largely controlled the country until the revolution, so it feels disingenuous to paint the US only as saviour, when their involvement was just as nuanced as Fidel's. Considering the book has no problem showing multiple perspectives on the politics within Cuba, it would have been easy to add some diversity on the perspective toward America as well.

The book features four novellas, each focusing on a different character at different points during Fidel's early reign. The characters all know each other and so their stories overlap, thus building an overarching narrative while also allowing the story to branch in very different directions. Each novella focuses on a different aspect of Fidel's reign to educate readers while entertaining - Ana's section focuses on the revolution and sets the story, Migeul's section focuses on refugee and immigration struggles, Zulema's section focuses on literacy, and Juan's section focuses on radicalization. The novellas use simple but striking interpersonal conflicts to hook readers in and keep them emotionally invested in each novella. 

Manzano's writing style is simple but elegant; no word is wasted. Everything given page space enhances the themes, plot, or characterization very deliberately, creating a satisfying read for those who wish to analyze the text on a deeper level. Yet the writing style is also incredibly accessible for its target audience. Manzano carefully utilizes simple language without simplifying the concepts explored, which shows her mastery of communication. The book balances darkness with some levity by injecting childlike silliness into the mix of uncertainty, giving the book an endearing quality at its core. The silliness also helps hooks young readers into the larger political story by promising some fun along the way. 

All in all, 5/5 stars. Coming Up Cuban is a silly and heartfelt story filled with hope that pushes young readers to think, learn and empathize. Definitely worth adding to your shelves and sharing with your young ones. I chuckled, teared up, and enjoyed every moment of this Caribbean adventure intended for readers a third my age. 

 

About Sonia Manzano:

SONIA MANZANO is a groundbreaking Latina educator, executive television producer,  and award-winning children's book author. A first-generation mainland Puerto Rican, she  has affected the lives of millions of parents and children since she was offered the  opportunity to play “Maria” on Sesame Street (which she continued to do for 44 years,  from 1971-2015). Manzano has received 15 Emmys for writing television scripts, the  Congressional Hispanic Caucus Award, the Hispanic Heritage Award for Education, and a  Lifetime Achievement Award from the Academy of Arts and Sciences. People magazine  named Sonia one of America's most influential Hispanics. Her critically acclaimed  children's books include The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano, which won a Pura Belpré  Honor Award, and the stunning young adult memoir Becoming Maria: Love and Chaos in  the South Bronx. Currently she is working on Alma's Way, an animated series with Fred  Rogers Productions that will air on PBS. Manzano resides in New York City with her  husband Richard Reagan, whom she married in 1986, and their daughter Gabriela.

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Goodreads | Amazon

 

Giveaway Details:

1 winner will receive a finished copy of COMING UP CUBAN, US Only.

Ends August 9^th midnight EST.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Tour Schedule:

Week One:

7/18/2022	The Clever Reader	Excerpt/IG Post
7/19/2022	What A Nerd Girl Says	Excerpt/IG Post
7/20/2022	brittreadsalattebooks	IG Post
7/21/2022	Kait Plus Books	Excerpt/IG Post
7/22/2022	Ya Books Central	Excerpt/IG Post
7/23/2022	BookHounds YA	Excerpt/IG Post

Week Two:

7/24/2022	Author Z. Knight’s Guild	Excerpt
7/25/2022	Lady Hawkeye	Excerpt/IG Post
7/26/2022	hodophile_z	IG Review
7/27/2022	Lisa Loves Literature	Review/IG Post
7/28/2022	FictionalFey	IG Review
7/29/2022	Midnightbooklover	IG Post
7/30/2022	The Underground	Review

Week Three:

7/31/2022	One More Exclamation	Review/IG Post
8/1/2022	Two Points of Interest	Review
8/2/2022	The Momma Spot	Review/IG Post
8/3/2022	Rajiv's Reviews	Review/IG Post
8/4/2022	Books and Zebras	Review/IG Post
8/5/2022	Lifestyle of Me	Review/IG Post

Book Review: Family

 

Book Review: Family by Micol Ostow 

Goodreads Description: It is a day like any other when seventeen-year-old Melinda Jensen hits the road for San Francisco, leaving behind her fractured home life and a constant assault on her self-esteem. Henry is the handsome, charismatic man who comes upon her, collapsed on a park bench, and offers love, a bright new consciousness, and—best of all—a family. One that will embrace her and give her love. Because family is what Mel has never really had. And this new family, Henry’s family, shares everything. They share the chores, their bodies, and their beliefs.  And if Mel truly wants to belong, she will share in everything they do. No matter what the family does, or how far they go.

My Review: **There will be some minor-ish spoilers for the climax in this review. 

Well... it was a book all right. 

I picked up Family many years ago and added it to my TBR pile because I'm a fan of fucked up things, generally, so an exploration into cult dynamics seemed right up my alley. Over the years that it's sat at the bottom of my pile, I forgot (or never realized) that this was a verse novel, which is not something I usually partake in. Regardless, I did find myself enjoying the verse style at times, especially because it allowed the author to touch on some poetic emotions that might have been considered superfluous in a traditional narrative. As a fan of purplier prose, I did enjoy this, but quickly found the style tiresome in its repetition. A lot of the book felt like the same lines over and over, and I honestly wonder how much book would be left if all the repetition was removed. Some of this repetition worked to reinforce ideas, and other times it just became annoying. 

The verse style also focused more on the main character's emotions than communicating details of the plot, which gave the impression of an unreliable (if not just freakin' clueless) narrator. Because of this, what actually happens isn't the focus, leaving a thin plot that bordered on boring and stereotypical. Part of my interest in this book, and what the back cover bragged it was, was an exploration of someone pulled into a cult. I was under the impression that the book would showcase the transformation: how someone from an ordinary life could turn into a cult member willing to commit murder. However, that was not what I got. I can't blame the verse for this either, this was just plain poor writing. The book presented Mel, the main character, as born broken, a concept that is highly problematic. Mel lived in an abusive home, with her mother emotionally neglecting her while her step-father sexually abused her. This is a fairly stereotypical set-up for a runaway situation, but not a death knell, if only the author put some development into Mel herself. Instead, Mel is the perfect cult member before she even joins the cult. The first time Mel meets Henry, the cult leader, she describes him as if she's already a devoted member: talking as if he's god, with abstract descriptions that give me no sense of who Henry is, aside from perfect. There is no attempt to show how a stranger on the street could become someone so important to Mel that she would willingly surrender her identity without thinking about it. It gave the impression that Mel is just 'crazy,' leading into that premise of some people just being 'born broken.' We don't see how she loses herself to the cult, from page one, she just willingly submits, taking a lot of the power out of the novel. Instead of reading about someone's fall, I instead get a boring story about a family who commits a murder, without any interesting plot twists. If the author wanted to focus more on emotions and relationships, they still could have accomplished this while having the 'murder plot' still be fairly simple, but there's no effort put into the character dynamics, nor does the book dig into how these dynamics could influence the cult 'family,' which would have made for a far more interesting book. Instead, the cult members all seemed like a hive mind at times, with only hints that they might have their own thoughts and ideas. 

Finally, that ending just pissed me right off. If you're going to commit to writing a novel about cult members who do bad things, and more so if you're creating a fall arc, don't chicken out at the last minute. During the climax where Mel and several other family members murder a fictionalized Sharon Tate and Alfred Hitchcock, Mel backs out and lets the 'singer' free, and runs away from the family herself, which not only made no sense for how Mel was written, but robs the story of its believability. How and why would the family let her go? We didn't see Mel's transformation into this person, so how do we know what pulled her out of it? Why the sudden change of heart when she was so freakin' devoted to Henry? Not to mention, way to cop out on the promise of the novel. Readers picked up the book because they wanted something dark and gritty, and instead of showing us a true fall arc, we get a crybaby who runs away when things get tough. 

Ultimately? Boring, unimaginative, stays within the box, flat characters, NOTHING HAPPENS UGH, and a cop out ending. But, uh... at least there's some pretty writing? 

TL;DR: 2/5 stars. It's a book, but probably not worth reading. 

Book Review: The Song of Achilles

Book Review: The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller 

Goodreads Description: Achilles, "the best of the Greeks," son of the cruel sea goddess Thetis and the legendary king Peleus, is strong, swift, and beautiful--irresistible to all who meet him. Patroclus is an awkward young prince, exiled from his homeland after an act of shocking violence. Brought together by chance, they forge an inseparable bond, despite risking the gods' wrath. They are trained by the centaur Chiron in the arts of war and medicine, but when word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, all the heroes of Greece are called upon to lay siege to Troy in her name. Seduced by the promise of a glorious destiny, Achilles joins their cause, and torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus follows. Little do they know that the cruel Fates will test them both as never before and demand a terrible sacrifice. 

My Review: 

“Will you come with me?” he asked. 

The never-ending ache of love and sorrow. Perhaps in some other life I could have refused, could have torn my hair and screamed, and made him face his choice alone. But not in this one. He would sail to Troy and I would follow, even into death. 

“Yes,” I whispered. “Yes.” 

Frankly, I wasn’t going to do a review because school has eaten my brain, but when I read a beautiful book, sometimes I just need to shout its praises from the rooftops. It shuffles free all the demons and leftover feels that stick like baked molasses to the cookie sheet of my soul. So I’ve dug out my soapbox today to tell you why you need Achilles and Patroclus’ brand of Too Gay To Function in your life. You may not realize you do, but that’s okay. I didn’t realize how necessary it was either. 

As much as it tries to dress itself up in Greek myth, lyrical writing, and a historical setting, The Song of Achilles is, at its core, just a romance. The first half of the book seeks to establish Achilles and Patroclus’ relationship, which is then used to highlight the tragedy of the Trojan war for the second half. Yet the book doesn’t hammer on the romance to make the loss more poignant later. In fact, I found the book took a ‘light touch’ to the romantic or sexy scenes. We get just enough of those romantic moments for the reader to savour, but not enough to satisfy, which propels the reader through the rest of the book. Achilles and Patroclus never say the words ‘I love you’ in the book, but it’s because they don’t need to. It’s shown, very clearly, to the point where it would be superfluous to put it to words. Part of the appeal of the loss isn’t that we spend the book learning how much they love each other, but rather why. We fall in love with each of these men alone and together, making the ending so much more devastating. 

The writing is pure gold. It captures that antiquity feel without alienating a modern reader. The prose is melodic, which makes the book very enjoyable to read. These characters could be planting daisies or recording a shopping list and it would still be a joy to read due to the delivery. It’s definitely a book you read partly for the story, and partly for the poetry of its construction. 

The end is devastating, as is to be expected if you know anything about the Iliad. However, like the love scenes, the tragedy isn’t meant to wring you like a dishcloth to pull the emotions out of you. I didn’t find myself crying, but rather overwhelmed with its inevitability. This was purposeful to illustrate to the reader how the characters themselves felt, holding onto the prophecy of death through 10 years of war. The amount of foreshadowing is quite profound as well. There are the obvious pieces of foreshadowing, which Miller does nothing to hide, but also much subtler pieces sprinkled all throughout the book which adds to the feelings of inevitability.

So, seriously, what more do you need from a book? Blending of myth and history? Yes! Melodic prose? Yes! Romance? Tragedy? The gay agenda? Triple yes. Will it leave you borderline suicidal when you realize you will never have a relationship as profound as the one between Achilles and Patroclus? If it does, consult your local mental health professional. I’ve got several on speed dial. 

TL;DR: 5/5 stars. Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! 

Book Review: The Book of Negroes

Book Review: The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill 

Goodreads Description: Based on a true story, "The Book of Negroes" tells the story of Aminata, a young girl abducted from her village in Mali aged 11 in 1755, and who, after a deathly journey on a slave ship where she witnesses the brutal repression of a slave revolt, is sold to a plantation owner in South Carolina, who rapes her. She is brought to New York, where she escapes her owner, and finds herself helping the British by recording all the freed slaves on the British side in the Revolutionary War in The Book of Negroes (a real historical document that can be found today at the National Archives at Kew). Aminata is sent to Nova Scotia to start a new life, but finds more hostility, oppression and tragedy. Separated from her one true love, and suffering the unimaginable loss of both her children who are taken away from her, she eventually joins a group of freed slaves on a harrowing odyssey back to Africa, and ends up in London as a living icon for Wilberforce and the other Abolitionists. "The Book of Negroes" is a page-turning narrative that manages to use Aminata's heart-rending personal story to bring to life a harrowing chapter in our history.

My Review: The Book of Negroes is an incredibly odyssey story featuring Aminata Diallo, who at 11-years-old is abducted from her village and trafficked into slavery. She is taken onto a slave ship that heads out to South Carolina where Aminata is sold into slavery to an indigo plantation owner. The novel follows Aminata's life as she gains more and more freedoms and eventually makes her way back to Africa. The book tackles ideas of colonialism, imperialism, assimilation, racism, (of course) slavery, all the little shades of grey that fall between those concepts, and most importantly, how real people tried to live their lives within the framework of systematic oppression. 

Something many writers might pick up on while reading this book was how the author utilized the concept of 'show don't tell.' The narrator, Aminata, tells us a lot about the story and characters point blank, and though at first glance it would seem like Hill is breaking a pretty big writing rule, it's a necessary evil. The Book of Negroes is incredibly long and detailed, and in order to get the story out, some parts are simply told to us without any attempt to show we might "see" it play out. We can see this a lot in dialogue scenes where the writing would go from using dialogue and tags to just telling the reader what was said. Alternatively, there is a lot that is shown to us, usually the things related to the bigger themes rather than the plot. Hill shows us how white people sometimes rationalize racist behaviour through characters like Soloman Lindo, who asserts that he's different from slave owners, and calls Aminata his servant instead of slave, yet still participates in the systems of oppression and has no problem using them to his benefit. Hill shows us the realities of racism by showing why other slaves refused to run away for their own safety, and how those that did often didn't find a good life. He shows us arguments against abolishment by using what the audience would consider "good" characters to express the anti-abolishment concerns, and shows us how slavers at the time hid the truth of the inhumane conditions in order to keep the trade alive. All of this adds up to a pretty balanced use of both "show" and "tell," and the book is a great example for when to use each angle. On a personal level, I found the way Hill used his "telling" to be a little intrusive at times and took me out of the story, but I recognize it as a necessary evil to tell such a long story. 

The novel tackles some very difficult ideas and subjects, and does it with an incredible amount of tact and fairness that makes the book feel very authentic. The book is obviously anti-slavery and anti-racism, but Hill approached these subjects with a very balanced portrayal. Instead of pushing any sort of agenda, the book presented the history as thoroughly as possible and let the truth speak for itself. As well, the horror was nicely balanced so the book was not unbearable to read. Hill addressed the violence and horror appropriately and did not shy away from the awful truths, but also didn't linger over them or fetishize the violence. The book gets progressively easier to read content-wise the more freedom that Aminata gains. 

As for the characters, they were all incredible. Aminata is truly a courageous and resilient main character. Chekura really stole my heart; at the beginning I was rolling my eyes at the idea of him and Aminata getting together, but a few hundred pages later and I couldn't imagine them without each other. Even all the other characters that came in and out of the story were very consistent and had very clear personalities and motivations. 

Overall, the book was an incredible piece of historical fiction. I can't say I was completely blown away by the characters or plot, and if not for my college class I don't think I ever would have picked it up (mostly due to the violence), but I really valued it for the accurate and detailed portrayal of life for slaves and free blacks. I really appreciate that it took the time to look at slavery from every angle and even actively dispute common racist myths. The Book of Negroes is an important read for people hoping to learn more about the history of slavery in North America and understand how the framework of that systematic oppression still exists in our society today. 

TL;DR: 5/5 stars. The Book of Negroes is an important piece of historical fiction that paints a thorough picture of life for people of colour trapped in the slave trade. 

Book Review: Silver Girl

Book Review: Silver Girl by Leslie Pietrzyk 

My Review: I was given an ARC of Silver Girl through a partnership with Rockstar Book Tours in exchange for an honest review. 

Silver Girl transports us back to the 1980s in a flurry of Tab and typewriters, where a nameless narrator has escaped her past by moving away to college. There she meets, Jess--beautiful, brave Jess from a wealthy Chicago family who flies through life with reckless abandon. As their college years progress, the narrator and Jess become closer at the same time that the chasm of secrets widens between them. The narrator is desperate to keep her past a secret-- from Jess as well as the reader. Meanwhile, she spirals into self-sabotaging behaviour that throws all of her relationships onto the rocks. The narrator struggles to reconcile the person she wants to be--wanted, loved, and finally a person of value-- with what the circumstances of her past push her to be-- the “monster.”  As the narrator falls from grace throughout the book, she continually minimizes her behaviour to the reader and lies to all those around her until it becomes difficult to trust her. Is the narrator telling the truth, or lying to the reader like she lies to her friends and family? Who is the narrator, really, and what about her past has left her so damaged? 

An incredible character study, Silver Girl is all about relationships: between best friends, between sisters, between parents and children. The book has no discernible plotline, in the same way that real life doesn’t either, but is written with a comfortable pace and mysterious tension that keeps the reader turning pages.  Right from the first page, the mystery of the narrator grabs and doesn’t let go-- who is this girl? And what is she running from? The book begins on the day the narrator moves into the freshman dorm, where she meets Jess for the first time. The end of the chapter gives us some interesting foreshadowing when Jess decides the narrator isn’t afraid of much, and while the narrator doesn’t agree with her, she also doesn’t object. “She could believe what she wanted, and I didn’t have to lie.” As their relationship develops, we see how the narrator bends the truth: not always by outright lying (though she lies a lot by the end) but by letting people make their own assumptions without challenging them. The narrator is especially fascinating because as her downfall progresses and we see her turn to destructive behaviours, her actions are at first understandable, but she continues to escalate until the character you once sympathized with becomes unlikeable. All of this was done without resorting to dramatic lengths—the narrator doesn’t haven’t to scream or use violence or key anyone’s car to be destructive—which is a pleasant subtly. 

As well, every character was so beautifully flawed! Even little Penny was both the darling, innocent victim as well as a troubled, disruptive brat, which was so awesome to see! Pietrzyk doesn’t shy away from the dark side when creating complex, dynamic characters. When she shows the characters’ dark sides, it’s not in an attempt to sway the reader’s opinion. The characters simply are-- their good and bad parts--and this allows the characters to have more nuance. 

The writing itself is both lyrical and to the point, both wildly expressive and yet down to earth. The writing style focuses heavily on mundane details, and the observations that come out of those details were both beautiful and tragic. I really loved the level of detail, as I felt it helped reveal things about the narrator as well as set a vivid scene. However, there were times where I felt the book veered too much into detail, which slowed down some scenes. The book was written in a non-linear fashion which worked so well. Because the story is not about a plotline and more about revealing the characters’ true “character,” the non-linear progression was effective in tricking the reader into making their own assumptions about the narrator. This non-linear style allowed the author to revisit scenes later in the book and reveal more information, which could totally change the reader’s perspective of the situation. The non-linear style is another way in which the narrator manipulates how the reader sees her, which made for an interesting read.  

Despite this grand fall, Silver Girl gives us a lot to connect to. The narrator finds a way to redeem herself at the end, and figures out how to reconcile her past with the person she wants to be. All throughout, we see the depth of the narrator and Jess’ friendship, as well as the bonds of sisterhood as Jess loses one sister and gains another, while the narrator struggles with what to do for her own sister. All of it speaks to a human experience that’s both messy and profound, that means nothing and everything all at once. 

TL;DR: All in all, 4/5 stars. An incredible character study of a college girl who can’t stop running from her past, even when it starts to hurt the people she loves. 

About The Book:

Title: SILVER GIRL 

Author: Leslie Pietrzyk

Pub. Date: February 27, 2018

Publisher: Unnamed Press

Pages: 272

Formats: Paperback, eBook

Find it: Amazon, B&N, TBD, iBooks, Goodreads

It's the early 1980s. Ronald Reagan's economy will trickle down any day now, and Chicago's Tylenol Killer has struck: an unknown person is stuffing cyanide into capsules, then returning them to drugstore shelves.

Against the backdrop of this rampant anxiety, one young woman, desperate to escape the unspoken secrets of her Midwestern family, bluffs her way into the fancy "school by the lake" in Chicago. There she meets Jess, charismatic and rich and needy, and the two form an insular, competitive friendship. Jess' family appears perfect to the narrator's wishful eye, and she longs to fit into their world, even viewing herself as a potentially better daughter than the unappreciative Jess. But the uneven power dynamic chafes the narrator, along with lingering guilt about the sister she left behind. Her behavior becomes increasingly risky - and after Jess' sister dies in murky circumstances and the Tylenol killer exposes the intricate double life of Jess' father, she finds herself scrambling for footing. Nothing is as it seems, and the randomness of life feels cruel, whether one's fate is swallowing a poisoned Tylenol or being born into a damaged and damaging family.

SILVER GIRL is a cousin to Emma Cline's The Girls and Emily Gould's Friendship in its nuanced exploration of female friendship, with the longing of Stephanie Danler's Sweetbitter.

About Leslie:

Leslie Pietrzyk is the author of two novels, Pears on a Willow Tree and A Year and a Day. This Angel on My Chest, her collection of linked short stories, won the 2015 Drue Heinz Literature Prize and was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in October 2015. Kirkus Reviews named it one of the 16 best story collections of the year. A new novel, Silver Girl, is forthcoming from Unnamed Press in February 2018. Her short fiction and essays have appeared/are forthcoming in many publications, including Hudson Review, Southern Review, Arts & Letters, Gettysburg Review, The Sun, Shenandoah, River Styx, Iowa Review, TriQuarterly, New England Review, Salon, Washingtonian, and the Washington Post Magazine. She has received fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. Pietrzyk is a member of the core fiction faculty at the Converse low-residency MFA program and often teaches in the MA Program in Writing at Johns Hopkins University. Raised in Iowa, she now lives in Alexandria, Virginia.

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

Giveaway Details: 

3 winners will receive a finished copy of SILVER GIRL, US Only.

Ends on March 20th at Midnight EST!

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Tour Schedule:

If you enjoyed my review, check out some of the other stops on Silver Girl's blog tour! 

Week One:

February 26, 2018- BookHounds YA- Interview

February 27, 2018- The Book Tower- Review

February 28, 2018- BookishRealmReviews- Review

Today! - The Underground- Review

March 2, 2018- Confessions of a YA Reader- Excerpt

Week Two:

March 12, 2018- Don't Judge, Read- Interview

March 13, 2018- Daily Waffle - Excerpt

March 14, 2018- Hauntedbybooks13- Review

March 15, 2018- Pretty Deadly Reviews- Review

March 16, 2018- A Dream Within A Dream- Excerpt