The Next Book On My List

How We Fight White Supremacy by Akiba Solomon and Kenrya Rankin                 Have you ever asked yourself how you fight white supremacy? You’d have to define it first and then understand what it means before you could answer that. But once you understood what it meant and how you were affected by it, could you say how you fight white supremacy? It’s a question I’ve battled with for the last few years. Definitely more so since 2016. I don’t know if I have a single answer for that, especially when sometime just existing as a Black woman in the United States feels like an act of resistance. I gravitated towards this book because I wanted to see what other people had to say and how other people are fighting back. If nothing else, this book has shown me that there are many different ways to fight. People will do what they are capable of doing, and fight in the best way they know how.   ...

Warcross by Marie Lu                 Emika never thought she would meet Hideo Tanaka. She was an eighteen-year-old bounty hunter, facing eviction from her tiny studio apartment. She had been watching the Warcross tournament just like millions of other people. But when one of the competitors grabbed a power up, worth thousands of bucks, she couldn’t resist hacking into the system and grabbing it. What she never expected was to glitch into the game the moment she touched it! Now her face is plastered everywhere. Everyone knows her name and Emika is terrified she is going to be arrested. When she finally decides to call the number back that’s been calling nonstop, it’s Hideo Tanaka, Warcross creator, who wants to meet her.                 I picked up Warcross the day after throwing in the towel on a historical fiction novel that...

The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo This book doesn’t waste words and I won’t either. This is amazing. Written in verse it’s the story of Xiomara, a young woman who expresses herself through the poems she writes in her diary. Her and her twin brother are first generation immigrants from the Dominican Republic. They both are constantly having to navigate what it means to have a family steeped in culture and tradition, while also living as a teenager in the U.S. She has a body that screams for attention and fist that have grown weary from fighting. But now the words on the page that express all of frustrations, fears and dreams are finding their way out through the poetry club she begins attending to avoid her confirmation class. I loved this. I loved it because Acevedo was able to pack so much world building, so much life, so much development into each poem. Her world, Xiomara’s world, unfolded beautifully on each page. It’s powerful and it resonates and it questions the relati...

Becoming by Michelle Obama “I’m an ordinary person who found herself on an extraordinary journey. In sharing my story, I hope to help create space for other stories and other voices, to widen the pathway for who belongs and why.”                 I didn’t rush to read this book. A lot of it had to do with my own mental space and stressing about the state of the union. Would this book written by the first Black First Lady of the United States really give hope or would it be just another reminder of how far we’ve fallen? I decided instead to read this book as my first #readBlackwomen selection for this February for Black History month. I finished it in three days and if life hadn’t intruded, I would have finished it one day. This book is incredible.                 Michelle Obama is the only person who should ever be allo...

The Vicious Deep by Zoraida C ó rdova I’m not sure when was the last time I’ve read a book about mermaids. After reading Cordova’s Brooklyn Bruja series I knew I had to read more of her writing style which I absolutely loved. The Vicious Deep isn’t as compelling as her newest series but it is still highly entertaining and a really fun ride. Meet Tristan. You know this guy. We all know this guy. The girls think he’s cute. He one of the best swimmers on the team and he’s fun to be around. He’s also a lifeguard. And on the day the storm came he ran out into the waves to save the life of woman he saw flailing in the water. He was found days later somehow still alive. Many other people didn’t survive that day. He’s felt weird ever since. The next thing you know he’s lying on the bathroom floor and his legs have turned into fins! There’s a lot his mother hasn’t told him about her family, the family he has never known. Like the fact that he is actually a Merman and a descenda...

Lethal White by Robert Galbraith This is the fourth book in the Cormoran Strike series. There won’t be any spoilers for this book, but if you haven’t read the first three there are spoilers abound. I’m just going to jump right in with the review and skip the blurb. This book picks up exactly where the 3 rd book, Career of Evil, left off. Thankfully, because one of the main reasons why I was itching to get this book in my hand was to find out what Robin chooses to do: Does she stay with Matthew or does she leave? The answer is complicated. But with the prologue we jump right back in, not necessarily into another case but right back into the dynamics of Robin and Cormoran’s relationship, now partnership, friendship? That relationship for me is the driving point of the story. No matter how wrapped up I am in their cases, I am also constantly wondering what the state of their relationship is or will become.           ...

The Mother of Black Hollywood: A Memoir  by Jenifer Lewis with Malaika Adero                     Jenifer Lewis. When I think of Jenifer Lewis the very first thing that pops in my mind is “What’s Love Got To Do With It.” But the more I think about it, the more movies come to mind, “Corrina Corrina,” “The Preacher’s Wife,” my son’s favorite movie “Cars.” She is in so many movies and has been around in showbusiness damn near my entire life. When I heard about this memoir it was one I knew I would eventually get my hands on enjoy.                     Lewis writes just like I would imagine she talks. I heard her voice in my head the entire time I was reading this story. All the exclamations, the singing, the joy, the anger, it’s all there. I found her story very interesting. I found h...