bahareads's Reviews (1.09k)

"Only a few decades removed from slavery, intentional exercise was a welcome shift from the forced physicality of bondage that controlled how Black women’s bodies moved and functioned. Exercise allowed Black women to retain a measure of freedom, however small, to control how strong their bodies could be."

Purkiss chronicles African American women's participation in the modern exercise movement and situates them within a tradition of Black physical and civic fitness. Purkiss contributes to how Black women used exercise to demonstrate fitness for citizenship during a time when physically fit bodies had new political meaning. Citizenship is being reconceived as what one does but not who one is. "This book commemorates Black women did not necessarily accomplish fitness but aspired towards it."

"African American women derived liberation from fitness culture, as they endeavored to lower mortality rates, created collective bonds, and contested damaging stereotypes through exercise." Purkiss does so much in such a small book. The sources she uses - Black print culture: textual and visual primary sources like newspapers, magazines, advice literature, public health docs, physical education reports, diaries, cookbooks etc makes me really really think about the primary source material historians use.

The chapters in Fit Citizens cover how Black women used public health campaigns by adding exercise into their health activism; how middle-class Black women used exercise to promote their ideals of beauty, slimness, and the respectable Black body after World War I; Black women's active recreation during the Great Depression explores physical exercise - shaping the implementation of Black recreation programs as free time, acquiring new meaning; and Black women's portraying themselves ideal Black Citizen through exercise and dieting practices. I love how Purkiss explicitly does not talk about sports in this work, focusing only on individual fitness.

Wide Sargasso Sea is so sad. The entire vibe of the book is melancholy. It was interesting, to see the other side of a character where we only see Antoinette as a crazy lady in Jane Eyre. I would love to go through this book again with a book club, I feel like there are things I missed with my own read. WSS requires a slower reading and deeper reflection than I could give it at this time in my life. Rhys' writing is so so beautiful. It flowed well and painted vivid images in my mind. It was interesting to see Creole whites from another perspective than the ones I have usually read.

Bowleg does great work with this book. He allows you to think about the ways in which you can enhance your entire life by improving self-care, self-confidence, and a host of other things related to self. Bowleg teaches you how to walk through your potential and maximise it to the best of your ability. There are 52 lessons in SoT that can be reflected on throughout the year - a thought for each week. I was pleasantly surprised at the format and ease with how each thought was related to the reader. For being self-published, the cover, editing, and formatting were amazing. Bowleg put his whole foot in this work. 

Evans says this book is about investigating healing tradition by placing race, and gender at the center and that this book is specifically for Black women. She is seeking to reconstruct contemporary conceptions of self-care, showing how they are rooted in the past, and not just newfound notions. The goal of this work is to study and apply Black women's ideas about wellness. Evans explored care narratives to release the pressures and stress that black women deal with in isolation. She says, "compassion and politics clearly emerged as the salient themes throughout this book… And are as palatable as themes of health, healing, and wellness in black women's experiences." Black women's memoirs can be read as letters between generations about how to find historic wisdom, internal fortitude, and political courage. Check out Evan's hashtag #HistoricalWellness. 

The book made me think about the way historians traditionally present their historical studies. The way Evans structured her book and the type of sources she used has made me rethink my own work. The book itself made me think about wellness and holistic practices that are passed down by our elders. There is so much to say about Evans’ work but I will say that it is worth the read.  

I love a good fairy corn interlude. The romance in here was great; it had everything I enjoyed tension, snarky plot, and similar thing of enemies to lovers (though Cassian was never here enemy). About 250 pages in I started to wonder how long it was going to take for some serious action to happen. I hated how Nessa's power was sometimes so powerful until it wasn't at the end. The long drawn-out plot wasn't necessary, about 200 pages could have been cut. The ending was dumb. I hated it. So convenient for the plot yet the bad guys are still out here, yuck.

I would have rather Nessa have kept her powers, that tension for the rest of the series would have been great. I think having a darker character would have been so good for the plot. I hate it when everyone is squeaky clean.

Too too much was going on. AND YET for so much to be going on nothing was happening!!! Why is the book dragging in the middle?! I understand everyone was in their individual turmoil but there was no movement of the plot forward. Everyone was waiting for someone else to do something in their lives. I did not like the ending; I'm an enjoyer of open endings but this one just made me mad. I appreciate the premise of this book but the tension and problems of each of the characters became benign very quickly. I feel like nothing that I actually cared about from the plot was answered by the end of the book. I wanted Helen to be able to go into the garage and be a part of the business, yet somehow a MAN was what she needed. Honestly, I LOVE romance but not all the MCs needed romantic partners. I could go on but this sums up the majority of my thoughts.

Have you ever had someone stop you and you internally sighed because you knew they about to talk ya ear off and they story not going anywhere? That is exactly what Lovelace did here. If you enjoy books with no plot, just vibes this might be for you. Any character mentioned gets their backstory told, and in the background readers see Black Power movements in this fictional Trinidadian town. The narrative can be hard to follow because the stream of consciousness just keeps moving forward onto the next character. Each character builds a piece of Lovelace's puzzle of the town of Cascadu. This is not my favorite Lovelace novel.

The audiobook really drew this together for me. I loved loved loved it. I went into it blind; I didn't know what it was about exactly or that there were two MCs. McIvor creates two distinct narratives that blend in a beautiful way. The plot is a lot; it is funny; it is harsh; it is meaningful. I like Obadiah. Yes, he is abrasive at times but that's just the shell.

One thing I realize time and time again reading Caribbean literature is how similar we are. You could have switched the names of the government officials and we'd be in The Bahamas with how similar the politricks are, and how corruption works.

The ending had me wanting to clap and cheer. McIvor is a storyteller. Each scene she took us on throughout the book was very clear in my mind. You can really experience each part of Trinidad she is describing.

“It made me grow up,” I answer. “It made me grow up when I should have had more time. It made my dad overlook me when I was a child, my mum leave me behind, and my brother get away with doing the bare minimum. It made me lonely and it made me sad. It made me responsible and guilty. It made me someone, if given the choice, I wouldn’t want to be."

Maame in Maddie's case means woman in Twi. Maddie is a woman stunted by family happenings. As is common in many families, Maddie being the girl child has to pick up the slack, and then some, that the parents left behind. Maame made me cry. I empathised with Maddie as the oldest girl in my family. I recall being told at such a young age how big and grown I was (by others, not just my parents). I had to pick up the slack.

The writing moves along well. Besides crying, I laughed. Maddie is a funny MC. Her exploration of the world leaves nothing unturned. When she stands up for herself I cheered. When she was low, I was low with her. Maddie's growth is believable and real. The family dynamics were well done. Everyone is three-dimensional; there is no evil villain here. The friendships touched me the most. Maddie had people she could rely on and who genuinely cared for her. George touches on many topics in her book, and I thought they were all well done.

I stayed chuckling throughout this audiobook. The narrator was great. Andrea was hilarious and dumb, not necessarily in that succession. It's crazy to see how hard people will fight for circumstances that make them unhappy. The secondary characters were over the top and opulent, but in a good way. Everyone shined in their own way in this book. All the characters were funny. I loved seeing the dating and romance scene of the people in their 30s and onward in this way. The struggle is real. The downside of the novel the pacing started off a bit slow and the end-game love interest was obvious from the moment they were introduced. I did enjoy the journey of the love interest and Andrea in the novel though.