This was fantastic! Definitely a mystery/thriller, but with a lovely slow burn that let the tensions simmer throughout. Lexie Elliott gave us complexly unlikable characters with real depth that had me rooting for them all the way through, as she tells the story of six friends from university and their involvement in a murder investigation. I really liked that the mystery is about Severine's death, but the novel is not at all about Severine. Kate was great as a narrative voice because she was smart and sharp but not infallible. It's interesting that I wouldn't call the plot twisty, but I wouldn't call it predictable either, and the ending tied things together, but not too neatly. Congrats to Lexie Elliott!

This was a beautifully written, highly detailed, fictionalized account of the life of Ada Byron King, Countess of Lovelace, credited by many as the first to write a computer program. Kudos to the author on her detailed research into the life of Ada and the diligence with which she laid out Ada's life for us. However, the book got tedious at times, particularly in the early chapters which describe Ada's infancy and childhood at great length. I would have been totally fine if this book were a hundred pages shorter.

I believe that part of the violence of our culture stirs from the myth that kindness is natural. I don't think kindness is natural. I think kindness would only be natural in a world where no one is hurt, and everyone is hurt. So kindness is work. Kindness is our knees in the garden weeding our bites, our apathies, our cold shoulders, our silences, our cruelties, whatever taught us the word "ugly."

Take me with you is an eclectic compilation of thoughts: poetry, snippets, very short essays, on the themes of love, the world and becoming. Andrea tackles love, queerness, mental health with insightful words that beautifully capture the human experience. It's a quick read, with lots of little bits to make you pause and reflect on the author's words, so you might end up taking your time and making your way through it a few pages at a time.

I received an e-galley of this book through the Penguin First to Read program, but I was not obligated to review it here.

The poems here run the gamut of the (American) black male experience, touching everything from respectability politics, police brutality, love, emotion, racism, family, and the American dream. So real.

Stunning.

Reading this gave me the same feeling that you get walking through a modern art exhibit. The pieces are distinctly different and cool and weird and all uniquely beautiful, with a sometimes-intangible undertone running beneath them. You keep glancing back at them, taking a second or third look, because each time you notice something different, and yet still each glance takes your breath away as if it were the first time all over again. Eve Ewing has sculpted and crafted and painted representations of her own life, and life in Chicago with the various poems and short short stories and ephemera that she has compiled into this work of art.

Amazing. Heartbreaking. Uplifting.

Thought-provoking, and still timely more than 50 years later. Baldwin writes of blackness and the black experience in America in a scathing and honest and oh so lyrically elegant way.

I'm not sure how I came across this poetry collection by Tapiwa Mugabe, but I'm glad that I did. The poems were short to medium length and span the breadth of human existence, particularly existence as a foreigner, the complexities of love, the threads of family relationships and the concept of home. Some of them were experiences that were completely unlike mine but still gripped me with the depth of emotion. Others were so like my experiences that I felt that they were written just for me. I also really liked that a few of the poems (maybe 2 or 3?) were not in English and the author offered no translation, explanation, or apology for this.

Here's a snippet of the titular poem, Zimbabwe:
Brown clouds filling the light summer evening
with the taste of dirt in my mouth and
my nostrils filling up with the smell of home
(a fragrance I didn't yet know I will one day hunger for).