Fiction – Page 13 – TwoNightStands

4 Kick Arse Female Fantasy Books!

7 Sep 20207 Sep 2020 twonightstands

I loveee fantasy. It’s my favorite genre and gives me so much escape from reality especially in these very, very strange times we live in. This is a very male dominated genre and the types of characters I enjoy in fantasy don’t help matters. I adore ruthless characters in fantasy. I want them to be single minded about their goals and to cut their way through their enemies.

The problem is that I read a lot of male heroes because there isn’t that many female characters written that way. I do not enjoy romance in my fantasy. I can stomach a little bit of it, but I do not want it to be the main plot. I just want a lot of world building and violence (Yikes!). Yes, there may be something wrong with me.

I decided to make a list of 4 fantasy books that I think have my version of a kick arse female character in fantasy.

The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang:

“Nothing is written. You humans always think you’re destined for things, for tragedy or for greatness. Destiny is a myth. Destiny is the only myth. The gods choose nothing. You chose. At every critical juncture you were given an option; you were given a way out. Yet you picked precisely the roads that led you here. You are at this temple, kneeling before me, only because you wanted to be.”

Rin aces the Keju—the Empire-wide test to find the most talented youth to learn at the Academies—and finds herself at Sineguard, the most prestigious military school in Nikan. Being a dark-skinned peasant girl, she is targeted immediately by her classmates and bullied by teachers who don’t believe she should be there. Rin with the help of a seemingly insane teacher realises that she possesses a lethal power everyone else at Sineguard believes is a myth. War breaks out in Nikan and her set graduates into a political mayhem and an all out war.

Why I love this character – Rin is absolutely ruthless and very focused on her goals. She is very single minded when she decides on a destination. She doesn’t get into any romantic entanglement even though I feel like there were some makings of one. She is a complex and complicated character who absolutely smashes all expectations. She is involved in some absolutely terrible deeds, but you rarely ever see women written like that so I was absolutely pulled in from beginning to end. I can’t wait to read the rest of the series.

Red Sister by Mark Lawrence:

“Your death has not been waiting for your arrival at the appointed hour: it has, for all the years of your life, been racing towards you with the fierce velocity of time’s arrow. It cannot be evaded, it cannot be bargained with, deflected or placated. All that is given to you is the choice: meet it with open eyes and peace in your heart, go gentle to your reward. Or burn bright, take up arms, and fight the bitch.”

At the Convent of Sweet Mercy, young girls are raised to be killers. Nona Grey is rescued from being hanged by one of the convent’s sisters after being accused of murder (and being guilty of much worse). She is just 8 but has made powerful enemies by the time she enters the convent. We see the young girls get trained in every art of killing imaginable. It takes about 10 years to be considered a sister.

Why I love this character – This is a convent so there are basically no men around. You get to have a book that is based solely on female characters interacting with each other for the most part. I love training schools a la Harry Potter, but this time for assassins. I love seeing how our characters develop from this absolute clueless person, to the end of the book where they are powerful and strong. This is a trilogy and I’ve read the first two books.

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden:

“I am told how I will live, and I am told how I must die. I must be a man’s servant and a mare for his pleasure, or I must hide myself behind walls and surrender my flesh to a cold, silent god. I would walk into the jaws of hell itself, if it were a path of my own choosing. I would rather die tomorrow in the forest than live a hundred years of the life appointed me”

Vasilisa is growing up in the Russian wilderness totally inhibited. She spends her days exploring her environment, listening to her old nanny tell her stories of the various gods and spirits with her older siblings and honoring the spirits. After an incident, Vasilisa’s father decides that she needs a mother figure and marries a new wife who is a deeply devout christian and bans them from honoring the Russian gods and spirits with devastating consequences.

Why I love this character – Vasilisa is independent and strong and everything you hope your girl child will be but she is severely punished for it and called a witch. She never lets anything stop her from her goal of liberating her village even if it meant honoring the spirits with her own blood. She rejects the fear and holds on to bravery. She was just a kick arse character and you will enjoy rooting for her.

Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie:

“You were a hero round these parts. That’s what they call you when you kill so many people the word murderer falls short.”

Monza Murcatto, the Snake of Talins, is the most feared and famous mercenary in Duke Orso’s employ. Her victories have made her popular but too popular for her employer’s taste so he betrays her, throws her off a mountain and leaves her for dead. This is a simple revenge story. After she is nursed back to health and is now half the woman she was, she vows to kill the 7 men present when she was betrayed at whatever cost. Even though this is the 4th book in an already established world, this is still a standalone that I think you can read whether you read the first three or not. So, yes, you can just jump into this book and it’ll still be an amazing read.

Why I like this character – I think my description says it all for me. She’s a woman with a one track mind bent on revenge – think Kill Bill on acid. There’s a bit of a romantic partner here but it’s barely there and doesn’t really affect the plot too much.

Let me know if any of these titles catch your fancy. I hope you enjoy this post, 4 for the price of one. Have a great week!

Leggy

Chick-Lit, Fiction, romance

Book Review: The Happy Ever After Playlist by Abby Jimenez

31 Aug 2020 twonightstands

The Happy Ever After Playlist by Abby Jimenez

Sloan Monroe is still mourning the loss of her fiance, two years after his death. She has lost her zeal to do the things that used to make her happy like her cooking blog and her art. On the anniversary of his death, she gets an unexpected gift in the form of Tucker, a puppy that literally hopped into her life. As she gets attached to Tucker, she finds out that he has an owner. Enter, Jason Larsen. A rising musician who is currently on tour in Australia.

The two get in contact to discuss ownership of Tucker starting with texts and moving on to calls. The two form a connection and begin to catch feelings. While Jason is all in and is willing to do all he can to be with Sloan, Sloan is wary for many reasons. Is she ready? Can she fit in?

As you may have guessed this book is a literary rom com and you may be wondering how I read this, given my thoughts on this genre. I actually don’t know how or why this was on my wait list but it checked out to me and I read it and found myself sucked in and actually liking it. So yep, I liked a romance novel. I liked it because it didn’t have all the things I dislike about romance novels in that, it wasn’t corny. It was an adult romance novel that didn’t tip toe around being PG.

Jimenez does a good job of writing out the characters and the plot and I did not even realize till afterwards that it was a pseudo sequel to a novel about her best friend in the book titled The Friend Zone. There is a cliche story line that involves the standard break up required in a romance novel but while expected, it did not turn me off on the book. I knew how it would end but the journey was interesting enough to keep me on.

You’d enjoy the makings of Sloan and Jason’s relationship which explores grief, self doubt, lust and troubled exes for the dramatic effect. For anyone triggered by the death of a loved one, while it varies for everyone, it is not heavy on the grief and it isn’t a center focus. If anything, the emotions she grapples with might be familiar and relatable. Jimenez was able to not define her by her grief and I liked how she made Sloan a woman who had a full life with her own interests before she met Jason.

In these chaotic times we live in, I recommend this book for a fun and light-hearted read. For the readers who are also music fans, Jimenez adds a nice touch with each chapter being titled after a song to make your own playlist (get it?). I gave this book 3 stars which is pretty much the equivalent of 5 stars for me given that it is a romance novel. Let us know if you have read this or have it on your TBR list.

Taynement

Chick-Lit, Fiction, literary fiction, romance, Uncategorized

Book Review: Sex and Vanity by Kevin Kwan

17 Aug 2020 twonightstands

Sex and Vanity: A Novel - Kindle edition by Kwan, Kevin ...

Sex and Vanity begins 5 years earlier than the main story of the book. We are introduced to the protagonist, Lucie Churchill who is the daughter of an American- Chinese mom and an American white father of Churchill fame, so she is considered a blue blood. She is 19 and at a society wedding in Capri, Italy. She is being chaperoned by her cousin on her dad’s side, Charlotte, to make sure she is on her best behavior and represents the family well.

Lucie meets George Zao, who is also from a prominent family. She finds him and his mom annoying but can’t deny her growing feelings for him. They get caught in a compromising position and Lucie never sees George again till 5 years later. This time she is older and engaged to a wealthy man who is all about society and image. The story progresses as we watch Lucie fight the past she thought she had left behind.

When I saw Kevin Kwan, author of the widely popular Crazy Rich Asians trilogy, had a new book out, I immediately put myself on the wait list of my library. I was a huge fan of Book 1 of the trilogy. Unfortunately, my excitement was for naught as this book did not meet any of my expectations.

For one, I found the title grossly misleading. There was barely any sex and yes there was vanity but it was not even from the main character. I had no idea till I was done with the book that this was a retelling of A Room With A View, so my review has no comparison and is strictly based on the book alone.

If you have been a reader of the blog then you already know my thoughts on romance novels. It’s just not my thing and that is exactly what the book reads like – boy meets girl, girl finds boy annoying, boy and girl start having feelings…and you know the rest. Nothing about the story line was compelling. If you read the CRA trilogy then you know by the third book, the story had been told too many times and you had the “been there, done that” feeling. This extended into this book because it also reads as an extension of the trilogy with some characters from there making cameos here.

Like most authors these days, Kwan felt he had to include a social conscious message with Lucie’s biracial heritage. She was caught between pleasing her white WASPy family and fiance and recognizing her Chinese heritage and the way it read seemed like Lucie was trying her best to be white passing even though she knew some of the comments from her family weren’t okay. For example, when Charlotte realizes that Lucie might have feelings for George Zao, she makes this comment – “Your mother is Chinese so it’s no surprise you’d be attracted to someone like him”. I didn’t even want to bother with figuring out why Kwan would decide to go this route but it brought me to another reason I didn’t like this book, the writing was amateurish.

I suspect a lot of people will pick this one up for nostalgia sake but I don’t think it will be satisfying. To be honest, Lucie was not interesting enough and seemed juvenile. The book was campy but not in a good way and there was not enough likeable characters. Not all predictable books are bad but I don’t know if I’d even recommend this as a fluff read.

Taynement

Chick-Lit, Fantasy, Fiction, literary fiction, Mystery, race, thriller, Uncategorized

Book Review: The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

10 Aug 2020 twonightstands

44074800. sy475

“He thinks we’re what we look like on the outside: nice Southern ladies. Let me tell you something…there’s nothing nice about Southern ladies.”

Patricia Campbell is a housewife in Charleston who can’t catch a break. She gave up a career as a nurse to marry an ambitious doctor who’s never home. She doesn’t have any help, her kids are ungrateful and on top of that, her mother-in-law just moved in with her. The only thing Patricia looks forward to during the week is her true crime book club. They read the filthiest of murders and discuss them in great detail even though their husbands believe that their group is a church group getting together to discuss the Bible.

A mysterious and handsome stranger moves into the neighborhood and the women spend a lot of time during their meetings speculating about him. Patricia finds him very attractive at first and invites him over to her house for dinner often. Until a few children over on the black side of town go missing and the car seen around the neighborhood looks exactly like his. Patricia starts having doubts about him and starts investigating what is really going on in their town.

“A no-good man will tell you he’s going to change,” she said. “He’ll tell you whatever you want to hear, but you’re the fool if you don’t believe what you see.”

I had a very different idea of what this book would be before I went in. I thought it would be funny and heartwarming. I mean the premise is ridiculous and I thought the author was going to run with it but he didn’t. I found this book to be way more serious than it needed to be, given the subject matter – for crying out loud, middle class women fighting a vampire .

It started out that way and I personally think it took a turn for the worse. I found this book to be both gory and gross. It’s very, very gory so, if you are a sensitive reader, I don’t think this book is for you. For example, there is an entire scene with rats eating someone alive. I found that terrifying and I don’t know why I kept reading it.

I also found this book to be over written. There were so many details that the author included that didn’t need to be in the book. This book is 400 pages when it didn’t need to be more than 300 with the dumbest characters I’ve read about in so long. All the men are super sexist while all the women are housewives and demure except the black woman who is a – I’ll wait for you to guess – housekeeper!

The main character presented enough evidence proving that their new neighbor wasn’t who he claimed to be and everyone just turned a blind eye at it. Sure, if it was real life and someone told me that my new neighbor is a vampire, I’d be skeptical too, but what is the fun in a book where a couple dead kids mean nothing.

One part of this book that rang true and mirrored real life to me was the fact that the vampire started out killing and sucking on black kids. It was easier for the white characters to ignore because it wasn’t happening to their kids and Patricia told them that bluntly. As long as it wasn’t happening on their side of town, they were content to do nothing. They only acted when he started coming after them and their kids and they were appropriately called out and the subject was well addressed in the book.

This book just did way too much. It has vampires, housewives, abusive husbands, sexist men, Nazis (yes, Nazis!), racism, book clubs, raccoons, rats and the list keeps going. I gave this book 2 stars on Goodreads. You can read it if it checks out to you on your library app on a day you’re bored and have nothing else to read.

Leggy

Fantasy, Fiction, literary fiction, Mystery, thriller, Uncategorized, Young Adult

What I’ve Been Reading Lately: 4 Quick Fire Reviews

3 Aug 2020 twonightstands

Image result for what i've been reading lately

It’s been so long since I did this. I’ve been reading so much during this pandemic and can’t wait to share some of the backlist books I’ve been reading. Anyway, here are four books that I’ve read lately that you might enjoy!

Sea Wife by Amity Gaige:

49666975

“Everyone is hard to love, if you do it for long enough.”

Michael convinces his wife, Juliet who is failing to juggle motherhood and her stalled-out dissertation, to up and go sailing for a whole year with their two kids—Sybil, age 7 and George, age 2. This book opens up with a promise of a mystery but ultimately fizzles out. On the very first chapter of this book, we are told that they’re back from their sailing trip and Michael is dead.

Told from dual perspectives – Juliet’s first person narration and Michael’s Captain’s log, that sometimes doubled as his diary. I found Michael’s Captain log narration to be a bit ridiculous towards the end because there were things he couldn’t possibly have written down that the author took liberties with. We see how strained their marriage is, how different their political opinions are and how the sailing trip affected all these things including their children.

I thought this one was okay and gave it 2 stars on Goodreads. If you like literary fiction that’s very atmospheric and well written, you should give this one a try.

2. Cradle Series by Will Wight:

30558257. sy475

“When a traveler cannot find a path, sometimes he must make his own.”

I’ve been reading through the Cradle series during this pandemic. It’s an escapist read for me. There are currently 7 books in this universe and I’m currently on number 4. This series revolves around Lindon. Lindon is an unsouled which means forbidden to learn the sacred arts of his clan. He is treated like a pariah and forced to compete against people half his age bringing shame to his family until a horrible event takes place in his village and he meets an immortal who shows him the paths his life could possibly go. The story focuses on Lindon’s determination to be the best sacred arts wielder the world has ever seen. I really enjoy these books and totally recommend them. I haven’t given any of the books less than 3 stars on Goodreads.

3. Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City by K. J. Parker:

37946419. sy475

“I like to let them talk things out, but fact isn’t a democratic process; if a thing isn’t true it isn’t true, even if everybody votes that it is.”

Orhan is an engineer who has more experience building bridges than fighting wars but he is his city’s only hope. A siege is coming. The army has left the city to fight an unknown enemy, leaving the city unguarded and open for the taking. The people have no food and very little weapon and the enemy has sworn to slaughter them all. It will take a miracle to save this city and Orhan who is a liar, cheater and enjoys history and engineering, is the perfect man for the job.

This book is the kind of fantasy I call competent porn – this is where the characters are extremely good at what they do. I really enjoyed watching Orhan come up with very interesting ways to defend a city and also stop the citizens from tearing it down from within. I gave this book 3 stars on Goodreads.

4. Skullduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy:

284440

“There’s no such thing as winning or losing. There is won and there is lost, there is victory and defeat. There are absolutes. Everything in between is still left to fight for. Serpine will have won only when there is no one left to stand against him. Until then, there is only the struggle, because tides do what tides do–they turn.”

Stephanie Edgley’s weird but rich and famous uncle just died and left her his entire estate to the chagrin of her other relatives. She’s just 12, what is she going to do with all that money and house? Due to some circumstances beyond her parents’ control, Stephanie is forced to spend the night alone in her uncle’s house. At first, she is excited to spend her first night all alone, until there is a break in and she is thrust into a world of magic and excitement and danger. She joins forces with her uncle’s friend, the weird and completely skeletal, Skulduggery Pleasant to solve the mystery of her uncle’s death.

This book is the first book in the Skulduggery Pleasant series. I was quite excited to read this but I didn’t enjoy it as much. I thought 12 was way too young for some of the things they got up to. There was actual danger involved in a lot of these. I also think if she was doing all these with kids her own age (like Harry Potter), I’d be more likely to overlook a lot but she’s completely running around with adults and I found it disconcerting. I gave this one 2 stars on Goodreads but I’m sure younger audiences wouldn’t have the same reservations I did.

These are some of what I have read lately and I hope you enjoyed these quick fire reviews. Let me know if you’ve read or intend to read any of these books in the comments. Have a great reading week everyone!

Leggy

We Chit Chat: The Blessed Girl by Angela Makholwa

6 Jul 2020 twonightstands

44322590

Plot: Bontle Tau is living a luxurious and largely fake life in Johannesburg, South Africa. She has a gang of admiring older boyfriends who pay her rent, send her on vacations and even secure her high level construction contracts even though she doesn’t have a construction company. She narrates what life is like living the life of a “blessee”

Taynement: So, The Blessed Girl…lol

Leggy: Is this an actual book?

Taynement: I don’t want to be harsh but it could have been a PDF fan fiction, but let’s go back to how we ended up with this book. Given everything going on in the world, we wanted to read a fun book by a black author. We’ve been intentional with our chit chats. They’ve mostly been either black or female authors. Enter Blessed Girl.

Leggy: I think we took the fun read waaay to the left. I was actually excited to read this one, but once I downloaded it from my library and read the first 10% I put it down. It was so badly written.

Taynement: Same. It was such a fun cover till I read the first page.

Leggy: I actually would have never finished this book if we didn’t have to do this chit chat.

Taynement: I still don’t honestly know how to categorize this book because it was badly written but I do think there was fun in it? I could see the vision and the format was like it was her writing in her journal and we were the journal? Or it was a video journal and we were the viewers?

Leggy: I didn’t find fun in it. I actually found it very problematic and it ended exactly how I thought it would end. Because obviously we have to punish the “prostitute” by giving her HIV. There was nothing fun in this book for me. I’m also not going to recommend this book to anyone so there’s going to be a lot of spoilers in this chit chat. Can I talk about the author’s treatment of a full blown rapist in this book? He raped a whole 14 year old and they spent the entire time talking about letting him see the son that resulted from this rape instead of discussing the fact that he is an actual rapist!

Taynement: You’re right, I think I’m just reaching. Listen from the moment she said Donald Trump was her idol, I immediately went to search when this book was published and it was 2017.

Leggy: They just threw in the rape part to “explain” why she was the way she was? Fun would be just a materialistic woman who likes money and fascinated us by her exploits. This just turned in a Tyler Perry movie.

Taynement: I think she was wayy too easy on her mother also.

Leggy: Her mother was TRASH!

Taynement: I couldn’t decide if the author wanted us to be mad or sympathetic towards her because I would never speak to that kind of mother again.

Leggy: You handed your 14 year old daughter to a grown man! And then made a case for why this grown man can come back 13 years later and be a great arse dad. What the fuck?! Who approved this crap?! I kept getting really angry reading this book.

Taynement: And his wife supported it. Ewww

Leggy: Also, the main character was crap. I sympathized with everything she had to go through but I didn’t like her. Honestly nobody in this book was likable and I think to pull off a book like this you need a likable protagonist.

Taynement: I think her best friend was – the one with the steady boyfriend but she got no development in the book.

Leggy: Honestly, that girl just came off as a stereotype to juxtapose her “good” character with the main character’s “reckless” life.

Taynement: And of course, trust the abusive man to be Nigerian in a book set in South Africa

Leggy: So many Nigerian oil barons sprinkled in this book, Nigerian artist, even the salon the girl frequented was owned by a Chimamanda. Anyway, I knew she’d get HIV. I mean how can a badly written book get worse than to introduce HIV? The ultimate punishment of wayward women? *rolls eyes*

Taynement: I honestly didn’t see any twist coming. I was too engrossed in how bad this book was and how it got published.

Leggy: Immediately Mr. Emmanuel asked to not wear a condom, I knew it. They didn’t mention through the entire book if she was having protected sex or not so for that to be mentioned specifically, I knew he had HIV.

Taynement: Also, what was the point of telling us about the cheating with her aunt’s husband if nothing came of that plot line?

Leggy: I kept waiting for her aunty to catch her and nothing happened. She even ended up starting a business with her aunty. It was like once they punished her with HIV, her sins were forgiven and she became a whole new person.

Taynement: And her ex-husband never stopped loving her and was fine with everything. I didn’t understand why or how he was still mad at her mother but not her. How do you forget that she is materialistic and only now open to returning to you now that you are successful.

Leggy: Even HIV. The protagonist cheated on him while they were married, lied to him and deceived him but still, love conquered all!

I wonder what the publisher saw in this book and thought it was worth publishing. Honestly, I can list so many Nollywood movies that are better than this book and they didn’t even end with the girls getting HIV.

Taynement: Probably wanted to explore the idea of the blesser/blessee culture but needless to say, this book was a fail. Don’t get caught up by the cover, skip this one people!

Leggy: We didn’t even talk about her brother/son’s drug problems. For a short book, this book sure had a lot of story lines.

Taynement: Someone who got rehabbed in 30 days.

Leggy: And suddenly was a drug free, happy child chilling with his rapist father and his family. We have to export this fantastic rehab to the world. Anyway, like Tayne said, skip this one. I wouldn’t recommend it. Gave it 1 star on Goodreads.

Leggy & Taynement

Chick-Lit, Fiction, literary fiction, Mystery, romance, Uncategorized

Book Review: Big Summer by Jennifer Weiner

29 Jun 2020 twonightstands

Big Summer | Book by Jennifer Weiner | Official Publisher Page ...

“The trick of the internet, I had learned, was not being unapologetically yourself or completely unfiltered; it was mastering the trick of appearing that way. It was spiking your posts with just the right amount of real… which meant, of course, that you were never being real at all.”

Six years after the night that ended their friendship and inspired Daphne to start her blog, Drue Cavanaugh walks back into Daphne’s life and asks her to be her maid of honor. Drue was always the one who had everything – money, beauty, brains- but has finally alienated every friend she’s ever had with her horrible attitude and entitlement. Daphne is no longer the shy kid from high school who did anything for Drue’s friendship, she has built a plus-size blog from the ground up with a very good following and is about to land the biggest contract of her life.

Daphne recognizes that Drue’s wedding guest list is going to be filled with the best of the best and will be taking place in the most beautiful mansion in Cape Cod, so she decides to take that opportunity to boost her career. When a murder happens right before the wedding that throws everyone for a loop and lands Daphne on the suspect list, she’s forced to reevaluate her history with Drue and the reason she was invited in the first place.

“I was going to eat to nourish myself, I was going to exercise to feel strong and healthy, I was going to let go of the idea of ever being thin, once and for all, and live my life in the body that I had.”

Weiner’s writing style is great in this book. She tackles female friendships really well. Some are complex and toxic, while others are complex and yet very healthy. The high school friendship between Daphne and Drue was very intriguing to read about, it was almost like reading about an emotionally abusive relationship. Drue made Daphne feel disposable so she worked even harder to please Drue and maintain her place in Drue’s life. She would do Drue’s home works, take her verbal stings and subject herself to so many different diets just trying to fit into Drue’s squad in high school.

I loved reading about Daphne’s road to accepting her body for what it was, trying to be strong and healthy and discarding the idea that she had to be thin to be worthy of love. I love that Weiner showed that loving yourself is never a straight trending upward line. There are dips and days when we just don’t feel that love and loving oneself is a continuous and never stopping active exercise.

“When you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail. When you’re angry, everything looks like a target. There are a lot of angry people in the world. And these days, they’re all online.”

The mystery in this book absolutely sucks. Yes, this book is part thriller/mystery but it was so unnecessary, not well executed and just felt a bit ridiculous. I think this book should have just been straight contemporary female fiction. Big Summer had so much going for it until the murder happened and then everything completely fell apart for me. The murder happened so late in the book that it just felt like an after thought and then the entire book is overtaken by an investigation and our protagonist is suddenly being questioned for murder.

Also, this book absolutely didn’t need a romantic angle. It just felt like it was trying to be everything at once – contemporary, romance, mystery, thriller, social commentary. We don’t need to validate or prove that the fat protagonist is worthy by giving her a man and that is exactly what the whole thing felt like. It was literally instalove, they fell in love in a day and he suddenly moves across states to be with her within a week. It was just ridiculous and unbelievable.

“It’s almost religious, that belief, that faith that a piece of silk or denim or cotton jersey could disguise your flaws and amplify your assets and make you both invisible and seen, just another normal woman in the world; a woman who deserves to get what she wants.”

I really wanted to love this one because I picked it up after hearing the author speak about this book and loving everything she had to say about social media and body acceptance. I enjoyed the first 50% of this book and thought it was well written, the last 50% didn’t work for me. I ended up giving this book 2 stars on Goodreads.

Leggy

Fiction

Book Review: It’s Not All Downhill From Here by Terry McMillan

22 Jun 202022 Jun 2020 twonightstands

It's Not All Downhill From Here by Terry McMillan: 9781984823748 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

“That it is still important to keep improving our lives, even at our age, and we should treat ourselves better and stop acting like our best years are behind us”

Loretha is about to be 68 and by all accounts, has a great life. She is in a happy marriage, has a group of friends she can count on and is financially stable thanks to her businesses and joint property she owns with her husband. While her life is great, it is not perfect as she has a strained relationship with her daughter who is an alcoholic and with her twin sister who sees her as competition.

When Lo, as her friends and family call her, suffers a huge loss, her life is turned upside down and she finds herself having to re-calibrate and realize that her life isn’t over and she would have to make the best out of the rest of her years.

I have this loyalty to Terry McMillan. I have fond memories of her earlier books. They were unapologetically black and dealt with adult issues. But lately, her recent books just haven’t hit my literary spot and this includes this book.

I appreciate McMillan writing about an older generation because society tends to treat them as invisible. But besides that there was not much that I liked about the book. While I kept turning the pages, I kept trying to pin point what was not working about this book and it came to me that it was outdated. McMillan writes exactly how you would imagine she talks to her friends in person.

For example, she uses the term “hussy” a lot (slang term like hoe or bitch used in a friendly way). For a seasoned writer it’s surprising that she sounds amateurish on this. Another example was an African hairdresser who she described as “could be Lupita Nyong’o’s twin, had a shaved head, always wore African beads and went barefoot”. I mean…could we be any more cliche?

I didn’t particularly like any of the characters but Lo made me want to pull my hair out. She seemed like one of those people whose worth is tied to being able to provide for people. Through out the entire book, I can’t count how much she gave to a lot of the characters that popped up along the way. And not just a few dollars here and there. Things like cars, houses, free rental apartments in her buildings. It really annoyed me because I couldn’t tell if she couldn’t tell she was being used or she just enjoyed it.

On the flip side, I am trying to remember books I have read that had older subject matters to make sure what I am calling outdated isn’t just a generational disconnect, where I am not the audience. I will say though, that the issues that were tackled in the book where real life issues such as health, death, abuse, mental illness.

Once again, I am always here for content that recognizes older people because just because they are old doesn’t mean that they should be treated as dead. A lot of older people still lead full lives and want to make the best of their time especially with the lice experiences acquired, so I have no issues with the characters being older.

This book got 2 stars from me. It was just not well written and not the most compelling. If you are looking to have a mindless read just as a filler, it may work but if you would like a fulfilled reading experience, I am not sure this will meet that need.

Taynement

Book Review : The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

15 Jun 2020 twonightstands

51791252. sx318 sy475

“You can escape a town, but you cannot escape blood. Somehow, the Vignes twins believed themselves capable of both.”

The Vignes twin sisters – Stella and Desiree were born in a small town in Louisiana called Mallard filled with very light skinned black people. At age 16, they run away to New Orleans to escape their small town and live bigger lives. After a year in new Orleans, their lives completely diverge. They both go on to live completely different lives – one passing as white, while the other marries the darkest black man she can find. Bennett takes us through the years, weaving together multiple strands and generations of these women, from Louisiana to Boston to California, she tells a remarkable story of trying to survive while black in America.

“There were many ways to be alienated from someone, few to actually belong”

Bennett describes the town of Mallard so well that it is almost a character in this book (I googled “is Mallard a real town?” even though the logical part of my brain knew it wasn’t). This town is a black community with a very unusual beginning:

The idea arrived to Alphonse Decuir in 1848, as he stood in the sugarcane fields he’d inherited from the father who’d once owned him. The father now dead, the now-freed son wished to build something on those acres of land that would last for centuries to come. A town for men like him, who would never be accepted as white but refused to be treated like Negroes. A third place.

So they strived to create a better negro with each generation breeding specifically for white features – skin lighter, hair wavier, eyes colored but this still didn’t inoculate them from the hands of racism. The twins’ father was still dragged out of bed in the middle of the day and lynched while his little girls watched when they were only 7 and it didn’t stop race from shaping everything about their lives for the 40 years the book spans.

10 years after she leaves, Desiree comes back to Mallard while trying to escape an abusive husband with the darkest baby the town had ever seen. Desiree’s daughter, Jude, is the darkest person in a town filled with light skinned black people. The way Mallard treats and talks about dark skinned people is quite riveting to read. The cognitive dissonance is fascinating. They throw out all the dark skinned insults – dark baby, black you’re almost blue, tar baby, if you swim with us i’m sure the water would be filled with crude oil and on and on. They never see the irony in the way they treat Jude and the way white people treat them.

“But the passe blanc were a mystery. You could never meet one who’d passed over undetected, the same way you’d never know someone who successfully faked her own death; the act could only be successful if no one ever discovered it was a ruse.”

Reading about Stella’s passing as white and being immersed in a world that absolutely hated her was fantastic to read. Bennett paints such a vivid picture of fear and hiding in plain sight in a world that wants nothing to do with you and actively participating in that world and in the prejudice that comes with finally being the oppressor. Stella marries a white man and gives birth to a blonde, blue eyed daughter who had no idea that she was anything but white.

The way little micro aggressions are laid out and “good people” are shown to think their prejudices are for everyone’s good and even the feminist movement’s exclusion of black women is explored. At first, you judge Stella for her choices but as you read more about her story you can’t help but ache for her – the loneliness, the lies her entire life is built on, the struggle of not being able to belong to your people and the surety that the people who claim to love you now would absolutely hate you if they knew who you really were.

“She hadn’t realized how long it takes to become somebody else, or how lonely it can be living in a world not meant for you.”

Bennett’s debut novel “The Mothers” was very good but this book is FANTASTIC. I loved every second of this book. This story is so well written, emotional, and is one that stays with you long after you’ve stopped reading. I truly enjoyed every character and setting used by the author. Every single line belonged here. I think everyone should read this one. I gave this book 5 stars on Goodreads and I would give it more if I could. This will definitely make my top 5 books of the year. Absolutely recommend. You should read this one and come talk to me on twitter about it.

Leggy

Fiction, Mystery, Uncategorized

Book Review: Saint X by Alexis Schaitkin

8 Jun 2020 twonightstands

Amazon.com: Saint X: A Novel (9781250219596): Schaitkin, Alexis: Books

7 year old Claire is on an annual family vacation at a resort on the fictional Caribbean island of Saint X. A day before they are set to return home to the U.S, her 18 year old sister, Alison’s body washes up ashore. The local police start an investigation and two employees (who happen to be black) at the resort are arrested. With not enough evidence, the men are released. The investigation continues even after the family returns home but it yields nothing and it is closed.

Fast forward years later, Claire is an adult, living and working in New York. One day, she enters a cab and recognizes the driver as Clive Richardson, one of the men arrested for the death of her sister. Claire becomes obsessed with finding out the truth. She abandons her life and infiltrates Clive’s life in search of this truth that she has convinced herself of. Schaitkin then takes us back and shows us the back story of both Claire and Clive’s lives.

I heard a very compelling description of this book that made me add it to my TBR list immediately, so I knew what I was getting into. I would say that the book started out very strong. Schaitkin is very good at description. The way Saint X is written, right down to giving it history and folklore, you could easily forget that it is fictional.

Somewhere down the line, the book started going downhill for me as we got to know Claire. The more I got to know her, the more I found her unlikable and a victim of white privilege and grief. I found her obsession with Clive annoying but also understood it was a side effect of her never really mourning her sister. Her parents closed that chapter and never really spoke about Alison.

I did enjoy Claire getting to know her sister through her journals especially when perspective was involved. Claire idolized her sister but was forced to see her sister in a different light as she saw life through her sister’s lens and realizing her sister had her flaws, remembered events in life differently from her and had to process the way Alison viewed and felt sorry for her.

Clive on the other hand, I enjoyed his story because there was depth to it. There were many layers through his story – poverty, young fatherhood, friendship, sexuality, being an immigrant, racism and I have to give props to Schaitkin for writing the perspective of a black immigrant pretty well.

Overall, it was an enjoyable book but it did drag towards the end. It probably should have ended earlier because it began to go all over the place and it felt like filler. It has a great premise and is a good exploration of many topics as mentioned earlier. This book got 3 stars from me.

Taynement