Fiction Review: Firekeeper's Daughter

For Christmas this year, instead of asking for specific books, I gave my family a list of authors I've never read and about whom I've heard great things. One of those was Angeline Boulley, and I was thrilled that my husband gave me The Firekeeper's Daughter as a gift. I finally see what all the fuss was about! While published as a YA novel, this story has so many layers and such complex themes that it will be loved by any adult, too. It's a mystery/thriller with great emotional depth, set against a fascinating cultural background.

Eighteen-year-old Daunis Fontaine has always had a foot in two worlds, though she often feels as if she doesn't fully belong in either. She lives in Sault (pronounced Soo) Ste. Marie, Michigan, near the Canadian border, with her mother. Her mother's parents were French and Italian, and her father, who died, was a part of the local Ojibwe tribe, though her parents were never married. Her closest ties to the tribe are her half-brother, Levi, her beloved Aunt Teddie, and her best friend Lily. Levi is a part of the renowned Sault Ste. Marie Superiors hockey team, and as the novel begins, he introduces Daunis to a new member of the team who just moved to town. Jamie is gorgeous, polite, and charming to everyone he meets, including Teddie's twin six-year-old girls. Daunis soon starts to fall for him, though she senses he's hiding something. 

Daunis' town, where the tribe seems integrated into the larger community and hockey is king, includes a dark secret. The scourge of meth has reached their community, with tragedy seemingly around every corner now. Lily's ex-boyfriend, Travis, was a straight-A student in all of Daunis' AP classes until he got into drugs, discovered meth, and started dealing. He keeps begging Lily to take him back--and to try meth. Daunis' own Uncle David, her mother's brother, died recently of an overdose, stunning his family since he'd been clean for 15 years. Amid this community in crisis, Daunis discovers an FBI investigation is ongoing and is asked to go undercover as a part of it. She wants to help her community and find out who the source of the meth is and where it's coming from, but she doesn't necessarily agree with the FBI's approach. Her conflicted feelings increase, as does the danger, as she gets closer to answers.

While this is a mystery/thriller at heart, with plenty of suspense, action, and a twisty plot, there is so much more to it. We see the complex grieving process of Daunis and her family, her closeness to both sides of her family, and a burgeoning love in the midst of tragedy. In addition, this novel provides an in-depth look at the modern Native American experience, and Daunis' own particular challenges of living in two different worlds (though, to some extent, all members of the tribe live that way). The details of traditional ceremonies, healing, and customs, and the closeness of the tribal community, are beautiful and fascinating. These details are authentic because the author herself is a member of the Sault Ste. Marie tribe. I loved getting to know Daunis and her family, felt fully immersed in their world, and was rooting for the whole community to get to the bottom of the drug problems and begin to heal.

NOTES: 

The author says this novel is being developed into a TV series (which would be amazing!), but it doesn't show up in IMDb yet. 

The setting was described so beautifully that I wanted to visit and included stop in Sault Ste. Marie on our summer vacation to Michigan! Unfortunately, we had to cancel due to my illness, but I can't wait to see it in person next summer.

494 pages, Henry Holt and Company

Macmillan Audio

This book fits in the following 2024 Reading Challenges:

 

Mount TBR Challenge

Alphabet Soup Challenge - F

Diversity Reading Challenge

Literary Escapes Challenge - Michigan
 

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here and/or download it from Audible. The sample gives you an idea of both the suspense and the cultural setting.

 

Or get this audiobook from Libro.fm and support local bookstores (audio sample here, too).

 

Print and e-book from Amazon.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

 
  

Fiction Review: My Beloved Life

One of the last books I finished for Booktopia, held at Northshire Bookstore, was My Beloved Life by Amitava Kumar. It was my mom's favorite book at Booktopia this year, and the author was very entertaining and interesting at the event. This novel is a beautifully written account of one man's life against a fascinating historical backdrop.

In 1935 in a rural village in northeastern India, near the Tibetan border, Jadunath Kunwar is born in a small hut. His family are farmers, but they want their son to be educated and send him to schools in nearby towns that offer more. Eventually, Jadu attends college in Patna, a small city in the region. There, he and his first-year history classmates attend high tea in the governor's residence to celebrate Tenzing Norgay's triumph of summiting Everest, as the Sherpa who accompanied Edmund Hillary. Meeting Norgay has quite an impact on Jadu, who finishes his history degree and then stays on to begin teaching at the college. Jadu sees that the world is a much larger place than he knew from his childhood in the village. Classmates become good friends who go on to become poets, activists, and politicians. Eventually, Jadu marries and has a daughter, Jugnu, who enjoys a happy childhood with her parents in Patna. Jugnu goes to college herself, for journalism. A disaster in her personal life throws her into despair for a while, but she ends up getting a job with CNN in Atlanta, moving across the globe, talking to her father on the phone each week, and reflecting on both her own life and her father's.

While the focus here, as the title indicates, is on one man's life, Jadu's experiences are shown against the stunning backdrop of history, as in his lifetime, he witnesses world-changing events in India and beyond. In this way, this moving, very personal story is set against national events and universal truths. As the reader, we go along with Jadu, through joys and sorrows, loves and losses, and the various stages of life. The novel is filled with thoughtful passages that I marked for my Quote Journal, like this line from one of Jadu's college friends telling Jadu about his father's death:

"Tragedy is a demon that has a tail attached to it. The tail is the lesson that you are supposed to draw from the tragedy. This is the truth that civilization has recognized through the ages so that you don't feel robbed of everything."

The beauty here lies in both the ordinary aspects of a person's life as well as the extraordinary events that shape both a life and a nation. It's a tender, warm, witty story that is both eye-opening and relatable.

332 pages, Alfred A. Knopf

Random House Audio

This book fits in the following 2024 Reading Challenges:

 

Monthly Motif Challenge - "Face Off" - book with a face on the cover - I think this counts!

Alphabet Soup Challenge - M

Diversity Challenge - and mini challenge for May: southeast Asian

Travel the World in Books - India

Literary Escapes Challenge - Georgia
 

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here and/ordownload it from Audible. It's narrated beautifully by the author (sample is from the first chapter).

 

Or get this audiobook from Libro.fm and support local bookstores (audio sample here, too).

 

Print and e-book from Amazon.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

  

Fiction Review: You Are Here

One of the books I read for Booktopia, the event I attended last weekend in Vermont, was You Are Here, a novel by Karin Lin-Greenberg that I listened to on audio. The author has written two short story collections and won numerous awards for her stories, but this is her first novel. I thoroughly enjoyed this warm, funny, moving story of a disparate group of people whose paths all cross in a suburban mall.

Tina is a Chinese-American hair stylist who works (often alone) in the mall's hair salon. She's the single mother of an inquisitive nine-year-old boy named Jackson who sweeps up hair in the salon and wants to know who his father was. Tina secretly watches YouTube videos about drawing and painting and wishes she could have pursued a career as an artist, though that wouldn't pay the bills. Jackson, protecting his mother as she protects him, secretly watches videos of magicians and illusionists and dreams of becoming one. He's gotten to know a sixteen-year-old girl named Maria, who works in the food court, dressed as a chicken, though Maria wants to be an actress and hopes to get the lead role (ironically, Maria in West Side Story) in her high school play. Jackson is planning to do a magic show for his school's talent show and wants Maria to be his beautiful assistant. Ro is an elderly woman who gets her hair done by Tina at the salon each week. She's lonely since her husband's death and is very fond of Jackson. A few stores away is a bookstore where Kevin works. Kevin lives in a tiny house in his in-law's backyard, next-door to Ro, along with his wife and their twins. Kevin is white and his wife is Black, and he thinks that Ro is a racist. Ro thinks Kevin is lazy, though Kevin does dream of finishing his PhD and being successful--he just doesn't know what he should do. All of these characters are concerned because of rumors that the mall, which is usually mostly empty, will soon be shut down.

This is a slice of life novel, as these very different people all meet and interact at the mall (and at home, too, for some of them). They each have private secrets and dreams and want something better for themselves than where they are now. Ro is looking back more than looking forward, with memories and regrets, though she has an opinion about everyone. While this is a very character-driven novel about ordinary people, there is also a propelling plot, with a horrible trauma that occurs at the mall and affects every one of them. Lin-Greenberg is an absolute genius at character development, so the reader gets to know each of the characters intimately through their chapters and perspectives. Her dialogue is lively, realistic, and often funny, and this novel was a joy to listen to on audio, though it does tackle some difficult topics. My mother and I agreed that this was one of our favorites of the Booktopia selections this year.

304 pages, Counterpoint, LLC

HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

This book fits in the following 2024 Reading Challenges:

 

Alphabet Soup Challenge - Y

Diversity Challenge

 

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

 

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the excellent audiobook here and/or download it from Audible.

 

Or get this audiobook from Libro.fm and support local bookstores (audio sample here, too).

 

Print and e-book from Amazon.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!
 

    
 

3 Great Middle-Grade Audio Books - Mini Reviews

In March, I participated in Middle-Grade March and the Fierce Reads event for International Women's Month. I listened to three excellent middle-grade novels on audio, all by women authors and featuring fierce female characters (and with great female narrators). The first was historical fiction, and the other two were modern-day realistic fiction. My brief reviews are below, and you can also check out my review of The Parachute Kids by Betty C. Tang, a middle-grade graphic novel I also read in March.

My first middle-grade audio was Iceberg by Jennifer Nielsen. I'm a longtime fan of Nielsen's middle-grade historical fiction (like Lines of Courage and A Night Divided), and as you might guess from the title, this one is about the Titanic. Twelve-year-old Hazel is on a mission to save her family after her father's death. Her mother has sent her to the docks to board the Titanic for New York, where Hazel's aunt has promised her a job in a garment factory, so she can send money home to keep her siblings from starving. But when Hazel tries to buy a ticket, she finds that all of her family's savings isn't enough for the fare for even a third-class ticket. She finds a way on board as a stowaway. Luckily, she makes some friends on board, including Charlie, a boy working as a porter, and Sylvia, a girl her age in First Class. With a dream of becoming a journalist one day, Hazel begins to hear rumors about the ship that make the reporter in her interested--and wary--so she sets out to investigate and learn more. We all know how the Titanic's story ends, so there is plenty of suspense here, as well as fascinating historical details. It was an excellent novel with a wonderful main character (and yes, don't worry--she survives).

 352 pages, Scholastic Press

Scholastic Audio

This book fits in the following 2024 Reading Challenges:

Monthly Motif Challenge - "Thrill Me" - this was a historical thriller

Travel the World in Books - UK (and Atlantic Ocean!)

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here and/or download it from Audible.

 

Or get this audiobook from Libro.fm and support local bookstores (audio sample here, too).

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

_______________

Next, I listened to Dear Sweet Pea by Julie Murphy, my first novel from this very popular YA author (this is her first middle-grade novel). Twelve-year-old Sweet Pea feels torn apart by her parents' divorce, despite their efforts to keep everything "normal." She splits her time between her mom's house and her dad's, which are identical homes two doors down from each other! They've divorced because her father has come out as gay. She's also still grieving the loss of her first-ever best friend, Kiera, who's found prettier, thinner, more popular girls to hang out with. Luckily, Sweet Pea has Oscar, her new best (only) friend and her cat, Cheese. Her strange elderly neighbor asks Sweet Pea to help out while she travels to stay with her ill sister, and Sweet Pea makes some pretty big mistakes but also learns and grows. I enjoyed this warm, funny novel, focusing on several common adolescent issue--like divorce, life changes, and secrets--between Sweet Pea, Kiera, and Oscar and what it means to be a friend.

288 pages, Balzer + Bray

HarperAudio

This book fits in the following 2024 Reading Challenges:

 

Alphabet Soup Challenge - D

Diversity Challenge

Literary Escapes Challenge - Texas

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here and/or download it from Audible.

 

Or get this audiobook from Libro.fm and support local bookstores (audio sample here, too).

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

_______________

My last middle-grade audio book in March was Home Away from Home by Cynthia Lord, an author I have enjoyed in the past. Mia and her mom always visit her grandma in Maine every summer, but this year, Mia's there alone. Her mom and her boyfriend are working to sell their old house and find a new one, for "a fresh start." Mia wishes everything would stay the same, but she loves visiting her grandma in the small, seaside town. Things are different there this year, though, too. Mia meets grandma's neighbor, Cayman, who's her age and seems to have made himself at home at grandma's house! The two kids spot an unusual white bird of prey when they go to check on the baby eaglets the town is known for, and Mia launches an investigation. This was a wonderful middle-grade novel that deals with lots of typical adolescent issues, including divorce and friendship, as well as the perils of social media, with a hefty dose of nature added in (which I loved).

224 pages, Scholastic Press

Scholastic Audio

This book fits in the following 2024 Reading Challenges:

 

Literary Escapes - Maine

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here and/or download it from Audible.

 

Or get this audiobook from Libro.fm and support local bookstores (audio sample here, too).

 

You can buythe book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

Middle-Grade Review: Parachute Kids

One of my choices for Middle-Grade March and Fierce Women Reads was Parachute Kids by Betty C. Tang. I'd heard a lot about this middle-grade graphic novel, and it lived up to my expectations. The novel was informative, engrossing, and entertaining.

Ten-year-old Feng-Li and her family are traveling from Taiwan to California for a family vacation in 1981. She's very excited and has been poring over guidebooks, picking out all the sites she wants to see. Her parents, older brother and sister, and she do have a nice week-long vacation. But then their parents break the news: the kids will be staying in America to get away from the volatile situation at home and to get a better education. Dad is returning home to go back to work, so he can support the family, and Mom plans to stay with the kids, in the house they bought. The kids all choose American first names because their Taiwanese names are too difficult for Americans to pronounce. After a month, though, mom has to return to Taiwan, too, when the U.S. won't extend her visa. There are good family friends from Taiwan who live in the same town with their daughter, Olivia, having immigrated a few years earlier. For the most part, though, sixteen-year-old Jessie, fourteen-year-old Jason, and Feng-Li with her new name, Ann, are on their own. They all have major challenges. Jessie knows English the best of the three, but she's the closest to college age and must be ready to take the SAT in less than a year. Jason has a secret and got in a lot of trouble in Taiwan; the only kids who talk to him at school are a group of Chinese boys (other parachute kids) who probably aren't the best influence. And poor Ann jumps into fifth grade without knowing a single word of English. She misses her friends and her old school, where she was a good student. At the same time, they have to manage a household, take care of the house, and get along with each other! They each make some mistakes and bad choices along the way, and Ann feels like it's up to her to keep her family together.

There is so much depth and complexity in this graphic novel! The issues these three kids are dealing with are huge, including some very adult issues. Their parents didn't abandon them, and both are trying to get new visas to come back, but the process takes a long time. I had never heard the term "parachute kids" before, but apparently, it's a fairly common experience (and one that has grown exponentially in the last decade) for Chinese parents to send their kids to the U.S. for a better education. Often, they have a host family to stay with or live in dormitories at private schools, but sometimes kids like the Lins must fend for themselves. I found news articles on the phenomenon in a Palo Alto high school newspaper and the New York Times. The novel provided an inside view to what it is like for these kids, living without their parents and trying to assimilate into American life. And it showed the language barrier by using yellow dialogue bubbles for Taiwanese and white for English. The author explains in a note at the end that she and her siblings were parachute kids in 1979, and her deep understanding of the challenges is evident. Despite the often harrowing subject matter, the novel is also entertaining, with a great sense of humor, and illustrates the love the siblings have for each other (behind the typical bickering!). I enjoyed reading it very much, and I feel like I better understand how difficult it is for kids like these.

(Note: the novel is written from Feng-Li's perspective, which is why it's middle-grade, but the teens' struggles are addressed as well, so it might appeal to older readers, too.) 

283 pages, Graphix (imprint of Scholastic)

This book fits in the following 2024 Reading Challenges:

 

Mount TBR Reading Challenge

Alphabet Soup Challenge - P

Diversity Challenge & mini-challenge for March: #ownvoices

Literary Escapes Challenge - California

 

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here and/or download it from Audible. This sample is a note from the beginning, explaining about the Taiwanese language and accents in the audio.

 

Or get this audiobook from Libro.fm and support local bookstores (audio sample here, too). This sample is from the main part of the book, so it shows the different voices and accents, along with sound effects. I wouldn't normally recommend an audio of a graphic novel, but this one might be an exception to better understand the language barrier.

 

Print and e-book from Amazon.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

  
  

Fiction Review: Ask Again, Yes

For Big Book Summer last year, I did my first-ever Buddy Read with Nikki, a Booktube friend of mine who had the channel Red Dot Reads (she's on hiatus now). We read The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles together, though we live on opposite sides of the world (she's in Singapore), and we discussed it by leaving each other voicemails. That experience was so wonderful, and we both got so much more out of the novel this way, that we decided to do another Buddy Read. We picked a novel that was on both of our shelves, Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane, and once again, our enjoyment of this excellent multi-generational family saga was greatly enhanced by talking about it with each other. 

The novel begins in 1973 with two young Irish-American men, Francis and Brian, training together for the NYPD and then being assigned as partners when they're rookies. Francis had recently immigrated to the U.S. (though he was born there), and Brian was the son of Irish immigrants. Time moves forward, and they each marry: Brian marries Anne, a recent Irish immigrant like Francis, and Francis marries Lena, who comes from a close-knit Polish family. Francis and Lena move to Gillam, a small, rural town outside of the city (but an easy commute on the train). Lena is lonely out there, without her friends and family from the city. In 1975, Lena is nursing their new baby, Natalie, when she sees a moving truck pull up next door. Brian and Anne move in, and Lena hopes she'll finally have a friend, but Anne keeps to herself and seems moody. The years pass, and Francis and Lena have two more girls, Sarah and Kate, while Anne suffers a devastating miscarriage before finally having a boy, Peter. Though Anne disapproves for some reason, Peter and Kate become best friends and grow up together. Then, when they are in eighth grade, something horrible happens that affects every member of both families for decades to come.

All of that happens before page 100 (and I've obviously kept it vague to avoid spoilers). The novel follows Peter and Kate and their parents for thirty years after the devastating, life-changing incident. Keane has carefully crafted each character, and the reader gets different perspectives from each of them. While the characters are very well-developed, there is also a lot that happens in this novel, including some very surprising twists. It's a propulsive, engrossing read. In fact, Nikki and I traded voicemails after each of the three sections of the book, and we were careful not to read ahead so we wouldn't spoil anything for the other. That was very hard to do sometimes, to just stop reading at the end of a section! 

This would be an excellent book group book because there is so much to discuss here, as Nikki and I discovered: trauma and its effects on generations, steps in the healing process and how it's different for everyone, each character's thoughts and actions, plus the beautiful writing in the novel. We each tagged quotes that we shared with each other that revealed basic truths about humanity. I can't share any of them here because they'd reveal too much, and this is a novel you must discover for yourself. The ending was absolutely perfect, with more quote-worthy observations. We agreed that this is a novel about life and all its messiness: joys and sorrows, love and loss, grief and healing. I can't wait to read Keane's next novel, The Half-Moon, and meet the author at Booktopia next month!

388 pages, Scribner

Simon & Schuster Audio

This book fits in the following 2024 Reading Challenges:

 

Mount TBR Challenge

Alphabet Soup Challenge - A

Diversity Challenge 

 

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here and/or download it from Audible. Sample is from the prologue, about Francis and Brian.

 

Or get this audiobook from Libro.fm and support local bookstores (audio sample here, too).

 

Print and e-book from Amazon.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

   
 

Memoir Review: The Invisible Girls

A few years ago, I downloaded The Invisible Girls by Sarah Thebarge from the SYNC annual summer audio book program and finally began listening to this beautiful, moving memoir that I finished reading in print.

Sarah, twenty-seven, was riding the train into downtown Portland, Oregon, one day when she met two adorable little girls and their exhausted-looking mother. Sarah was kind and played with the girls (one of whom fell asleep in her lap) and began talking to the mother, Hadhi. That was the start of a unique friendship that enriched the lives of all involved. Hadhi was a Somali refugee and had five little girls under twelve at home (the older three were in school when they first met). She invited Sarah to their apartment, where Sarah soon understood that the family was barely surviving. There was no food in the house, no furniture, and Hadhi had no means of support. Her abusive husband had recently left them, after a particularly violent episode, and Family Services had moved the family for safety to a new subsidized apartment. But Hadhi was lost in this country and culture that was completely unfamiliar to her, and she knew little English. The older girls were learning English in school, but they also felt out of place in their new country and had been placed in grades well below their age-levels due to the language barrier. All five of the little girls, though, were full of joy and adored Sarah (and Justin Bieber!). Sarah began helping the family in any way she could, though she didn't have much herself. She had recently moved to Portland from the East Coast after a horrific, harrowing years-long experience with breast cancer that had left her physically and emotionally damaged. As Sarah got to know the family and helped them adjust to life in the U.S., she found that their love and friendship helped to heal her.

When I first read the synopsis, I worried this might be a sort of "white savior" type of story, but that's not it at all. It's a story about the power of kindness and connection to heal all kinds of trauma. While Sarah did buy some groceries and other necessities for the family (the girls were so excited to receive socks and underwear as gifts!), much of what she did for this family was from her heart, not her pocket. And in return, they helped her to recover from her own traumas. Sarah had almost completed a Master's degree in journalism when she got cancer, and she is a talented writer, bringing the reader along not only on this journey of friendship and belonging but on everything that came before it (she endured a lot). Brought up in a fundamentalist Christian family with a pastor father, she could relate to some of the challenges that Hadhi and the girls dealt with. She understood what kinds of support the girls needed to grow up to be strong, educated, independent women (which their mother very much wanted). It's a beautiful story of the bonds between two very different but damaged women, and the joyful little girls they both love.

(Note: The audio production was excellent, and I was very much enjoying it, but I only had about half of the audio book downloaded, which was likely my fault and not SYNC's. My son would say "I suspect user error, Mom!")

287 pages, Jericho Books

Hachette Audio

This book fits in the following 2024 Reading Challenges:

 

Nonfiction Reader Challenge - Memoir/Biography

Diversity Challenge

Literary Escapes - Oregon

 

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here and/or download it from Audible.

 

Or get this audiobook from Libro.fm and support local bookstores (audio sample here, too).

 

Print and e-book from Amazon.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

     
  

Fiction Review: Whistling Past the Graveyard

My neighborhood book group's selection for February was Whistling Past the Graveyard by Susan Crandall. I really enjoyed this coming-of-age story about a unique, healing relationship between a white girl and a Black woman in 1963. It was especially good on audio.

Nine-year-old Starla lives in a small town in southern Mississippi with her grandmother, Mamie. Starla's dad works on an oil rig, so he's usually away, and her mom left when Starla was just three years old. She lives in Nashville now, where Starla is certain she's living her dream of becoming a famous singer. Mamie is very strict with Starla and doesn't even seem to like her much; she's always yelling at her that she's just like her mother. Starla is an impulsive little girl who is often in trouble, but this time, she thinks Mamie may just make good on her threat to send her to reform school. On the fourth of July, Starla runs away from home, intent on walking to Nashville to live with her mother. That night, walking along a lonely country road at dusk, Starla is fortunate to be picked up by a kind Black woman named Eula, with a white baby named James in a basket on the floor of the passenger seat. Eula and Starla are each in trouble and emotionally wounded in their own ways. Their meeting is a lucky moment for them both, though they don't know it yet. As the unusual threesome makes their way to Nashville, they encounter challenges and eye-opening experiences that will change their lives forever.

Crandall provides a twisty plot with plenty of action that is constantly surprising. What makes this novel really special, though, is Starla's unique voice as narrator, as seen from from the opening paragraph:

"My grandmother says she prays for me every day. Which was funny, because I'd only ever heard Mamie pray, "Dear, Lord, give me strength." That sure sounded like a prayer for herself--and Mrs. Knopp in Sunday school always said our prayers should only ask for things for others. Once, I made the mistake of saying that out loud to Mamie and got slapped into next Tuesday for my sassy mouth. My mouth always worked a whole lot faster than my good sense."

Just from those opening sentences, you can see Starla's precocious mind (and open personality), the sense of humor in the book, and the amusing Southern phrases sprinkled throughout that brings the setting to life. All of that comes through even more in the audio, narrated by Amy Rubinate, which was completely immersive (sample). It's a highly entertaining book, but that doesn't take away from the serious issues tackled throughout this story, including missing parents, domestic abuse, and serious racism. All of this is seen through Starla's very observant--but naive--point of view. My book group had plenty to discuss, and it was one of those books that grows even better with discussion. Starla is a one-of-a-kind narrator, and her special relationship with Eula is one I won't soon forget. I loved listening to this novel, and I am missing both Starla and Eula now. It's that kind of book.

336 pages, Gallery Books

Dreamscape Media

This book fits in the following 2024 Reading Challenges:

 

Monthly Motif - February - "The Perfect Pair" - Starla and Eula fit this theme perfectly!

Alphabet Soup Challenge - W

Diversity Challenge

Literary Escapes Challenge - Mississippi

 

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here and/or download it from Audible.

 

Or get this audiobook from Libro.fm and support local bookstores (audio sample here, too).

 

Print and e-book from Amazon.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

   
  

Fiction Review: Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions

Wow, I have read some really outstanding novels for Black History Month this year: Last Summer on State Street by Toya Wolfe on audio, Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi in print, and now Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions by Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi. It is a novel told in interlocking stories, featuring four Nigerian women who meet as young girls in boarding school, following them throughout their lives.

At an all-girls boarding school in 1986, Nonso, Remi, Aisha, and Solape, all eleven years old, are assigned to the same house. The four girls become inseparable friends, until a tragedy ends their happy experiences at school. Other stories in the interwoven collection both go back in time and forward in time, filling in each of the girls' pasts and childhoods, as well as following each of them through their adult lives, as they remain friends, bonded by what they experienced together. As a child, Nonso traveled extensively around Africa with her mother, experiencing the vastly different worlds of Kenya, Zimbabwe, and Johannesburg, as well as the stunning historical truths revealed at Cape Coast Castle in Ghana (which I'd just read about in Homegoing). After moving to the United States, Aisha attends college and then law school, and we see her in 2003, attending a friend's wedding in Poland. In 2004, Remi is living in New York, with a high-powered job at a bank. All of the women travel or move back to Nigeria at various times in their lives, always struggling to weave together family, traditions, and their modern lives. Other stories focus on or are narrated by secondary characters, like the opening story of Adaoma (1897-1931) in Nigeria  or a young man named Segun in 1991 New York, who's being hassled by the police. The focus, though, is on the friends, and the final story, set in 2050 with dystopian tones, brings them back together again.

I was entranced by this captivating set of characters and stories that was excellent on audio, narrated by Liz Femi and Korey Jackson. I ended up also borrowing the print book from the library because partway through, I realized that in struggling a bit with the unfamiliar Nigerian names, I was missing some of the connections. Being able to see the names in print helped to clarify things for me, and I began to see just how cleverly the whole story fits together. I didn't always know how a side character fit into the story until later, but this truly is a cohesive novel, though at the beginning I was listening to it more as short stories. The characters are fully-developed, and the writing is engaging. While having the print book helped, I'm glad that I listened to the audio because the narration, in the rich tones and cadence of Nigerian voices, made it even more immersive. These women face plenty of challenges throughout their lives, with sorrows and joys, but they are strong, independent women who have their families and each other to support them. This thoughtful, moving novel and its voices have really stuck with me. I think this is the author's first novel, and I look forward to seeing what she writes next.

233 pages, Amistad

HarperAudio

This book fits in the following 2024 Reading Challenges:

 

Alphabet Soup Challenge - J

Diversity Challenge

Travel the World in Books Challenge - Nigeria

Literary Escapes Challenge - Mass.
 

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here and/or download it from Audible. The sample is from the first chapter, about Adaoma.

 

Or get this audiobook from Libro.fm and support local bookstores (audio sample here, too). This sample features an excerpt from Segun's chapter.

 

Print and e-book from Amazon.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

 
  

Fiction Review: Homegoing

I feel like I may be the last person to finally read Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. I just read it for Black History Month, after receiving it for Christmas, and I can see why this book created so much buzz! This historical epic, covering eight generations of a family, from 1700's Ghana to slave plantations in the U.S. to the present day, was a stunning novel that kept me rapt.

In eighteenth-century Ghana, two half-sisters are born in different villages, each completely unaware of the other. Effia was born in the Fante realm on a night when fire raged through her village. Her mother, Baaba, never seemed to like Effia and often mistreated and beat her, though her father tried in vain to protect her. In the 1770's, a white British man named James Collins, the newly appointed governor, married Effia, and she went to live with him in Cape Coast Castle. She was well-treated by James and the other British men, lived in a beautiful home, and was soon pregnant and gave birth to a son, Quey. As time went on, she began to better understand what went on in the castle, that many of her own countrymen and women (and children) were kept in the basement dungeons and sent overseas on ships as slaves.

During the same time period, Esi was born into a small Asante village, the daughter of a Big Man (prominent in the village) and his third wife. She had a wonderful childhood, as her village grew, and she enjoyed long walks with her father, who adored her. House servants, slaves stolen from warring villages, were a simple fact of life in Esi's world, until she discovered that her own mother was a captive servant at one time in a Fante village, and she begins to truly understand what that means. As a teen, Esi is stolen by a warring tribe, and made to walk for many miles, tied to other captives, all the way to Cape Coast Castle, where she and the others are sold to the British. There, she is kept in the women's dungeon in horrific conditions. Just before being walked to a waiting ship to travel to America as a slave, Esi is raped by a British soldier.

In this way, each of the different lines of this split family, unknown to each other, begins. The novel alternates between Effia's family and Esi's family, with a long chapter focused on one person in each generation, all the way to modern times (with a helpful family tree at the beginning). Gyasi's wonderful writing weaves an intricate, complex picture of each family and each generation. When I realized the framework of the novel, I worried that it would be too disjointed, but it works. While I was always sorry to leave one person's story, the next one was just as engrossing, and there is usually information about how the previous character's story continued. Each of these characters is fully-formed, with great emotional depth, each dealing with their own unique challenges through the centuries.

The history here is fascinating, and I read the novel with my iPad by my side so that I could look up more information on the history, photos of the places described, and other facts; this book made me want to learn more. For instance, Cape Coast Castle is a real place that is still there today, and I just read a travel essay on a plane by actor Anthony Anderson, about his emotional first time touring the castle. Before reading this book, I was completely unaware that Africans were complicit in the slave trade (though, of course, it was the large sums of money Europeans were willing to pay that helped it grow). There is plenty of tragedy in this story, for both bloodlines, in Africa and in the U.S., but there are moments of joy and triumph, too, and the ending was very satisfying. This is a powerful, moving novel that will stay with me for a long time.

300 pages, Vintage Books

Random House Audio

This book fits in the following 2024 Reading Challenges:

 

Mount TBR Challenge

Alphabet Soup Challenge - H

Diversity Challenge

Travel the World in Books Challenge - Ghana

Literary Escapes Challenge - Alabama

 

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here and/or download it from Audible. I like the sound of the narrator, Dominic Hoffman.

 

Or get this audiobook from Libro.fm and support local bookstores (the same audio sample here, too).

 

Print and e-book from Amazon.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

Fiction Review: Last Summer on State Street

I was looking through my long audio backlog for something to read for Black History Month when I found Last Summer on State Street by Toya Wolfe. I had, of course, chosen to download this 2022 release from the publisher's offerings, but I didn't remember hearing anything at all about it or hearing other readers mention it. It won the Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year award and was a finalist for the PEN Open Book Award. This beautifully written, poignant coming-of-age story deserves a lot more attention.

Twelve-year-old Felicia "Fe Fe" Stevens lives in a high-rise Chicago Housing project apartment building with her mother and older brother in 1999. She loves to play Double Dutch with her two best friends, Precious and Stacia. The three of them seem like an odd group of friends on the outside. Precious comes from a very religious family, and Stacia's mother is Queen-Pin of a local gang, Gangster Disciples, with all of her older siblings already involved in the violent, drug-dealing gang. Fe Fe's mom is trying desperately to protect her two children from all of that, though it's all around them. The family has a set routine whenever gunshots are heard--to get down low in the hallway of their little apartment, where there are no windows. In spite of the chaos around them, the three girls do their best to enjoy childhood, going to school, buying icy cool treats in summer, and playing jump rope in a lobby area of Fe Fe's floor (the playground is a known gang domain). Fe Fe has noticed a girl who recently moved to their building, Tonya, and one day invites her to join their games. They soon learn that Tonya's mom is a drug addict. The highlight of that summer is when Fe Fe's mom takes the four girls downtown to see the fireworks on the Fourth of July. Besides gang violence, the residents of their building have another fear. They know they will get kicked out soon, as the buildings in their project get emptied and demolished by the Chicago Housing Authority one at a time. The view of the empty building across the street is a constant reminder that their home is only temporary. Soon, the innocence of their childhood games and friendships is interrupted by gang violence, police violence, and the ever-present threat of losing their homes.

This debut author has been compared to Jacqueline Woodson, and I can definitely see the parallels to some of Woodson's coming-of-age novels set in Brooklyn. These young girls are wonderfully complex characters, each dealing with her own challenges. While the topics in this novel are certainly dark and disturbing, the girls' childhood innocence and joy (especially at the beginning) are a welcome contrast to their depressing surroundings. The author paints a nuanced picture of that place and time, though I realized that places exactly like this still exist and are often invisible, whole populations living amid terrible violence and the threat of losing their homes to gentrification. The audio production was outstanding and immersive, narrated by Shayna Small, making me feel as if Fe Fe herself was telling me her story. It is told from Fe Fe's perspective as an adult, so there is some hope throughout, as you know that she grows up and turns out fine. I was captivated by this moving, powerful coming-of-age story and still find myself thinking about Fe Fe and her friends, a week after finishing it.

224 pages, William Morrow Paperbacks

HarperAudio

This book fits in the following 2024 Reading Challenges:

 

Alphabet Soup Challenge - L

Diversity Challenge and February Mini Challenge: Black/African American

Literary Escapes Challenge - Illinois

 

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here and/or download it from Audible. The sample will give you an idea of how Fe Fe's telling her story will pull you in and the setting.

 

Or get this audiobook from Libro.fm and support local bookstores (audio sample here, too).

 

Print and e-book from Amazon.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!