- Hell Of A Book by Jason Mott–Where to even begin with this one. The book follows two characters in alternating chapters. One is an author who is on a book tour, burnt out and disallusioned by his new-found fame. He is also dealing with a condition where he has trouble telling reality from imagination and not being able to face his past, especially when it comes to the death of his parents and his childhood, growing up poor and black in the deep south. The other character is a boy who is extremely dark skinned, is somehow existing in a world of limbo, and visits the author frequently, after being killed by the police. I’m sure this synopsis is hard to understand. I could go more into detail, but that would be even mroe convoluted. The book, however, is a rare work of art. It definitely deals with issues of race. But what it really gets at is the hard work of seeing people for they really are, beyond the facades we put up and the way others percieve us. Read it!
- The Rose Code by Kate Quinn. Finished 6/18/24. Interesting one here. The story about this group of code breakers, turns into much more as it is also a story of women being ignored for heroic accomplishments and having to sacrifice sometimes all the believe in for the sake of the greater good. On this level, I really found these three women and the ways they dealt with their struggles to be be fascinating. However, there’s a howevber, at it’s worst the book turns into these three women finding happness in the most contrived way. it’s a good story, but could have been so much better if it didn’t see itself short.
- Behold The Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue–Finished 7/1/2r4A Cameroon couple who came to America on visas that are running out, are working for an Affluent American family who are tied to Lehman Brothers during the great financial crises. I was totally engaged in this family from Cameroon just trying to play the game by the rules in America and finding that even when you do everything as expexted, it can still fall arpart. Without giving away too much, hopefully, there was an issue I had with the book, and how it deals with a husband becoming abusive to his wife, as his dreams fade. The book tries to remedy this by acknowledging a strong feminist viewpoint, at times, and also a reminder of how partriarchal Cameroon is. Still, it made really difficult for me to empathize with a husband who has no problem destroying his partners’s dream.