by Zora Neale Hurston
★★★★½
Category archives: read
Spirits Abroad
by Zen Cho
Zen Cho is my new favourite short story writer. Generally I find magical realism exhausting and irrelevant (García Márquez). Spirits Abroad is the first work I’ve read whose magical elements complement the stories—which pulse with inventiveness and humour.
Wildcard
(Warcross #2)
by Marie Lu
★★★
Warcross
(Warcross #1)
by Marie Lu
I didn’t know I needed this book in my life till I started it. It’s populated with my personal wish fulfilment characters in a rainbow of representation.
Picture Us in the Light
by Kelly Loy Gilbert
** spoiler alert **
Rabbit: The Autobiography of Ms. Pat
by Patricia Williams, Jeannine Amber
★★★★
The Bluest Eye
by Toni Morrison
★★★
Ayiti
by Roxane Gay
★★★½
My Sister, the Serial Killer
by Oyinkan Braithwaite
★★★★½
The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After
by Clemantine Wamariya, Elizabeth Weil
A peripheral impression from this vital autobiography is of Clemantine’s sister Claire not seeing her as a full person in their experiences together, and how most adults don’t treat children with recognition, of having the universal capacity for pain and insecurity and dreams, and as equally … Read more
Practice Makes Perfect: French Conversation
by Eliane Kurbegov
It’s excellent to have grammar, vocabulary, and idiomatic phrases in context. Well-formatted and easy to breeze through.
Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City
by Tanya Talaga
★★★★½
Well, That Escalated Quickly: Memoirs and Mistakes of an Accidental Activist
by Franchesca Ramsey
The parts that are memoir are effortlessly readable. Franchesca is open and self-deprecating about the lifelong process of learning. The activist content is as titled, mostly introductory. There are some odd moments, regarding possible obsessions. Overall, it’s relatable, light-hearted, and revealingly bold.
Alter ego + 4 : Méthode de français
by Marine Antier, Joëlle Bonenfant, Gabrielle Chort, Catherine Dollez, Michel Guilloux, Sylvie Pons
Although the formatting/layout of each page is generally way too busy, it has engaging up-to-date readings, plenty of exercises, sample DELF tests, and charts of grammar in use. There’s also a CD-ROM for listening practice but I don’t … Read more
The God of Small Things
by Arundhati Roy
Kerala and nearly all of the characters expand into three dimensions in a story that weaves between past and present and addresses class and patriarchal structures, colonialism, family dysfunction, and the beats of a butterfly’s wing. It’s cluttered however with poetic turns of phrase that founder and repeat … Read more
Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People about Race
by Reni Eddo-Lodge
Above moments of distractingly patchy writing, this is an important work on Black British history and discourse on racism and oppressive structures in Britain and beyond.
Severance
by Ling Ma
★★★★½
An Unkindness of Ghosts
by Rivers Solomon
I liked the big picture of the story and the identities of the characters—women of colour, neuroatypical, queer, non-maternal. The pacing was lurching, however, with some episodes feeling out of place, others unfinished, while others still went on too long, like with the multiple flashbacks of misogynist role … Read more
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
by Robin DiAngelo
★★★★½
The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story
by Hyeonseo Lee, David John
★★★★½