It's Monday 2/12! What Are You Reading?

Hosted by The Book Date

Life

I'm off to a late start this morning, as I'm guessing is much of the U.S. I am normally in bed by 9:30 (reading, of course) and lights out by 10:30, so last night's Superbowl game going into overtime was a challenge! We had a very fun weekend of celebrations--there is so much going on this week! Our oldest friends came over Saturday to celebrate Mardi Gras (part 1--we'll go to their house tomorrow). The four of us all lived in New Orleans in the 80's; it's where we all met and became friends. So Mardi Gras is a big deal! I'm still on this carnivore diet (and my husband is now mostly keto), so most of the menu items at our favorite local New Orleans restaurant (lots of rice, bread, beans) were off-limits, but our friends got their food there, as well as some gumbo sans rice for us, and we contributed lots of steamed shrimp and Andouille sausage. It was all delicious, and we had our favorite New Orleans music playing, and videos of the latest parades. Lots of reminiscing and chatting, too!

Happy Mardi Gras!

Last night, another set of friends came over for Superbowl. We hadn't seen them since last Superbowl, so we really enjoyed catching up, eating good food, enjoying the commercials ... oh, yeah, and the game, too!

Mardi Gras & Superbowl celebrations!

Friends Over for Superbowl!

In between, I helped my friend more with her move (packing china Saturday and loading another friend's car for a Goodwill run). Yesterday was one of those days where I sat down in the morning to get a couple of easy things done ... and nothing went right! Downloading airline apps for our trip to Texas this week turned into an hour on the phone with customer service. And then trying to put the new password into my Excel password file turned into another customer service odyssey with Microsoft that I only just resolved this morning.  

Helping a Friend - Dumpster's Almost Full!

Beautiful View Saturday Near Home

 

__________

On the Blog

Movie Monday: Stillwater - my husband and I both enjoyed this movie, starring Matt Damon, that combines family drama, mystery/thriller, romance, and travel. Very moving story.

Teen/YA Review: I Am Not Alone by Francisco X. Stork - another excellent YA novel from Stork, about living with mental illness.

Fiction Review: Last Summer on State Street by Toya Wolfe - an outstanding pick for Black History Month, a coming-of-age story about four young girls growing up in a Chicago Housing project in 1999. This one deserves more attention!

__________

On Video

January Reading Wrap-Up - my summary of the 6 books I read last month--novels, nonfiction, memoir, audios, graphic novel, YA.

Friday Reads 2-9-24 - my quick weekly update of what I am currently reading

__________

 What We're Reading

I kicked off Black History Month right, reading Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, the highly acclaimed novel that everyone else has read except me! I'm almost finished now, and wow, this is such a remarkable, powerful novel! It begins in Ghana in the 1700's, with two half-sisters, Effia and Esi, who have never met and live in different villages, part of two separate (warring) empires, Fante and Asante. Effia marries a white British officer and moves to Cape Coast Castle (a real place), while Esi is captured and sold into slavery. From there, this incredible story follows Effia's and Esi's bloodlines through eight generations, from Africa to a Mississippi plantation through the Civil War and Harlem's Jazz Age to modern times. It's completely engrossing, and I am learning a lot about history that I'd never heard before. It's beautifully written, a stunning, epic story.

 

I started a new audio book last week, The Invisible Girls by Sarah Lebarge, a memoir and another very powerful story. Sarah was brought up in a very restrictive, religious environment. She got a Physician's Assistant degree and was engaged to a wealthy man when her life was decimated by a very aggressive breast cancer at age 26. After multiple surgeries, a double mastectomy, chemo, radiation, and a devastating break-up, she was left scarred both physically and emotionally. She moved to Portland, OR, to start over. Riding the train one day, she met an exhausted Ghanian mother with two small children. The little girls took to her, and she spoke with the mom and ended up visiting their apartment. That kicked off a very unique relationship between Sarah and this refugee single mother of five girls. Her abusive husband had left, the system was failing them, and the family was close to starvation. What followed was life-changing for the family and for Sarah. I worried this might be a sort of "white savior" story, but it's not like that at all. It's a beautiful, moving, compelling story of found family, hope, and connection. My only problem is that I didn't have the full audio download (it was a free download from SYNC, years ago)! It just quit last night, in the middle of a sentence, and I want to read the rest of it. My library doesn't have it, the Kindle edition is $10, and I probably only have a chapter or two left to go. Any ideas?

 

My husband, Ken, finished The Secret by Lee Child and Andrew Child, book 28 of the Jack Reacher series, my husband's all-time favorite! Now, he is reading Dark Ride by Lou Berney, author of November Road, which I gave my husband last year and he loved (it's now on my side of the TBR bookcase!). This new one is a thriller, and it sounds great. I know it's got a good sense of humor because my husband has been laughing out loud while reading it!

 

Our son, 29, finished reading book 2, Blade Breaker by Victoria Aveyard, book 2 in her Realm Breaker series,, that we gave him for Christmas. Now, he's reading The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buelhman, another gift from us! I heard about this one from Todd's Booktube, a channel that I follow by  young man who has very similar tastes in fantasy as my son. He's loving it so far and says it has a unique style and voice and is very well-written--another winner!

 __________

What Are You Reading Monday is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date, so head over and check out her blog and join the Monday fun! You can also participate in a kid/teen/YA version hosted by Unleashing Readers.

You can follow me on Twitter at @SueBookByBook or on Facebook on my blog's page.  

What are you and your family reading this week? 

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!

    
  

Teen/YA Review: I Am Not Alone

I'm a longtime fan of Francisco X. Stork, who wrote (my reviews at the links) Irises, Marcello in the Real World, The Memory of Light, Disappeared, and its sequel, Illegal. Like The Memory of Light, his latest novel,  I Am Not Alone, provides a realistic, enlightening picture of what it feels like to struggle with mental illness. I was engrossed by this excellent audio book.

Alberto is an undocumented older teen, living with his sister, Lupe, and her baby in Brooklyn. They live with Lupe's abusive boyfriend, Wayne. Alberto wants her to leave Wayne, but they rely on him and live in his apartment. Alberto works hard for Wayne, doing maintenance and repair work on the apartments he manages, and sends most of the money he earns back home to Mexico, to help support their family, including a sick sister. His real talent--and love--is for pottery. Lately, though, Alberto has begun to hear a man's voice talking to him, and it's saying disturbing things. It's not like thoughts in his head, but like a voice outside of him that no one else can hear. Even more strange is that it talks to him in English, while he still thinks mostly in Spanish. One day, Wayne sends Alberto to do a job in a nice apartment in another building, and he meets Grace. She is about his age but seems to have a perfect life. She's an excellent student, on track to be valedictorian and attend Princeton pre-med, and she has a wealthy, perfect-seeming boyfriend. Beneath the surface, though, Grace has been struggling ever since her parents' divorce. She's no longer sure about anything in her life or even if she's on the right path. Alberto and Grace meet that day and become friends, each confiding their fears to the other, as Alberto's voice gets more urgent, trying to force him to do terrible things, and harder to ignore.

As with all of Stork's novels, this one fully immerses the reader/listener in the characters' lives, here showing what it feels like to deal with the disturbing voices Alberto hears (which an author's note explains might be schizophrenia or any of several other mental illnesses). The topic is handled here with compassion, as are Grace's problems. Alberto's undocumented status is simply a fact here, that complicates his getting the help he needs, rather than a main subject. The two new friends find comfort and support in each other during difficult times for both of them. There is also plenty of suspense here, as Alberto starts to have memory black-outs and ends up running from the police who suspect him of a horrific crime. All of that tension, though, comes to a satisfying conclusion for both main characters. The audio production was excellent, with two narrators reading Alberto's and Grace's chapters. I was fully engaged in this moving, suspenseful story, and I learned a lot about mental illness.

(Another outstanding YA novel about this kind of mental illness is Challenger Deep by Neal Schusterman (my review at the link), based in part on the author's son's own experiences with schizoaffective disorder and accompanied by drawings from his son that show his declining mental health.)

320 pages, Scholastic

Scholastic Audio

This book fits in the following 2024 Reading Challenges:

 

Alphabet Soup Challenge - I

Diversity Challenge

Literary Escapes Challenge - New York

 

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here and/ordownload it from Audible. The sample is from the start of the novel and gives a great introduction to Alberto's life.

 

Or get this audiobook from Libro.fm and support local bookstores (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!

  
  

Movie Monday: Stillwater

A few weeks ago, my husband and I were looking for a movie to watch and stumbled on Stillwater, starring Matt Damon. It was excellent, combining family drama, a mystery, and legal drama, about a father trying desperately to save his only daughter.

Bill, played by Matt Damon, is a widowed oil-rig worker living in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Between jobs and estranged from his only daughter, Bill flies to Marseilles, France, to visit her--in prison. Allison, played by Abigail Breslin, was attending college in Marseilles when her girlfriend was brutally murdered. Allison was convicted of the murder and sentenced to nine years in prison. She won't talk to Bill much at first, but he perseveres and stays there, near her. When Allison finally opens up to her father, she insists that she's innocent. Bill tries his best to plead with the lawyer to reopen her case but is unsuccessful. Allison remembers a guy named Akim hanging out with them that night, and Bill sets off on his own quest to find this mystery man, searching social media and the rough sections of Marseilles where he thinks Akim lives. Meanwhile, he has met a kind French woman named Virginie, played by Camille Cottin, and they become friends. She invites him to live in the spare room in her apartment and becomes invested in him and his daughter and his fight for her freedom. Virginie's little daughter, Maya, really likes Bill, even though she speaks no English and he no French. They teach each other, become close, and Bill becomes a part of the family, helping to care for Maya. But Bill's priority remains proving that Allison is innocent and rebuilding his relationship with her.

This movie really defied my expectations. It's a moving, powerful drama about a father's love, with the suspense and action of a mystery/thriller. In between, there are moments of humor and joy--especially in Bill's growing relationship with Virginie and Maya--and sorrow, too. Both Damon and Breslin give excellent performances, and the rest of the cast is great, too. While we see some of the darker parts of this beautiful city, the movie is an integral part of its surroundings, making use of the setting to emphasize Bill's fish-out-of-water status in France and his grim determination to stay for as long as it takes. Its characterization of Stillwater is a bit less authentic. It's depicted as a down-and-out rural area that's practically a ghost town. My husband went to Oklahoma State University in Stillwater; it's actually a thriving college town with over 20,000 students. But it made a good name for the movie! We both enjoyed this one very much.

Available on Amazon Prime and for a fee on Apple TV and other platforms.

It's Monday 2/5! What Are You Reading?

Hosted by The Book Date

Life

Whew, last week was another stuffed-full busy one! I actually felt a little bit run-down--not a bad relapse like last year but just a bit worn out--so I tried to take it easy. But, I had a haircut (way overdue) and a dermatology check-up (all clear), and continued to help my friend with her move. That involved lots of phone calls, e-mails, and coordination from the recliner, though I did get over to the house this weekend to help with more sorting and trashing! 

Makes the doctor's waiting room a joy!

I managed a couple of very short walks on my way to my two appointments, while we were still encased in dark, gray, gloomy days, but it was nice just to be surrounded by trees and birdsong. When the sun finally came out this weekend, my friend and I took a break from moving work to walk at our local nature center--first time in a very long time!--and enjoyed those brilliant blue skies and sunshine. And we spotted the first skunk cabbage sprouts--a sure sign that spring is coming!

 A long string of dark, gloomy days but a walk in the woods is always nice!

Happy to be in the sunshine!

My favorite view at the nature center!

First sign of spring!

__________

On the Blog

I'm trying to catch up on reviews, though I only managed to get one posted (the other is 75% finished and will go up soon):

Fiction Review: Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt - a warm, compassionate, funny story about loss, family, and connections that received my book group's second-highest rating! 

__________

On Video

 Friday Reads 2-2-24 - my quick weekly update of what I am currently reading - this time, two novels for Black History Month

__________

 What We're Reading

I finished reading As They Were: Autobiographical Essays by M.F.K. Fisher, a classic memoir I didn't get to for Nonfiction November. I enjoyed this varied collection of essays. She's renowned for her food writing, and some of these essays do focus on food. But others are about travel and different places she's lived and visited. I loved the first essay, about her childhood in California. I talked more about his book in my January Reading Wrap-Up video, which will post to my channel tomorrow. This book fits perfectly for the Mardi Gras Readathon on Booktube, hosted by Kat's Novel Adventures; it covers two of the bingo spaces: France and food.

 

I also finished Look on the Bright Side by Lily Williams and Karen Schneemann, a YA graphic novel and sequel to Go with the Flow.  Here, the four best friends are starting their junior year of high school. Brit is recovering from endometriosis surgery (a topic from the first novel), Sasha is juggling (poorly) her first boyfriend and her schoolwork, and Christine has romantic feelings toward Abby but is worried about ruining their friendship. This sequel deals with friendship, first loves, and all the complicated feelings that go along with that. It was excellent!

 

And then, I kicked off Black History Month right, starting Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, the highly acclaimed novel that everyone else has read except me! I'm about a third of the way through, and wow, this is such a remarkable, powerful novel! It begins in Ghana in the 1700's, with two half-sisters, Effia and Esi, who have never met and live in different villages, part of two separate (warring) empires, Fante and Asante. Effia marries a white British officer and moves to Cape Coast Castle (a real place), while Esi is captured and sold into slavery. From there, this incredible story follows Effia's and Esi's bloodlines through eight generations, from Africa to a Mississippi plantation through the Civil War and Harlem's Jazz Age. It's completely engrossing, and I am learning a lot about history that I'd never heard before.

 

I finished listening to my first audio for Black History Month, Last Summer on State Street by Toya Wolfe. It's set during the summer of 1999 (recent history) on the South Side of Chicago and focuses on four young girls, living in the Robert Taylor Homes housing project that summer. One by one the apartment buildings around them (part of the same project) are getting demolished and the residents forced out, while the girls try to hang onto the innocence of childhood and avoid the gang violence (and police violence) that surrounds them.. The audio was excellent, really providing an immersive feeling of that time and place, as the girls jump rope, watch families around them lose their homes, and grow up. Other than choosing this audio to review two years ago, I'd never heard anything about it, but it deserves more attention. It was outstanding.

 

My husband, Ken, just last night finished The Secret by Lee Child and Andrew Child, book 28 of the Jack Reacher series, my husband's all-time favorite! He sped through this fast-paced, action-packed novel in record time. We just finished watching season two of the Reacher TV series, too.

 

Our son, 29, is almost finished reading book 2, Blade Breaker by Victoria Aveyard, book 2 in her Realm Breaker series,, that we gave him for Christmas.

 __________

What Are You Reading Monday is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date, so head over and check out her blog and join the Monday fun! You can also participate in a kid/teen/YA version hosted by Unleashing Readers.

You can follow me on Twitter at @SueBookByBook or on Facebook on my blog's page.  

What are you and your family reading this week? 

 

Fiction Review: Remarkably Bright Creatures

My neighborhood book group recently celebrated our 200th book with a nice lunch out, and we chose an excellent book for this milestone: Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt. Everyone enjoyed it, and it received our second-highest rating (since we started using ratings about 13 years ago). This heartwarming story about an unusual friendship between a woman and a giant Pacific octopus (just go with it--it works) focuses on connections, loss, and family.

Tova works nights cleaning the local aquarium in Sowell Bay, the small coastal town in Washington where she's lived all her life. She's suffered terrible losses--her eighteen-year-old son drowned years ago, her beloved husband, and most recently, her estranged brother--and leads a very isolated life. But she's developed an odd sort of friendship with Marcellus, the giant Pacific octopus who lives in the aquarium and occasionally breaks up the monotony of his dull life with excursions outside of his tank--he particularly enjoys snacking on the sea cucumbers at night. Tova has caught him before (and helped him out of a difficult situation once), but she keeps his secret. In California, a young man named Cam is turning thirty but feels like his life is a mess. He can't keep a job, and he still lives with his aunt in her trailer, ever since she began taking care of him at age nine when his mother left. With his best friends married and having a baby, Cam feels even more acutely stuck. He heads north to Washington state, looking for clues as to the identity of his father, suspecting he may be a wealthy real estate agent. As Cam continues his quest to solve his personal mystery, Tova considers selling the home her grandfather built to move to a retirement home, and Marcellus--who is very smart--realizes he is reaching the end of his natural life, stuck in this tank.

These three characters all feel at loose ends as the novel opens, as if life doesn't hold much appeal and their futures are grim. The novel is filled with all kinds of unexpected plot twists, wonderful secondary characters, and a great sense of humor. The subject of loss, in all of its forms, is deeply examined here from all three perspectives, while the focus of the story is on healing and connections. Besides these main characters, others from the town play key roles and are well-drawn: Mac, who runs the local grocery store, Tova's group of old friends, "the knitwits," and more. Narration moves back and forth between the three main characters. The audio production was outstanding, often causing me to laugh out loud, and I especially enjoyed Marcellus' chapters. My book group gave it an average rating of 8.7 out of 10, so clearly, we all enjoyed it, and it provided some great discussions.

Ecco, 368 pages

HarperAudio

This book fits in the following 2024 Reading Challenges:

 

Alphabet Soup Challenge - R

Literary Escapes - Washington 

 

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 beginning of the novel, and just these few minutes gives you an idea of Tova's voice and her life.

 

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!