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This speculative fiction is on role reversal of genders in an alternative world. Women are the ones in power. Men take up the traditional work of women - child rearing, housework, trophy husbands, etc. They suffer the same stigmas as women in our world do - promiscuity is bad, getting married is top priority, etc. Instead of setting this in the US, we are transported to Nigeria where our lead Obinna - husband to a busy, clocked out woman - is meeting his high school friend Eze for the first time in years. Eze brings Obinna not only ideas of what he could have been, but also ideas of what he should be and want in their world today. The concept is an interesting one. There is good world building. We do have good, expressive writing. The problem is that this is so on the nose in regards to the politics and cultural “wars” going on in between the sexes today that it doesn’t feel as impactful as it should be. Would it have been better if it were more subtle somehow? Unsure. But, just switching the traditional gender roles doesn’t feel like enough here. This is my first time reading a work by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and look forward to reading her body of work just from this alone. The imagination and writing is there.

 This books is an uplifting and adorable book about an East Asian girl wondering why her eyes are different from her non-Asian friends and learning to love how wonderful they are. It’s more than just how unique the eye shape is or how pretty the color is. The book is going by the old saying “eyes are the window to the soul.” The person behind the eyes are what makes them beautiful. The young girl learns this through herself, her mother, sister, grandmother and her heritage. The watercolor artwork is vibrant and charming. Lovely book all around to give to a young girl. 

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This is the first Stephen King book that I have ever read and I’m disappointed.

Not by the writing - I can see why King is a legend. It’s really good.

Not by the story - the plot is unique as heck. A technology-adverse professor buys a kindle and has access to works of authors in alternative universes? It’s a very fascinating idea.

Not exactly by the characters - the lead is a self-absorbed dick (not even a likeable dick). He does get karmic payback in some ways and reflects on it so that makes him more bearable as the story progresses. The other characters have personalities but I can’t even remember their names. The characters otherwise do the job and I was interested in what happened to them.

I’m mainly disappointed that you can tell it’s an ad for the Kindle. I know this book is older and was created when the device was getting popular but….wow, so blatant.

If anything, I’m a bit disappointed at myself that I made this my first entry into Stephen King. I definitely have to dive into his other works.

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Short Summary

This story is so good. This is the first middle grade book I’ve read since…..middle grade and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The main plot is about a young girl named Olivia who lost her mother and is closed off to everyone except her books. Thanks to a series of unfortunate events, Olivia needs to break out of her shell to help her classmates survive against a powerful supernatural entity. Olivia is an intelligent, brave and crafty young woman who I think is a great role model for kids. The other characters are interesting in their own right too. The character growth is just nice to see.. The writing is simple but very effective. I felt those tense moments during chases and stressful situations. I did really care about what would happen to them at the end. At some points, I could instantly tell what was going to happen but that didn’t detract from my enjoyment. I’d recommend this book for a quick, creepy read for kids and adults. I plan on reading the next one.

The writing is good but I’m not the target audience at all. 

Read sample and was interested but do not think it’s worth the current price. If there is a price drop, will pick back up

Protagonists
[x] Hot garbage
[ ] Boring boring boring
[ ] Serviceable
[ ] Likeable leads
[ ] I love them so much

Side Character
[x] Every character is terrible
[ ] Characters commit sin of being boring/generic
[ ] Enough interesting characters to balance out the few terrible ones
[ ] Likeable side characters
[ ] Amazing characters all around

Antagonist(s)
[ ] Hate them for the wrong reasons
[ ] Cliché as hell
[x] Serviceable
[ ] Sympathetic or likeable enough that I don't want to hate them
[ ] Love to hate them

Plot
[x] Average, generic plot
[ ] Average plot made interesting with creativity
[ ] Crazy plot that is either so bad it’s good or just plain bad
[ ] Unique plot that keeps you interested

Writing
[ ] Terribly written
[ ] Very simple but effective language
[x] Average writing that does the job
[ ] Beautiful but accessible writing
[ ] Challenging

**Not so-short summary**:

Holy crap. Where do I begin with this?

The setting is post-Katrina New Orleans and revolves around the voodoo community and a murder that may be pointing to the wrong suspect. Our hero, Mambo Reina Dumond sets off to find out the truth of the matter.

The scenes where Reina is consulting a client are the most fascinating ones. A client has a problem, they discuss, she gives her thoughts and then comes up with a solution related to her craft. If the book were solely about little episodes like that (and if there is one like that, please let me know), it would be very interesting.

Uh....what else....

The character of Tyka seems engaging and sympathetic. She lives with her alcoholic father and has a knack for fighting and tracking people down.

And that’s the last of the praise I can give this book.

The other characters outside of that aren’t very interesting. The plot is nothing amazing and even with all the red herrings thrown in, I could tell who was the bad guy was after a second meeting between them and Reina. The writing is fine. There were a few bright spots in terms of quotes. There are few characters that seem integral to the plot that just show up once and disappear for the rest of the book. Likewise there are secrets revealed that don’t seem to add anything to the story other than to create unnecessary tension.

The main problem I have with the book is Reina’s relationship with Roman, her cop ex-boyfriend. He has NO redeemable qualities. He despises the voodoo community (which begs the question why live in New Orleans, the CAPITAL OF VOODOO!?!?!? Just move! You can be an asshole cop elsewhere). He hates them so much he has no problem taking a donation box from a voodoo event and using blatant intimidation to scare practitioners and affiliates.

Every time Reina and Roman had an interaction, I just lost more and more respect for Reina since he outright insults her religion to her face and hurts her own community. She says at one point:

“He was a devout Christian who never went to church but had no problem telling you what he thought was morally right or wrong. Breaking these rules himself somehow didn’t apply.”

YET she still considers him a good man. I think what she means he is good in bed because all this woman wants to do is bang him when she sees him. She cannot stay mad at him though he is damaging her community. MAKE IT MAKE SENSE.

I get relationships can be complicated - especially when the two people have different views on politics, religion, etc. - but this feels like an abusive relationship. He says he respects her but acts like he doesn’t. It just feels like the main character has no self-respect when it comes to this man so it just gets harder and harder to find her believable (suspension of belief be damned).

Her defending her religion against his anti-voodoo tirades regardless of how much she loves him doesn’t make her look strong. It doesn’t make him look vulnerable. It doesn’t make their relationship look like a complicated romance. It makes Reina look dumb as any other self-respecting person would just cut ties with someone like this. It makes Roman look like a complete asshole who just wants Reina to conform to his beliefs. It makes their relationship pointless.

I had to stop reading a few times and was about to drop this because I was getting so frustrated.

I’m really sad because in the first few pages of the book, I got drawn in so easily. I saw so much potential. Then it just went downhill. I can’t recommend this book at all.

This book is one I wish I had when I was a child.

The book is about a young black girl who is trying to figure out how to do her hair for an upcoming event. Her mom suggests she go and ask her aunties for help - the twist being that the aunties live on different planets.

Each aunt represents a different style of hair - twists, afros, dreadlocks, waves, etc. - and tries to do that to Stella’s hair. Moises even puts an explanation of why each aunt wears a certain hairstyle on their respective planet.

The art is so beautiful. The colors are wonderful and vibrant. I wish I read the physical copy instead of the kindle one. I may just go buy it.

It’s a short book but I feel like it is an important one for little black girls to know that their hair is great! You may have days where it feels like it’s doing it’s own thing but it’s fine. Your hair is beautiful no matter what. I would go on to say this book works for any young child of any background, really.

My only gripe: I grew up with Pluto as planet (and was my favorite one) so I’m sad they’re not represented in the book (RIP Pluto planetary status).

This is a children's book that I picked up due to the art.

The art is so adorable. It's simplistic in the shapes used but the colors and shading are so lovely.

The story itself is cute, amusing and has a simple moral.

My grip is I bought this on the kindle version and you can tell that they just took a pdf and converted it to a kindle format. The text looks horrible. The translation is kind of odd at some parts but not enough to ruin the gist of the story. 

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Short summary:
I liked this book. Alternate worlds are always cool. The idea of a secret library with people obsessed with books and hunting rare ones down is intriguing. I really liked Vale. 

Only a few things irked me:

Still an entertaining book and may take a gander at the rest of the series.