booktribe's Reviews (603)

     Clara Johnson, a woman able to commune with spirits, notices that something strange is going on in her community. When a spirit offers Clara a deal to save her people, and gain her freedom back from the debt she owes this spirit, she must assemble an unlikely team and complete a heist to save everyone, and herself.

     The writing hooked me from the first sentence and stayed consistently engrossing! I thoroughly enjoyed it throughout and never got bored. The pacing was great. There was also a great plot and characters. i had to know what was going on in this community and with all these spirits and I wanted the best for all of the characters. I also loved that spirits were characters too. The spirit of Clara’s grandmother was one of my favorite characters. She loved Clara so much and really protected her. I also enjoyed the mention of a few important people from The Harlem Renaissance. I never read historical fiction, but I loved the atmosphere of this novel and the time period brought so much to the story.

     There were a couple of things I would’ve liked to have seen though. I wish there had been more character development for some of the characters, specifically Aristotle and Jesse Lee. They didn’t have as much personality as everyone else. And the only other problem I had was that we spent almost 80% of the novel not knowing what Clara’s special gift from a spirit was because she said it was so shameful that she couldn’t speak of it and would never use it again. But, when we finally found out what it was, I was disappointed because it was so simple. I was thinking “she hates her gift so much, so it must be something that’s a big deal, like necromancy”, but it was something that’s pretty common in fantasy books. So I thought that reveal was a little lackluster.

     I really enjoyed this book from beginning to end. I feel like there’s potential for a sequel, so I’m hoping! I’ll definitely be reading more by Leslye Penelope. Anyone who enjoys historical fantasy, heists, and spirits who may or may not be trustworthy should check this out!

Thank you Redhook Books and NetGalley for this arc. All opinions are my own.

TW: police brutality, colorism, parental abandonment, mention of miscarriage

     Liz Rocher returns to the small, predominantly white town she grew up in for her best friend’s wedding. During the reception, her best friend’s daughter goes missing. Black girls get taken every June in that town and, of course, no one does anything. Liz could’ve been one of those girls years ago, but she got lucky. It’s now up to her to find her best friend’s daughter and bring her home safely. But there’s something in the woods taking little Black girls, and it’s been waiting on the one who got away.

     This was one of my most anticipated releases this year and it was amazing! The story, the pacing, the character development, it was all perfect! It hooked me from the beginning and never let me go. It kept me guessing throughout the whole story. My favorite thing about this book is that we got pov’s of the other Black girls that have been taken. Those chapters were both heartbreaking and incredibly creepy. The character development in this book is another thing I loved. That does not mean that I liked those characters though, we weren’t supposed to. Liz was a Black woman that craved approval from her white peers and that aspect of her personality really played into the plot. And her white peers, were problematic. But all this was obviously purposeful and I felt like I knew the characters well.

     The ending of this book went in a pretty different direction than I thought expected, it wasn’t quite as satisfying as I thought it’d be, but I still really enjoyed it. I can see how the ending may disappoint some, but I thought it fit the book really well. 

     I really loved this book and I need everyone to go preorder it now! And I will be reading anything and everything that Erin E. Adams writes after this!

P.S. reading this book as a Black woman IN JUNE had me side-eyeing my whole life.

Thank you Random House Publishing Group-Ballantine and NetGalley for this arc. All opinions are my own.

TW: kidnapping, child death, murder, racism, racial slurs, animal gore and death, domestic violence, harassment, fatphobia, descriptions of sex, potential alcoholism

I’m sad to say that I DNF’ed this book at 50%. 

This was one of my most anticipated books of the year, and I’m so disappointed. There was just sooo much unnecessary inner monologue from Harrison that it became exhausting to read it. I feel like 1 out of 3 of every sentence that I read could’ve been taken out. The 50% of this book that I read could’ve been cut down to 20% of the book. There was no reason for this book to be 400 pages long I’m sorry.

The book promised me an adventure between 2 Black queer best friends. And what it gave me was 40% worth of thinking and planning on Harrison’s part, nothing of Linus, and by 50% of the book they’d only gone to one place. It was just too much.

I will read the author’s next book though, because I LOVE the thought of this book and I hope the pacing will improve in his next book🤞🏽

     Nia, a Black woman with obsessive compulsive disorder, navigates love, her career, and self acceptance in this novel that’s equal parts finding love and discovering her love for herself.

     I loved this book. The writing, the emotion, the lovable main character, this book was just amazing. Nia is one of my favorite book characters of all time. She will stick with me forever. I love that we got to see a Black woman with OCD find love and happiness in her life. I need more stories like this. I also love that Nia’s main OCD trigger was never explicitly stated. The novel was told through journal entries, so it was very realistic that when writing in her journal Nia wouldn’t spell out her triggers because it would trigger her! This book had a very honest and authentic portrayal of life with OCD.

     The only problem I had with this novel was that I couldn’t connect to the romance. The synopsis alluded to a love triangle. And though there was one, it wasn’t explored through most of the book and it was very clear throughout who Nia’s heart really wanted. And the one she wanted was just not someone I cared about. Honestly, I didn’t think either of the love interests were that impressive, but I did like one better than the other.

     Overall, I only had one complaint about the whole book, everything else was perfection. So, I’m giving this book a 4.5 star rating, for almost perfect! And I will be recommending this book to every reader I know! 

Thank you to BookBuzz and NetGalley for this arc. All opinions are my own.

TW: suicidal ideation

TW mentioned: suicide attempt, parental death, alcoholism, suicide

The Conjure Man Dies was long winded at times, but enjoyable for me. I’m proud to say that one of my theories was correct about who the killer was🙌🏽

However, the short story at the end of the novel, John Archer’s Nose, was amazing! I’m upping my rating for the book a whole star because of how good that story was! I wish the world could’ve seen what other great detective fiction Rudolph Fisher would’ve written.

My one and only complaint about my favorite author of all time’s writing is that she writes very love-dumb/sex-dumb characters.

There is nothing in the world that could make me sleep with and get back together with somebody who went on a whole murder spree of people I love. I can’t take Jessica’s stupidity on that. That one aspect of the book ruined her character for me. 

And why why would they try to make Dawit into a “good person” in this book? He needs to become a villain again because if he isn’t killing up some people, then his sole purpose in the book is just to annoy me. He’s not interesting unless he’s the villain.

But I do all this complaining just to say that I still really enjoyed this book and Tananarive Due never disappoints🥰

I enjoyed this a lot! My favorite part about this book is that it showed the hood from a very loving pov. There’s good and bad about the hood, but it really is a community and this book showed that. 

And I really appreciated this quote in relation to the gang that runs the neighborhood: “They’re more like the Avengers of the hood. All they want to do is protect The Haven, but sometimes they make bad choices and fuck shit up. But so did Cap and Iron Man and Thor.” We never get the same grace for our bad decisions as white people do. 

I loved Gio and his relationship with Theo, his little brother. I need to see more sibling relationships like this because it was so heartwarming. I also really loved Malik, Karina, Ayesha, and Ms. Diane. There were some amazing characters in this story! I didn’t feel a lot toward the love interest though. I thought he reacted very badly to a situation within the story and I just could never get over it🤷🏽‍♀️

Overall I just really enjoyed this book and I think it deserves way more hype!🙌🏽