"Mama used to say that our dreams were the way in which we resolved our problems, that every problem could be solved if we paid close attention to the tiniest details in our dreams."

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Under the Udala Trees is both an important and beautifully written book about a young girl, Ijeoma and her journey into womanhood and the relationships she has throughout her life. This book is important because it focuses on the queer experience in Nigeria and the lack of rights that Queer people have and how they have been persecuted since the 2014 legislation to prohibit Same Sex Marriage was passed and meant homosexuality became punishable by 14 years in jail.
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Under the Udala Trees not only touches on the persecution of the queer community. It also begins with the Nigerian Civil War (1967-70) which began when Biafra (a region made up of the Eastern Nigerian states) declared independence from Nigeria. Ijeoma recounts how the war encroached on her family life, stole her father and changed her life trajectory forever.
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The structure of the book I really enjoyed as the chapters were short and the book was broken down into several parts which jumped back and forth in time. I liked this because it revealed different elements of Ijeoma's life outside of chronological order and the reader was able to view with hindsight how various events changed her life.
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The relationships within this book broke my heart as we saw Ijeoma develop a bond and relationship with her first love Amina. Okparanta not only focused on how this relationship was forbidden because it was the love of two women, but also how relationships between ethnic groups (Igbo and Hausa in this case) are deeply forbidden.
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Although this book touches on lots of important themes at the root of it, it is a beautifully written story about love, womanhood, and identity that I would recommend to all.

Carry On was one of my reads for Pride month and I was pretty disappointed if I'm honest. I loved Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl and it will probably always be a favourite, but Rowell's works beyond straight, white, cis-gendered characters seem to be pretty problematic.
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As much as I loved the idea of Baz and Simon, the execution of their relationship I felt was lacking. When Simon suddenly realises he has a thing for Baz, Rowell immediately jumps to him identifying as gay. She entirely rules out the prospect or even consideration that Simon could be bisexual given his past relationship with Agatha, as if there isn't an option between straight and gay. Obviously people do change from being straight to gay, but it was like there was no consideration about his past relationships or history. The erasure of bisexuality as an option for Simon left me feeling uncomfortable. It just felt like Rowell gave no nuanced consideration to Simon's sexuality or his relationship with Baz. There was no real building blocks to their relationship, it just suddenly happened and throughout the whole book Simon was still convinced Baz was going to end him. Hardly the basis for a good relationship.
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I also didn't like that Baz's Egyptian heritage got wiped out because he was a vampire. Rowell just entirely whitewashed the only non-white person in her book which I felt entirely uncomfortable with, but nobody seems to have noticed that.
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Beyond the problematic relationships and characterization, I just wasn't really a fan of the plot. The concept of jumping into a "Fanfiction" world at the end of the series, which appears to be a rip off of Harry Potter just lacked all originality and cohesion for me. It felt difficult to jump into the character narratives and relationships so late in the game and I found many of them quite irritating.
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Overall I was very disappointed with Carry On and won't be picking up the rest of the series.

Such a fab end to the series.

Man, I love Korra and Asami and this looks like a fun new villain storyline for the Korra series!

we should celebrate that many more women are re-configuring feminism and that grassroots activism is spreading like wildfire and millions of women are waking up to the possibility of taking ownership of our world as fully-entitled human beings
how can we argue with that?

Girl, Woman, Other was probably one of the most powerful and thought-provoking pieces I've read this year. It touched me in a way I just did not expect. I was sceptical of whether I would like the book because of the poetry-style prose and the fact it had won a Man Booker Prize. For some reason, I have always grown up considering the Man Booker Prize to be awarded to books filled with big jargon words that I'll never understand. However, I absolutely adored this book by Bernardine Evaristo. I loved the style, the content, the message and just pretty much everything about this book. I feel like some people will say that they loved this book because they felt they should but I just found myself scribbling quotes, after quotes, sitting and just thinking whilst I read this book. I actually finished it last month, but have needed some time to compose my thoughts on it.

Girl, Woman, Other follows the lives of 12 mostly black womxn and one man. At first I thought these stories would show the lives of these womxn separately, as I didn't understand how they would connect. However, by the end everyone of these womxn was interlinked through another in some way which I think offered a powerful message on how our lives touch so many other peoples. The book was split into segments and each segment focused on three womxn who were closely connected because they were related, they worked together, they were friends etc and I really liked this as a style because it meant we still saw these womxn we'd just got attached to through the lens of one of their relatives/friends.

One of the really fantastic qualities about Girl, Woman, Other was the fluidity in which it looked at gender and identity.

Feminism is so herd-like, Yazz told her, to be honest, even being a woman is passe these days, we had a non-binary activist at uni called Morgan Malenga who opened by eyes, I reckon we're all going to be non-binary in the future, neither male nor female, which are gendered performances anyway, which means your women's politics, Mumsy, will become redundant, and by the way, I'm humanitarian which is on a much higher plane than feminism

I think Evaristo approached the concepts of gender identity and specifically non-binary and transgender identities in a very good way. It wasn't a big deal, the characters just interwove and both taught the reader and themselves what it meant to be non-binary/transgender which I think is even more powerful. She also looked a lot at LQBTQ+ relationships and touched on domestic abuse within those, but also polyamory and various other ideas. I think Evaristo was so incredibly forward-thinking in this book and it was so refreshing and enjoyable to read.

In addition to looking at identity and gender, the other major aspect of the book for me was the focus on culture and history. Most of these womxn were black and their family were first generation immigrants from Ghana/Jamaica etc. I think Evaristo managed to highlight some really interesting points about how a) their cultures intersected with their British identity b) how they were accepted/not-accepted by British society c) what their cultural background meant when they came to Britain.

My father was devastated at having to flee Ghana so abruptly, she eulogised at his memorial, attended by his elderly socialist comrades it must have been so traumatic, to lose his home, his family, his friends, his culture, his first language, and to come to a country that didn't want him

In addition to talking about immigration from Ghana/Jamaica, Evaristo managed to briefly touch on slavery (and slave owners/those who earned their wealth through slavery in Britain), she touched on the lynchings in America during the fight for Black Civil Rights. There were so many powerful points in history that Evaristo touched on. However, for me, this became so much more of an impact when she showed how they connected not just to black people in Britain, but to white people and to show how we are not different. How we have a mixed cultural heritage. It actually made me cry at the end of the book because it just felt so poignant that many black British people are harassed for the colour of their skin, for their hair, for looking "other", yet beneath it all we are not 100% white and we are all interconnected.

I was honestly so amazed and touched by this novel. The poetry style prose with no punctuation actually just made this book flow so beautifully and I loved escaping from the strict structure of normal books. I would recommend this book to everyone as I absolutely adored it.

Lover at Last was a book I've been waiting a very long time for. Unfortunately, I stalled out at book 10 of the BDB series for quite a while and never got back around to this one. Finally having finished it, I can say I did really enjoy it, but there were elements that actually disappointed me, namely Blay.

The frustrating thing I have find with Ward's characters is that she seems to insert a lot of unnecessary drama and cruelty into her relationships; take Tohr and Autumn's relationship in the last book for example. This just becomes painful to read and then makes it really difficult to understand in some cases how they can just go from this to 'happily ever after'. Although there was some minor attempt at a resolution in this one because it wasn't only Blay who had been a mean in this relationship;

it was just Blay in this book that was mean.

On the other hand, I think it's good that in a major paranormal series, which focuses so much on masculinity and 'maleness' that we saw a M/M romance in this series. I would actively like to see more diversity in this series and the paranormal genre in general. I think, in general the whole M/M romance side of things was well-done.

Having said this, as much as I love Qhuinn and Blay, Assail stole the show for me a little bit in this book. I did not expect to like him so much, but he just felt like a darker, edgier Rehvenge who I really loved. I'm saddened that I have to wait 5 books to hear his story. It seems to me that Ward has built up a big bunch of fantastic new and old secondary characters: Xcor, iAm, Trez, Assail and the rest of the Band of Bastards who have just been overlooked to focus on the older couples again following this book. To me it just seems strange that she'll bring in new characters and make them feature quite a lot, and then withhold their stories for so long. However, Ward did strengthen the secondary sub-plots a lot more for me in this instalment, than in Lover Reborn which had felt slower and less action-y, so that was a vast improvement on the last book in the series I read.

Finally, the one thing I will say is Ward manages to pack a lot into each of her books and its impressive that she can still weave multiple plot-lines and characters so cohesively with the ever-growing cast. I am excited to keep reading his series, but just a tad disappointed by this one. Although, maybe my expectations were so high because I've been waiting so long, and after reading a lot of great urban-fantasy recently, I feel that I just wanted that little bit more.

Feathertide was not quite what I expected based on first impressions from the cover, but it turned out to be a beautiful coming-of-age, fantasy novel steeped in magical-realism and focused on ideas of self-confidence and love.

The novel follows a young girl Marea who is born with feathers and kept hidden away in the cellar of a whore-house for her whole life. She slowly begins to realise as she grows up that she is different from those who inhabit her world around her and she hides herself and her feathers. The novel speaks to those that are shunned for being different as Marea is part-bird and deeply fearful of being shown in a 'Freaks and Oddities show. Upon reaching maturity, she takes the decision to brave the wide-open world and search for answers about her father, her identity and her future. This takes her to the City of Murmurs which is a city steeped in mystery and magic. Here Marea experiences first loves, makes friends, and begins to unravel the mysteries surrounding her heritage and future.

It took me a little bit to get into this novel, but it really came into its own once Marea landed in the City of Murmurs. The relationship that blossomed between her and Leo, and her and the girl with the flaming golden hair who embodied the ocean as much as Marea represented the sky really captured by heart. The relationships that Marea developed between these two beautifully represented the struggles of first loves, identity and developing sexuality. The focus was on the person and their behaviours and values rather than their gender or identity which I really liked. Both of the love-interests taught Marea something about herself and helped her to grow as a person and I loved this element of the novel.

The actual plot itself is quite slow and meandering as the focus is on Marea's growth and development, her family and love. The novel is steeped in description and beautiful metaphors as it builds up the city and the characters within. I do wish we'd had a little bit more about the world and the history of The City of Murmurs and how it came to be, where it is. Nevertheless, this was a novel that was beautiful in its descriptions and reminded me very much of [b:The Night Circus|9361589|The Night Circus|Erin Morgenstern|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1387124618l/9361589._SY75_.jpg|14245059]. For those that loved The Night Circus the flowery descriptions, slow plot pacing and focus on mystery, magic and finding ones identity will love Feathertide.

This was a beautiful mystery that slowly and daintily unraveled itself and surprisingly impressed me as it went along. Thanks to Netgalley and Random House UK for the eARC.

18 March 2020
09:51

How We Fight For Our Lives by Saeed Jones was another audible memoir, as you may have gathered by now, I am a huge fan of listening to memoirs narrated by the author in an audible version. Saeed Jones is a gay, black man in America who is also a poet. I'd actually never heard of him until he wrote this memoir, but he's also a poet and I really don't do poetry. His memoir focuses on themes of race, sexuality, body image and power as he details a coming-of-age memoir.

For me, one the most powerful aspects of How We Fight For Our Lives was Saeed's interrogation of body image and what it meant to be black and gay. How he saw his own body, how those he was intimate with saw his body and whether that was about his race, his gender, the way he looked. He offered insight into how we often reduce people to a way they look and judge them based on the way they look. We have certain expectations of a person based on their race (especially) and there are many connotations particularly about black men that circulate. These preconceptions are only heightened by things like porn, the media etc.

He also spoke at length about his relationship with his mother and their life growing up. He spoke about his mum's religion, their relationship, his exploration of his sexuality by going to drag shows with his mum's friends, her health, his coming out as gay. Many aspects of their relationship which were interesting, but he also showed a clear love, affection and happy relationship that he had with his mum. He also spoke about their financial struggles and how they impacted upon his college applications and where he was able to go, their worries about health care and being able to afford an ambulance to hospital for his mum, being afford to pay bills and whether her card would be rejected at the shops. It was very poignant how he spoke about the real struggles in his life and upbringing and how only when he mum died did he get money from her death.

The audible version I thought was really accessible, really easy to listen to and very well narrated. I really enjoy listening to audible memoirs that are narrated by the author as it makes it a more personable story.

Overall, I thought Saeed Jones touched on a lot of interesting topics, he was insightful, well-articulated and interesting. If you enjoy memoirs and/or are interested in discussions about race/sexuality then I would recommend this memoir!

The Vanishing Half is probably one of my favourite books of 2020. This book is beautiful, heartbreaking, emotional and full of life, love and humanity. At the core, Brit Bennett writes about family, identity, womanhood, sisterhood, motherhood, love, and grief. The Vanishing Half packs punch as it covers themes of race, class, poverty, identity, being transgender and LGBTQ+ and more. Brit Bennett stole my heart with her writing, with her characters and with this book.

The book is about Desiree Vignes and her twin Stella Vignes who grow up in a small black community in a village called Mallard, Louisiana. When the girls reach their teenage years their lives take vastly different trajectories, as Stella abandons her family, her sister, and her identity to become a white woman, a white wife and a white mother. Desiree on the other hand marries a black man, has a black daughter and does not forget her roots in Mallard. The story begins in the 1950s, but jumps across time as we see the girls and their daughters grow up and how their lives differ and yet still intersect in different ways.

The characters in this book were absolutely phenomenal. They were written with such depth, emotion and realness that I was entirely absorbed in every moment, every detail of their story. The story of Jude and Reese was ultimately my favourite aspect of this book. Jude, who is the daughter of Desiree and Reese the boy she meets in California.

I loved Brit Bennett's use of time jumps to frame the different moments and different periods of the history of the twins and their daughters. I loved the different geographical changes that symbolised different moments and events in the lives of the characters. I loved how seamlessly she interwove these jumps in moments, the shifts in character perspectives and narratives and how it all fitted to build a picture of two lives, two histories, but ultimately one family narrative. I loved literally everything about this book.

I often find it difficult to put into words why I love books that speak to me so much, and that fill me with such emotions and thoughts. One thing is clear,The Vanishing Half offers a really powerful exploration of race and race relations as we see how being either black or white can make such a profound difference on two sisters experiences.

I would urge you all to pick up this book because it was beautiful, emotive and covered so many fantastic themes. I received an eARC from Netgalley and Little Brown Book UK in exchange for a review, but I will definitely be purchasing my own physical copy of this book because I adored it so so much.