Take a photo of a barcode or cover
enobong's Reviews (492)
A comprehensive and academic look at the road to freedom for many enslaved and what achieving that freedom meant. It's a common misconception that enslaved African people in the Americas and the Caribbean merely accepted their fate of enslavement, waiting passively for the 19th century when Europeans would finally see the immorality of slavery. In reality, enslaved people fought against slavery from the beginning, both violently and through the legal courts. It was a struggle they endured for the full 300 years of the transatlantic slave trade.
BECOMING FREE, BECOMING BLACK looks at the societies of Cuba, Virginia and Louisiana to investigate the journey to freedom for enslaved peoples in these communities and the difficulties those in power had in accepting the status of freed-person for those who had brought in as slaves. This led to a classification of "black" that defined formerly enslaved people in a way that made it legally acceptable to deny them the rights of citizens.
This book is great because it shines a light on a part of history that is often and pushed aside. The fight for freedom was not done on behalf of enslaved people as they stood by passively but one that they began and were gradually supported in. It is incredibly academic, which at times might be difficult to read if you are unused to reading dense academia but incredibly informative.
BECOMING FREE, BECOMING BLACK looks at the societies of Cuba, Virginia and Louisiana to investigate the journey to freedom for enslaved peoples in these communities and the difficulties those in power had in accepting the status of freed-person for those who had brought in as slaves. This led to a classification of "black" that defined formerly enslaved people in a way that made it legally acceptable to deny them the rights of citizens.
This book is great because it shines a light on a part of history that is often and pushed aside. The fight for freedom was not done on behalf of enslaved people as they stood by passively but one that they began and were gradually supported in. It is incredibly academic, which at times might be difficult to read if you are unused to reading dense academia but incredibly informative.
I read The Poet X and fell head over heels. I had never encountered anything like it and it deserved every single award it won. This is not The Poet X. In The Poet X Acevedo gave her readership a novel in poetry form with little sprinkles of prose to bring it all together. The restriction of the poet form meant that she couldn't fall into the trap of YA over-explaining and thus simplifying the complexities of the protagonist's emotions. In With the Fire on High did fall into a few YA traps, including the ever frustrating trope of a protagonist who doesn't know how to breathe (I encountered three instances of letting go of a breath the protagonist didn't know she was holding).
However, this is still a great YA novel. Acevedo doesn't shy away from the challenges of being a teen mother and the constant struggle Emoni has with trying to make her Abuela proud while seeing evidence of how she has disappointed her every day. Evidence which she loves and wouldn't take back despite the increased difficulty her daughter brings to her life. It's a novel with a cast of strong, multi-dimensional female characters that are both for the protagonist (her teacher, her Abuela, Emoni herself) and against her (her baby daddy's mother, Pretty Leslie). However, the men in the story are not villainized or torn down. Yes, there are snarky remarks, such as the quote I pulled, but Emoni's father and the father of her child are flawed but not evil.
I always judge YA books by what I think 16-year-old me would have thought and I think 16-year-old me would have enjoyed this one a lot. We have friendship, a love interest, and a complex main character who is talented and ambitious and conflicted. This would have been a great book for 16-year-old me. Heck, 30-year-old me thought it was pretty great too.
However, this is still a great YA novel. Acevedo doesn't shy away from the challenges of being a teen mother and the constant struggle Emoni has with trying to make her Abuela proud while seeing evidence of how she has disappointed her every day. Evidence which she loves and wouldn't take back despite the increased difficulty her daughter brings to her life. It's a novel with a cast of strong, multi-dimensional female characters that are both for the protagonist (her teacher, her Abuela, Emoni herself) and against her (her baby daddy's mother, Pretty Leslie). However, the men in the story are not villainized or torn down. Yes, there are snarky remarks, such as the quote I pulled, but Emoni's father and the father of her child are flawed but not evil.
I always judge YA books by what I think 16-year-old me would have thought and I think 16-year-old me would have enjoyed this one a lot. We have friendship, a love interest, and a complex main character who is talented and ambitious and conflicted. This would have been a great book for 16-year-old me. Heck, 30-year-old me thought it was pretty great too.
It's been a while since I've read a book set in a culture so widely different from my own. Etaf Rum does an excellent job transporting the reader to a Palestinian culture both in the Middle East and in America, slipping in phrases, words and cultural references into a cohesive narrative. While I believe that anyone can write about anything, own voices books bring an authentic voice that is very difficult to imitate without some level of lived experience. My overall impression of the story was that it was honest. It was neither hypercritical or sensitive but just honest.
Certain moments that stood out for me were the collection of virginal proof, so casually expectant, and Isra' s struggles in parenthood.
The opening lines hooked me and I was excited to delve deeper into this book, however, I was disappointed to find that that was the beginning and end of the first-person narrative. The narrative also, ironically, began to wane at the moment Deya begins to find her voice. The careful internal world-building and characterisation were sacrificed for too much expositional dialogue. The interest I had in the characters at the beginning started to lag as the storyline entered the realm of intrigue and interminable cling-hanging from Sarah's character.
It is an insightful foray into the world of a strict Palestinian family and the agony of making questionable decisions to protect the ones we love. Ultimately an okay read.
Certain moments that stood out for me were the collection of virginal proof, so casually expectant, and Isra' s struggles in parenthood.
The opening lines hooked me and I was excited to delve deeper into this book, however, I was disappointed to find that that was the beginning and end of the first-person narrative. The narrative also, ironically, began to wane at the moment Deya begins to find her voice. The careful internal world-building and characterisation were sacrificed for too much expositional dialogue. The interest I had in the characters at the beginning started to lag as the storyline entered the realm of intrigue and interminable cling-hanging from Sarah's character.
It is an insightful foray into the world of a strict Palestinian family and the agony of making questionable decisions to protect the ones we love. Ultimately an okay read.
"Wherever you are and whatever it is, the terrible is trying to grip you and sometimes you're walking down the street and it tries to knock you clean off your feet and send you right underground."
I didn't know what I was getting into with this book. After reading and enjoying Bones, I was excited to get into The Terrible. As you'll know from my Bones review, I have struggled to get into poetry and it is a genre I am actively pursuing the older I get. Bone is one of the few poetry anthologies I have read and wanted more from. The same lyricism and ease with image creation is evident in The Terrible. It is a memoir but Daley-Ward has taken the memoir genre and moulded it to suit her needs. It has the lyricism and creative openness of her poetry. Chronology is played with and the boundaries between what is real and not, what is a drug-induced haze and what is actually happening, is explored and manipulated, drawing out surprising levels of sympathy and emotion.
In writing about the specific, Daley-Ward manages to touch on universal experiences, allowing me to relate to her story in ways I didn't expect to. Part of this is in the throwaway manner in which she recounts instances of casual racism in her predominantly white neighbourhood growing up or the childish shame in not understanding a mother struggling to do her best. The language is powerful without being fussy. Each thought is clear and each story told with simplicity and precision.
It's not quite at the run-around and force everyone I know to read it level, but it's high on my recommendations for some creative and novel (in the true sense of the word) reading.
"... I now think maybe there isn't a real self, just different versions of us we wear in different settings and with different people."
If The Wall was a building, it's architectural style would be brutalist. I at once think it is brilliant, hard, ugly and difficult to deal with. Frank, to the point, chilling.
I had a friend who would describe things as "worthy" as in "awards-worthy." There are certain books, movies, plays you watch or read and know immediately that it is going to be in the nominations for all the big awards. I'm not surprised this is in the longlist for the Booker Prize. I won't be surprised if it makes the shortlist.
A novel that both speaks on the environmental crisis and the "migrant" crisis in a way that is dry and encapsulating. I expect this is a book that will be referred to and pulled out frequently as a voice for this moment in history. And yet I didn't love it. I can't love it. The tone is cold and detached and I was unable to build any kind of rapport with any characters. It is brutal and stark and the coldness in the style didn't allow me to love it in a conventional way. I can, however, appreciate it.
Although it's a novel that is in every way well done, it just didn't capture my soul.
If The Wall was a building, it's architectural style would be brutalist. I at once think it is brilliant, hard, ugly and difficult to deal with. Frank, to the point, chilling.
I had a friend who would describe things as "worthy" as in "awards-worthy." There are certain books, movies, plays you watch or read and know immediately that it is going to be in the nominations for all the big awards. I'm not surprised this is in the longlist for the Booker Prize. I won't be surprised if it makes the shortlist.
A novel that both speaks on the environmental crisis and the "migrant" crisis in a way that is dry and encapsulating. I expect this is a book that will be referred to and pulled out frequently as a voice for this moment in history. And yet I didn't love it. I can't love it. The tone is cold and detached and I was unable to build any kind of rapport with any characters. It is brutal and stark and the coldness in the style didn't allow me to love it in a conventional way. I can, however, appreciate it.
Although it's a novel that is in every way well done, it just didn't capture my soul.
"In short, all the Ibuza people were immigrants; the oshus just happened to be new immigrants. It was a phenomenon of human societies found not only in backwoods places like the little town of Ibuza, Asaba or Okpanam, but also among the very civilised peoples of America, Britain and Russia."
Buchi Emecheta is a queen of literature who I should have read long before now.
The Bride Price tells the story of a family caught between two cultures. The patriarch of the family, Nna, is a man who goes to church every Sunday but has sent his wife to the Witch Doctor in his village to cure her inability to get pregnant. And when he dies, his family must return to that village, leaving Lagos and the Westernized life his children have known, to a land of tribal traditions and Igbo culture.
Emecheta writes with the assumption that this story is universal. How can you relate to a young village girl in Nigerian being forced into a marriage she does not want? The same way I can relate to a young English girl in the Regency period turning down a marriage she does not want (Elizabeth Bennet anyone?). Her metaphors are rooted in Nigerian culture, her ideas of beauty–"coal-black maidens with lightness in their step, like young goddesses let loose by a king god."–pertain to Nigerian standards, and she writes with dry humour and wit that takes no prisoners.
The Bride Price is a powerful story about family, womanhood and relationships. It's also a critique of both Nigerian and Western culture and traditions. Neither culture is adored or abhorred, both are equally admired and ridiculed. Emecheta's writing has the power to move you to tears and have you laughing quietly in a corner to yourself. You can see clear influences of Chinua Achebe in her work and I wondered how much she may have influenced great writers we love simply by demonstrating that our worlds are universal and there is a place for narratives set in them.
I fully understand why she is my mum's favourite author and I need more of her now! Possibly my favourite novel this year. A must-read author for fans of Toni Morrison.
"The white man spoke in a strange sort of dialect which he seemed to think was Ibo. He did not realise that his audience was having so much difficulty in understanding him that it would have been better if he had simply addressed them in English. But that would have offended the Right Reverend Osborne, who has come all the way from Oxford in England and had spent many long years learning the Ibo language."
Buchi Emecheta is a queen of literature who I should have read long before now.
The Bride Price tells the story of a family caught between two cultures. The patriarch of the family, Nna, is a man who goes to church every Sunday but has sent his wife to the Witch Doctor in his village to cure her inability to get pregnant. And when he dies, his family must return to that village, leaving Lagos and the Westernized life his children have known, to a land of tribal traditions and Igbo culture.
Emecheta writes with the assumption that this story is universal. How can you relate to a young village girl in Nigerian being forced into a marriage she does not want? The same way I can relate to a young English girl in the Regency period turning down a marriage she does not want (Elizabeth Bennet anyone?). Her metaphors are rooted in Nigerian culture, her ideas of beauty–"coal-black maidens with lightness in their step, like young goddesses let loose by a king god."–pertain to Nigerian standards, and she writes with dry humour and wit that takes no prisoners.
The Bride Price is a powerful story about family, womanhood and relationships. It's also a critique of both Nigerian and Western culture and traditions. Neither culture is adored or abhorred, both are equally admired and ridiculed. Emecheta's writing has the power to move you to tears and have you laughing quietly in a corner to yourself. You can see clear influences of Chinua Achebe in her work and I wondered how much she may have influenced great writers we love simply by demonstrating that our worlds are universal and there is a place for narratives set in them.
I fully understand why she is my mum's favourite author and I need more of her now! Possibly my favourite novel this year. A must-read author for fans of Toni Morrison.
"The white man spoke in a strange sort of dialect which he seemed to think was Ibo. He did not realise that his audience was having so much difficulty in understanding him that it would have been better if he had simply addressed them in English. But that would have offended the Right Reverend Osborne, who has come all the way from Oxford in England and had spent many long years learning the Ibo language."