August Book Review 2019
She would be king – Wayétu Moore
Wayétu Moore’s powerful debut novel, She Would Be King, reimagines the dramatic story of Liberia’s early years through three unforgettable characters who share an uncommon bond. Gbessa, exiled from the West African village of Lai, is starved, bitten by a viper, and left for dead, but still she survives. June Dey, raised on a plantation in Virginia, hides his unusual strength until a confrontation with the overseer forces him to flee. Norman Aragon, the child of a white British colonizer and a Maroon slave from Jamaica, can fade from sight when the earth calls him. When the three meet in the settlement of Monrovia, their gifts help them salvage the tense relationship between the African American settlers and the indigenous tribes, as a new nation forms around them.
Moore’s intermingling of history and magical realism finds voice not just in these three characters but also in the fleeting spirit of the wind, who embodies an ancient wisdom. “If she was not a woman,” the wind says of Gbessa, “she would be king.” In this vibrant story of the African diaspora, Moore, a talented storyteller and a daring writer, illuminates with radiant and exacting prose the tumultuous roots of a country inextricably bound to the United States. She Would Be King is a novel of profound depth set against a vast canvas and a transcendent debut from a major new author.
The book is beautifully written. I don’t generally love books with multiple storylines unless one of them is obviously the main plot and the others come infrequently, but the way that these came together didn’t bother me. The structure of this novel starts off almost like short stories but with a few touch points that let you know that they are actually interwoven. While magical realism isn’t usually my thing, I think this book raises a very important discussion about the type of supernatural strength it took to survive as a black person in the world and the luck it takes to rise past where other people have determined your place to be.
Moore has a light touch but meaningfully brings up society and class systems even within oppressed communities. As the setting of the book evolves you get to see how people can go from slavery or a lower caste within one society to becoming an elitist in another society. This is something I thought about a lot after Black Panther when the term “colonizer” became very popular. It would seem like sucking up to your oppressors and becoming the oppressor yourself is something that people would avoid at all costs, but human nature shows itself to be fickle in this novel. The black people in this book find themselves emulating the plantations they left (to an extent) and saying it’s better.
“If she was not a girl or if she was not a woman; if she was not a woman or if she was not a witch, she would be king.”
Usually, when the title is actually referenced in the story, it falls short for me. So I was pleasantly surprised by how much this line spoke to me. It rings so true about many women and many positions of power. It’s not that a woman is held back by her lack of greatness, it’s that she is held back by being a woman.
4 Stars
The Best Thing – Mariana Zapata
Some things are easily forgiven. Other things… not so much. Lenny DeMaio made herself a promise: she was done. Done thinking about him. Done worrying about him. Done reaching out to a man who clearly didn’t want to be found. Too bad no one gave Jonah Collins the memo.
I enjoyed this story more than the last book I read from Zapata. Just to be clear, a bad book by this author is better than most rom coms I come across. For me it wasn’t up there with some of my favorites by her like Kulti, Wait for It and From Lukov with Love just by intensity, but overall I really liked it. I don’t really go for “second chance” romance novels, but I’m very happy I gave this one a chance. She writes complex female characters so well and they never disappoint me. I love how in her books both characters have to work for it, not because of love triangles or pettiness and unfaithfulness but because they are real humans. The one thing I always love about her writing is how she delves into real family dynamics and shows working-class people still chasing goals and marking their way up the economic ladder. And Texas. Any books set in Texas always touches a soft spot in my heart.
4 Stars
The Guy on the Right – Kate Stewart
Strike One-My mother named me Theodore after her favorite chipmunk. Not cool, Mom. I‘ve spent most of my life answering to Teddy, because I couldn’t make Theo work. Except for here. College. The place where all bets are off, and I’ve managed to redeem myself. There’s only one problem, my new roommate, Troy, is football royalty and looks like he stepped off the set of an Abercrombie shoot. Doesn’t matter, I cook a mean breakfast for his panty parade, and we get along well.
And anyway, this year I got the girl. And she’s perfect. That’s right. Theodore Houseman,
Another book set in Texas! I think the setting was alluding to College Station and Texas A&M but also avoiding getting sued. Probably a good plan. The characters felt realistic for their ages. It’s starting to feel like a lot of Young
3.25 Stars
Women’s Work: A Reckoning with Work and Home – Megan Stack
When Megan Stack was living in Beijing, she left her prestigious job as a foreign correspondent to have her first child and work from home writing a book. She quickly realized that caring for a baby and keeping up with the housework while her husband went to the office each day was consuming the time she needed to write. This dilemma was resolved in the manner of many upper-class families and large corporations: she availed herself of cheap Chinese labor. The housekeeper Stack hired was a migrant from the countryside, a mother who had left her daughter in a precarious situation to earn desperately needed cash in the capital. As Stack’s family grew and her husband’s job took them to Delhi, a series of Chinese and Indian women cooked, cleaned, and babysat in her home. Stack grew increasingly aware of the brutal realities of their lives: domestic abuse, alcoholism, unplanned pregnancies. Hiring poor women had given her the ability to work while raising her children, but what ethical compromise had she made?
Determined to confront the truth, Stack traveled to her employees’ homes, met their parents and children, and turned a journalistic eye on the tradeoffs they’d been forced to make as working mothers seeking upward mobility–and on the cost to the children who were left behind.
Women’s Work is an unforgettable story of four women as well as an electrifying meditation on the evasions of marriage, motherhood, feminism, and privilege.
This is a book that I knew would both fascinate and frighten me. A lot of my closest friends are now married or on their way to being married. It seems like my favorite bloggers are having babies and have been married forever. Here I am, and honestly I haven’t really dated, which is fine. But I’ve been preparing myself for feeling left out and for being jealous for a while now because I knew this time in my life was coming. So here’s the thing that’s actually difficult to admit; I wasn’t prepared for the idea of being married and having kids to bring out a sense of existential panic in me. If I try to think about it for more than a hot second, I cannot deal.
Stack shares the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to not just motherhood, but in what happens when you outsource an already new and uncomfortable role. I believe this falls under the category of literary journalism, which is one of my favorite genres. While perspective is through her experiences, she is also able to take her personal self out of the equation at times and focus on what this system means for her employees and for the wider population of women across social classes and countries. It was a great look at how life differs so drastically, even just as an American with at least a middle class income, from country to country. And then even more so for the average woman in different countries. If you think income inequality is bad in American or the U.K., etc. this is a whole other level.
As a side note, there were so many I really dislike her husband. I know that in the grand scheme of things he wasn’t that bad and that it is all from her perspective, but it just goes to show how little concern is given for the concerns and tribulations of “lead” parents.
4 Stars
There’s Something about Sweetie – Sandhya Menon
Ashish Patel didn’t know love could be so…sucky. After he’s dumped by his ex-girlfriend, his mojo goes AWOL. Even worse, his parents are annoyingly, smugly confident they could find him a better match. So, in a moment of weakness, Ash challenges them to set him up. The Patels insist that Ashish date an Indian-American girl—under contract. Per subclause 1(a), he’ll be taking his date on “fun” excursions like visiting the Hindu temple and his eccentric Gita Auntie. Kill him now. How is this ever going to work?
Sweetie Nair is many things: a formidable track athlete who can outrun most people in California, a loyal friend, a shower-singing champion. Oh, and she’s also fat. To Sweetie’s traditional parents, this last detail is the kiss of death. Sweetie loves her parents, but she’s so tired of being told she’s lacking because she’s fat. She decides it’s time to kick off the Sassy Sweetie Project, where she’ll show the world (and herself) what she’s really made of.
Ashish and Sweetie both have something to prove. But with each
Confession: I will read a crappy romance book about someone who is a romantic underdog like me in a heartbeat. I will throw my money at them, even though for all other reading I usually pretty high standards. But if you are fat or nerdy or a woman of color I am starved for representation so I totally give it a pass. So when I find books or authors that have characters who represent those things and are still well crafted. I immediately become a lifetime fan. Not only is it really sucky and difficult to find good romance in real life for “a girl like me?” It’s just as hard to even read about it in fiction. I’ve decided that reading great romances about women I identify with is an act of rebellion so expect to see more of it from me. This was such a cute YA book and Sweetie is such a great confident character. It also felt realistic for high school characters.
4 Stars
