WHEW! This book right here. I had pretty regular standards heading into IRON WIDOW by Xiran Jay Zhao since I’d seen so many great review, but I didn’t expect it to become a favorite before I even hit page 150. There’s something so absolutely captivating about the author’s writing style - I simply couldn’t put this book down.

Zetian is an awesome main character. She’s not above calling out her own BS or missteps, which helps us as readers catch ourselves doing the same thing, making the same assumptions, or falling into the same mental traps. The chapter titles were absolutely hilarious, and Shimin toooootally reminds me of Warren Peace from Sky High and it’s the greatest thing ever 💀

IRON WIDOW delivered what it set out to do and more. Feminist Asian-inspired fantasy with mechas/giant robots controlled by people? ✔️ Polyamorous relationship? ✔️ Disability rep (near blindness, walking impairment)? ✔️ Mental illness rep (alcoholism)? ✔️

As one of my most anticipated books since I heard the premise and saw the cover, HOUSE OF COTTON by Monica Brashears ended up being a major letdown. Like I mentioned in a previous post, it was taking me a while to understand just what Brashears is attempting to talk about in terms of commodification of the Black body and how easily a White supremacist society can erase our humanity in order to fill their own desires, but I still had hope it would come together in the end and that the foundation was being laid for something great. Magnolia Brown is seemingly stuck making decisions she dreads simply because she’s poor, Black, and grieving, and forced to do weird work in order to pay the bills, but I don’t know that she has any actual character development or growth by the end of the novel. I kept waiting for her to have a moment of clarity, but sis was focused on all the wrong things. While I get that it was supposed to be the insidiousness of racism that’s the horror in this book, even that is rarely addressed but in pithy moments in Magnolia’s head, and the other elements of horror were just…meh.

Unbeknownst to me, I first heard Jasmine Mans’ work when I watched the spoken word peice “Footnotes for Kanye.” I didn’t realize, however, that that was the same artist whose book I had been highly anticipating all year, and I’m glad. Mans starts us out slow and easy, with clever wording and nostalgic memories, but at some point during the collection, there’s an obvious shift in tone, magnitude, and intention. I found myself rereadinig pieces, underlining and highlighting my favorite parts, tabbing multiple places in a single piece. This collection is nothing short of incredible. Within BLACK GIRL, CALL HOME, Mans explores identity, love, the mistreatment of Black women, disappointment, and hope. This is a poetry collection I see myself returning to, and it’s definitely earned a place on my favorites shelf.