BOOK REVIEWS
YELLOWFACE
By R.F. Kuang
SYNOPSIS: June Hayward is a struggling author jealous of her more successful Yalie friend, Athena Liu. When a certain turn of events occur, June steps into the literary spotlight; but at what cost?
This book is smart and funny and provocative. R.F. Kuang interrogates the literary world, the publishing industry, and social media. She interrogates racism and raises questions about authenticity, cultural appropriation, authorship, and the creative process. The fictional novel reads like a memoir written by the fictional character, June, a white woman; but R.F. Kuang is continuously playing with genre and the expectations of her readers. The narrative voice is oftentimes unlikable, self-aggrandizing, and just an over-all “Karen” but at other times the narrative voice is smart, funny, and probing. This is the true talent of Kuang—constructing a fully immersive text that has continuous meta-commentary on creation, authorship, voice, and authenticity. As we move more and more into a post-post-modern world we have sometimes found ourselves trapped by our own desires for “authenticity” and finding the “authentic voice.” Our world has both expanded and contracted. Discourse has both opened and been closed off. Knowledge has become both more accessible and more limited. And this novel calls attention to it all.
KAIKEYI
By Vaishnavi Patel
“I was born on the full moon under an auspicious constellation, the holiest of positions—much good it did me.”
SYNOPSIS: Kaikeyi is the only girl born to the kingdom of Kekaya and is married off to the King of Ayodhya. Within the strict confines of patriarchy, Kaikeyi rises to a prominent position in court alongside her husband, builds a women’s council, and helps change the fate of women in her new kingdom.
I loved everything about this novel: the story is compelling, the writing is beautiful, the character of Kaikeyi is well developed, strong, and interesting. This is mythic retelling at its best for sure. Patel takes a despised woman of the Ramayana and gives her the fullness and richness she deserves. Rather than continuing to be resigned to the role of “evil stepmother” of Rama, Patel’s Kaikeyi has good intentions, power, strength, intellect, kindness, and a life that is all her own. For fans of Circe, The Silence of the Girls, Homefire…but also for fans of Children of Blood and Bone and The Gilded Ones.
DEMON COPPERHEAD
By Barbara Kingslover
SYNOPSIS: In this novel, Kingslover fascinatingly stitches together the incredible character portrait of Demon Copperhead. A bildingsroman that heavily alludes to David Copperfield by Dickens, this is a modern telling of an age-old story of coming-of-age amongst hardship and loss.
Honestly, there was a moment where I almost gave up on this book because I was going through a hard time in my personal life and reading about Demon’s hardships was almost too much. But I am so grateful I pushed forward at the encouragement of a friend because I really did become so invested in this incredible, flawed, courageous, humorous, tenacious character. Kingslover is an expert at her craft and her devotion to the literary legacy of Copperfield is something to admire, especially because she makes it all seem so fresh and new. Demon struggles and watching him struggle and watching him get through those struggles was hard but also I was rooting for him. I highly recommend reading this for yourself to watch a master at her craft create a deep character study.
OUR LITTLE WORLD
By Karen Winn
SYNOPSIS: Set in the ‘80s in a small, idyllic New Jersey town, Our Little World is a stunning coming-of-age novel with a looming mystery at its core. Soon-to-be seventh grader Bee and her sister, Audrina, are excited when Max and his little sister, Sally, move in across the street. But what begins as a usual fun-filled summer—playing kickball in their cul-de-sac and swimming at the local haunts—quickly turns dark when Sally goes missing at the town lake. In the aftermath, Bee and Audrina’s little world cracks, both inside the home—as secrets, guilt, and jealousy come between them—and outside of it, as the illusion of stability in their close-knit community is shattered.
This novel is part nostalgia, part a beautiful reflection of grief, part coming-of-age. Karen Winn is able to expertly inhabit the mind of a young middle-school aged girl, who is self focused, awkward, unsure, and lonely. The novel reminded me so much of what it felt like to be young and trying to figure out your place in your little world, while at the same time interpreting the relationships and people around you. Our Little World examines what it means to live in a small community, what it means to have a sister, what it means to be left in the wake of tragedy and grief, and what it means to go on.
I HAVE SOME QUESTIONS FOR YOU
By Rebecca Makkai
SYNOPSIS: Bodie Kane is a podcaster who has spent her career unearthing the stories of women when she goes back to her boarding school for a two week teaching gig. While there, Bodie is drawn back into the mysterious death of her junior-year roommate, Thalia Kieth. ⠀
This was a fun and exciting page-turner that kept me interested and offered a little bit of a different type of whodunnit. While offering the reader a murder-mystery, the book also interrogates our cultural fascination with true crime and the ethical implications of being a producer and/or consumer of this genre.
SEA OF TRANQUILITY
By Emily St. John Mandel
SYNOPSIS: Set in the future, a detective is hired to investigate an anomaly in the North American wilderness. While time jumping, Gaspery uncovers a series of lives upended but always connected. The Sea of Tranquility is a rumination about time, space, and the connections that exist between us, always.
Of the last three books written by this author, I actually find this latest installment to be a great surprise. While I enjoyed the limited series of Station Eleven and was intrigued by the story, I actually did not love the book itself. And The Glass Castle fell short for me. But Sea of Tranquility has hit the mark for me in so many ways. Emily St. John Mandel always has a preoccupation with connections and the ways in which characters's lives come into contact with each other in small and subtle ways. Here, this preoccupation is given even more depth through time travel. The author is able to use her story and characters to tap into the metaphysical and bring out deep questions about existence, reality, knowing, and ways of being.
CRYING IN H MART
By Michelle Zauner
In this memoir, Michelle Zauner recounts her mother's battle with cancer and her grief at such a profound loss. Through the lens of grief, Zauner crafts a beautifully emotional story about her family, identity, culture, food, and connection. This book made me remember tastes and smells from my own childhood and the connections of those tastes to my grandmother, who I lost just a year ago. Being mixed race Asian American like Zauner, her affective connections to Korean culture through her mother and food resonated so much for me and made me think of all the ways these same affective ties bind me to my own mother and grandmother. So much of my understanding of that part of my identity is tied to my mother, to the food, to the small every day intimacies of my home and the way that Zauner wrote about this loss broke me down and made me long for that same bowl of warm soup she describes in her book (mine would be a Hawaiian version of soup--saimin). At times in the earlier essays, the writing felt a bit repetitive but over the course of the memoir, Zauner found her footing. Her vulnerability and openness with her grief was palpable, at times, so raw it cut through to some of the deepest fears of bodily fragility we all hold down inside. In the end, I can't imagine what it took for Michelle Zauner put this to the page, to write through these feelings; but, I am grateful that she did it so I could feel these feels and find these connections.
PROJECT HAIL MARY
By Andy Weir
A man finds himself in space, alone, and unable to remember who he is or why he's there. Ryland Grace is on a last-chance mission to save the earth. Can he remember who he is, why he's there, and what he needs to do to complete his mission? This is an incredible story about discovery, survival, and humanity woven carefully together by an expert storyteller. For all the science fiction fans out there, this book is definitely for you. Weir weaves an adventure that unfolds slowly as both the reader and the protagonist unfurl the truth of the mission, the desperation that landed humanity in this position, and the hope the protagonist represents. Like Weir's other work, this novel felt crafted as a plausible scientific possibility in the distant future rather than a speculative improbability, which I attribute to the author's use of careful scientific data and information. I'm no scientist, but it felt real. This novel was a great escape and a compulsive read that I could not put down. One of the best books I read this year. Definitely recommending to everyone!
GIRLHOOD
By Melissa Febos
This is a spectacular set of essays examining the stories that women are told about what it means to be a girl, what it means to be a woman, in this world. Featuring personal narratives woven in with gender theory, psychoanalytic theory, and investigative reporting, Febos gives readers depth and breadth in this collection backed with scholarship. This book looks closely at all the ways in which young girls are told stories about themselves from media, from family, from friends, from the larger society that all work to shape the contours of what each girl thinks is possible or permissible both for what she can do and what can be done to her. This book offers a deep look into all the ways in which women sacrifice their bodies, their desires, their feelings, their comfort, their safety, their worth, their knowledge, their truth and what we can do to fight against the many ways that this occurs over a life. Bringing attention to the ways in which "girlhood" is formulated and all the messaging that women receive, Febos is accessing another fighting point for women against the confines of patriarchal structure. This is a must read. If you identify as a woman or if you love women and care about women, then you should read this. It is accessible and easy to read but full and deep.
HOW THE ONE-ARMED SISTER SWEEPS HER HOUSE
By Cherie Jones
On the island of Barbados, Lala lives with her husband, Adan, in the town of Baxter's Beach. After Adan's botched burglary of one of the beach villas, a chain reaction of terrible consequences ensues. Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2021. This book is an orchestra of voices that is both unrelenting and brave. While the book seems harsh and brutal for most of its breadth, dealing with dark and heavy incidences over and over again, it is also compelling and compulsive. While there seems to be little hope in Baxter's Beach, the author skillfully depicts the impact of violence and the cyclical nature of oppression. Through the carefully constructed ensemble of voices, the reader is able to see the author's indictment not of the individual characters themselves but the systems of colonialism, capitalism, and patriarchy that have entrapped them all.
THE MOUNTAINS SING
By Nguyen Phan Que Mai
Stringing together the history of their family, Húóng and her grandmother Diêu Lan intricately weave the story of their family with the history of Vietnam. Told from an intimate perspective, this novel depicts the heartaches and hopes of a family fighting to survive in a country ravaged by war and colonialism. Despite the traumas these women endure, the novel focuses on love, on family, and the beauty of hope. Many war novels focus on war, on trauma, on fighting, but this novel offers us love and strength and family instead. I loved how the author intertwined the stories of Guava and her grandmother, and used the strength of storytelling to carry on the history but also the hope of this family. What struck me most, was the immense love and strength of Diêu Lan who suffered greatly in her life but, in the end, was still able to offer love to her children and grandchildren. She was the heart of this novel for me and listening to her story made me miss my own grandmother immensely. While my grandmother and Diêu Lan had vastly different lives and experiences, Diêu Lan reminded me that there is so much about the lives of our elders that we do not know or understand, there is so much untold to us. I wish I could hear my grandmother’s story the way in which Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai was able to tell the story of Diêu Lan.
BEAUTIFUL WORLD, WHERE ARE YOU
By Sally Rooney
Alice is taking solace in a small town where she meets Felix on a dating app. Eileen is living in Dublin and unsure of where she is in her life. As the two women write to each other and go on about their lives, they each find some beauty and love in the world. Sally Rooney has definitely developed a distinct writing style that is able to capture so much of the way people interact. Just like her other books, Rooney is able to unfold her characters before us slowly and intimately over time. Nothing is rushed. Nothing is without purpose. The connection we find at the end of the novel is indicative of Rooney’s carefully orchestrated ensemble. While I loved a lot of this book, there were many times where the “problems” these women faced (which were big to them) were problems of privilege without always a recognition of that privilege. I think sometimes the author tried to acknowledge that position of her characters but it often failed for me.
YOLK
By Mary H.K Choi
Two estranged sisters living in NYC are brought back together after the one is diagnosed with cancer. As they slowly begin to see each other in new ways , they soon realize that they need each other more than they could’ve ever thought. This book took on ideas of perception: of seeing, being seen, hiding oneself, recognition, seeing oneself in so many real and visceral ways. I felt Jayne and I felt June. I felt their misperceptions and their secrets. I felt their insecurity and their desire for recognition. I felt their love and their hate for each other. I felt all the feels while I read this book and so much more. This book lifted me up and gave me a hug when I needed it, gave me a cathartic cry when I needed it, and made my heart swoon when I needed it.
THE LAST THING HE TOLD ME
By Laura Dave
Owen disappears leaving his wife a note with the words: protect her. While Hannah doesn’t fully grasp what has happened to her husband, she quickly understands Owen’s note. What unfolds as Hannah does her best to follow Owen’s wishes is a page-turning novel of buried truths.This book made a great vacation read and kept my interest, especially in the second half of the book. I liked that the author tried to subvert some of the domestic genre’s gender trappings but I found myself wanting more depth or development along the way. This will definitely make a great limited tv series, but it lacked a bit for me as a novel.
THE PAPER PALACE
By Miranda Cowley Heller
For Elle, the back woods of the Cape hold all her history and all her secrets. As she summers with her family, Elle is confronted with her past and forced to reconcile her feelings of love and loss in this place. What unfolds is a story of family, love, lust, friendship, heartache, loss.
This book was a great, fast-paced read that actually had some bigger issues under the surface. It’s been a minute since I felt obsessed with a story but I couldn’t put this book down. Now, it’s definitely not one of my usual-type reads that tackle social, political, racial, historical issues but it was (for me) just what I needed for the end of the summer. The writing was vivid and the author was able to expertly create this incredible back woods scene.
DETRANSITION BABY
By Torrey Peters
This novel follows the interconnected stories of Reese, Ames, and Katrina who are all navigating the complexities of womanhood, gender, pregnancy, and kinship. This book is so full and complex and surprisingly witty, but what I loved the most was how fully realized and well developed the characters were. When you begin the novel, you are given one perspective of each character that could easily be all that they are, but over the course of the novel Torrey Peters carefully unfolds all the deep intricacies that make each character who they are. Revealed piece by piece through vignettes about certain pivotal experiences in their pasts or present, Torrey Peters is able to achieve an intimacy between reader and characters that mirrors the intimacy that comes over time in real relationships. Through the writing, Peters slowly breaks down each character's defenses to reveal the most real desires and dreams, insecurities, pain, and love.
INFINITE COUNTRY
By Patricia Engel
After the birth of their first child, Mauro takes his family from their home in Colombia to the United States. The family moves as Mauro tries to find work, but the family isn’t able to find the stability it seeks. After having more children, Mauro and Elena make the hard decision to stay beyond their visas leaving them even more vulnerable as they inhabit an undocumented status. When Mauro is deported, the family becomes split by the borders of the countries they call home. Engel has a beautiful writing style that creates vivid images for her readers. Although the book is short, there is so much packed into its pages and each character is developed and full. Patricia Engel is also able to use her prose to bring into focus a real story of migration that focuses on the struggles that individuals face when they find themselves contained and restrained both in Columbia and the U.S. by larger political issues, and pulled to multiple places that are considered home. Engel problematizes the idea of an “American dream” and the pull and push of migration itself, as well as how borders and boundaries (which are geo-political) affect the actual lives and experiences of people and families.
OUTLAWED
By Anna North
In the 1890s of this slightly dystopian history, women are only as good as their ability to birth children. Being barren means being a witch and being outcasted from your family. Ava, is a trained as a midwife by her mother but unable to have children of her own. Without pregnancy, she is suspected of witchcraft forcing her to run away in the hopes of escaping punishment. The novel is her journey in this Wild West to find and make a place for herself outside the law. This story was fun and quick to read. Ava’s skill set as a midwife led her to be curious and driven to find answers for herself in a world where medicine and law are being defined and written by men. The novel also subverts the typical western narrative of patriarchy and masculinity through its attention to the outcasted women of the society.
While the novel did critique our culture’s own patriarchal obsession with the Wild West, it also missed some very real and complex issues of settler colonialism and racism that are also part of that narrative history. Focusing almost exclusively on a sort of gender play, the novel misses some real opportunities to not only intersect other issues like race or class; but also fails to fully enact its critique of gendered history itself. Even some of its best moments feel like they still don’t push hard enough for me at the type of criticism that could be there. I think that is a personal preference, though, because those are the types of books I tend to like. This is still a fun story that does bring up some good issues about our patriarchal history that I think many readers would enjoy.⠀⠀
Transcendent kingdom
by Yaa Gyasi
Quick Review: A beautiful contemplation of the human mind.
Transcendent Kingdom is the second novel by Yaa Gyasi. If you’re looking for another Homegoing this is not it; not because this book isn’t compelling or well crafted, but rather this novel is its own beautiful work. Slow to start but worth staying with, Transcendent Kingdom is the story of Gifty, a young PhD student, who sifts through grief as she looks to both science and God for understanding. Growing up in Alabama, Gifty must find herself through the shame and repression of her religious upbringing and negotiate her Ghanaian identity through the American lens of race and nation. This book spent time with the psychoanalytic theories of Judith Butler, Freud, Lacan. It spent time with ideas of Transcendentalism. It spent time with ideas and questions of faith and loss and mourning. It spent time with science and biology. This book worked through so many complex issues in such a slow and purposeful way. Although at times, the story stagnated for me as a reader I now appreciate the slow unravelling of Gifty’s development because I think it so adequately represents how each of us is forever changed through grief and all the small moments that make up our life and identity. Just like in Homegoing, Gyasi is able to show the reader just how much of our sense of self is developed in our relation to those around us.
leave the world behind
by Rumaan Alam
Quick Review: Mysterious and magnetic.
Nominated for the National Book Award, Rumaan Alam’s book is anything but your conventional story. Looking for some time away from the city, Clay and Amanda take their children to a remote part of Long Island for a family vacation. Just as they start to settle in, to really relax, their carefree vacation is cut short when their cell phones go out. What unfolds is mysterious and magnetic story about two families who find themselves together trying to make sense of their circumstances. I could not put this book down. I consumed this book. I couldn’t get enough of this book while I was reading it. I was definitely in it for the mysterious story (the plot). But more interesting to me, was Ranaam Alam’s writing style and the ways in which he was able to fully develop these characters across the entire novel. There was a sort of magnetism in Alam’s writing itself, in the way he unfolded the plot and the characters in a slow and decisive way. Alam was also able to bring out so many discussions about race, privilege, our dependency on technology, our loss of the natural world. Many readers may find that the unconventional story does not work for them, since we are often invested in resolution and conventional narratives. Leave The World Behind is definitely not conventional, but that is its beauty in my opinion.
the undocumented americans
by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
Quick Review: Read it now!
Nominated for the National Book Award, The Undocumented Americans is a work of creative nonfiction that tells the stories of undocumented people across the U.S. After bravely writing about her own undocumented status, Karla Cornejo Villavicencio travels the country to interview other undocumented people and shares their stories through a blend of journalism and personal narrative. Karla Cornejo Villavicencio has an ability to portray the people in her book with all the complexities of human life. Each person she writes about comes fully alive. Through these stories, readers are able to see the deep impact of immigration policies, deportation policies, citizenship laws; the impact on Brown bodies of years of labor and poor working conditions; the abuse and use of undocumented people for the labor they provide. The ways in which undocumented people are treated in this country is really inhumane; and while this book highlights the the treatment of undocumented people, it also humanizes the experiences of people who are undocumented in a way that other writing or media attention has not.
This book is a must read in my opinion.
Mexican Gothic
by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Quick Review: Quick and thrilling.
After a sudden plea for help, a young socialite from Mexico City sets off to rescue her cousin in the countryside. Mexican Gothic is dark and mysterious and brilliant. Paying homage to gothic romances of the past, this book expands and critiques the limits of the genre while exposing the horrific terror of colonialism. Mexican Gothic pays homage (with a twist!) to many of the "classic" historical gothic romances of the past. Moreno-Garcia brilliantly plays not only with the conventions of the Gothic genre, but more importantly uses the literary allusions of Gothic "classics" like Dracula, The Turn of the Screw, and The Yellow Wallpaper to make insightful critiques about the interconnected web of patriarchy, capitalism, and colonialism. Noemi is not just a heroine in the story. She is rewriting an entire legacy of a literary genre that has historically hinged on the portrayal of women's minds.
Caste: the origins of our discontents
by Isabel Wilkerson
Quick Review: An insightful addition to discourses of race in the U.S.
In her second book, Isabel Wilkerson argues that American society is haunted by a system of caste that regulates our daily life and interactions. By defining and detailing, what she defines as, pillars of caste operating in India and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson demonstrates how these pillars also exist in the U.S. Caste is a powerful treatise of the systems and structures of hierarchy in the United States through the lens of caste. Wilkerson details and defines specific attributes of caste systems and then demonstrates how these markers can be found in the U.S. racial system. Wilkerson's argument is clear and her journalistic mastery is used to provide personalized stories that demonstrate and depict her larger theoretical points. At times, Wilkerson sacrifices some of the complex ways that race, socio-economics and class, gender, sexuality, nationality, and other intersectional identities also play into and complicate racial dynamics and identities within the U.S. That is not to say that her argument isn't valid or that it doesn't add the theoretical discussions of race in America, but I think it is important to understand Wilkerson's work as a part of a much larger discourse on race in America. This book is definitely worth the read and makes some very compelling points about caste systems and how caste can be a framework for understanding race in the U.S.
THE BOOK OF V.
by Anna Solomon
Quick Review: So much potential
Anna Solomon's The Book of V weaves together the story of women spanning across time and space. In this feminist reworking of the Biblical story of Esther, Solomon imagines the empty space of Esther's story, Queen Vashti, and brings the story forth into contemporary time. The ancient story of Esther and Vashti was retold to focus on the imagined reality for women within this ancient kingdom. Esther has always been the focus, praised for saving the Jews, but Solomon constructs a more nuanced version in which feminine power is both limited and harnessed into action. One of the greatest accomplishments of the book is to understand the empty space of the female in this Biblical story. While the ancient story felt the most provocative to me, the contemporary stories fell flat. The women in the modern-day stories lacked the awe and power of the women in the ancient story. Both contemporary women were privileged in various ways and the "problematic situations" they found themselves felt benign and not well developed. I wanted so much more for these women.
Girl, woman, other
by Bernardine Evaristo
Quick Review: Read it!
Girl, Woman, Other won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction last year alongside The Testaments by Margaret Atwood. While both books tackle feminist issues, Girl, Woman,Other delivers a wider social commentary tackling a myraid of complex intersections that real individuals face. The book is also shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction this year. And, it is definitely deserving of all these honors. Evaristo has constructed a book that depicts the diversity and vibrance of the lives of British female bodies. Readers are introduced to a brilliant cast of characters from radical feminist artists, to young female teenagers, transgender social media stars, older women in rural areas, lesbian women on communes, high powered professionals women, teachers, new immigrants, service industry workers, mothers, daughters, lovers, friends.
Focusing on these interconnected narratives, readers must reconsider that even the marginalized categories of identity—Girl, Woman, Other—are filled with the diverse lives of real people and cannot be contained within a single identity category. Evaristo is able to draw the reader into the minds of her characters and fully develop a unique voice and way of thinking for all the different people we meet.
Bottom line, I loved this book.
Godshot
by Chelsea Bieker
Quick Review: East to get into.
Godshot is a story about girlhood, poverty, faith, and....a cult. I don't know about you, but anything with a cult involved and I'm immediately interested. Wild, Wild, Country....Helter Skelter...Bikram (on Netflix)....I'm all in! I think I'm drawn to understanding the human psyche and what people will do in the name of faith, as well as what types of people take advantage of those who want to, or need to, believe in something.
This book is more than just a book about a cult and their leader. It is a book about what it means to be a woman and a mother, the confusion and isolation of girlhood in a patriarchal world, and how to find your own understanding of faith. While some themes and metaphors seemed a bit on the nose, overall, this was an entertaining read.
The Vanishing Half
by Brit Bennett
Quick Review: MUST READ!
The Vanishing Half is the story of two identical twins who live completely divergent lives. Born in a small Southern town, the Vignes twins set off together to New Orleans and end up going along on different paths.
Writing within a long literary history of the trope of racial passing, Brit Bennett reimagines this trope and uncouples the trope itself from its past associations of "tragedy." What the reader comes away with is a fresh understanding of the ways in which categories of race and gender are socially constructed. Bennett has said herself, along with many other scholars, that to say racial categories are socially constructed is not the same as saying that race isn't real. The literary trope of passing has always worked as a destabilization to the essentialist understandings of race (that is that race is biological and categories are inherent) because it shows that racial or gendered identity can be performed. But, in her novel Bennett is also careful to show the ways in which the meanings of gender and racial categories are reiterated over and over, the ways they are reinforced through institutions and laws and even everyday interactions.
This book is one of the best books that I have read in 2020. I highly suggest that you read it, review it, recommend it.
interior chinatown
by Charles Yu
Charles Yu has crafted a genre blending, humorous critique on race relations, stereotypes, and the status of Asian/America.
What I liked about this book was its meta commentary of the role of Asian/Americans in the racial story of Black and White in America. It offers up some real insights into the limiting stories and damage of stereotypes. Yu shows readers how media representations of racial stereotypes create real life limitations.
Sometimes this book felt a bit too obvious for me and some monologues in the text felt like overkill. I think I would’ve appreciated more nuance. However, Yu was able to take some big theoretical concepts and craft them into a screenplay that felt easy to read despite its heavy social commentary.
Such a fun age
by Kiley Reid
Such a Fun Age centers around Emira Tucker being accused of kidnapping the little girl she babysits. What unfolds is a story of Emira and her privileged employer, Alix, as they both struggle to discover who they want to be.
What I loved about this book was the way in which it highlighted the pervasiveness of racism in society. Reid is able to show how racism can underwrite even well-intentioned actions by focusing on microaggressions—the small moments of verbal or behavioral, be they intentional or unintentional, that communicate deragatory, hostile, or negative prejudicial ideas.
Even while covering heavy ideas of race and class privilege, the book remains easy to read. I was drawn in by both the characters and the story. We are able to see how both women struggle to come to terms with themselves and find a space for who they are now, without sacrificing important messages about race and class. However, I do believe that the ease of the book also keeps the reader from fully engaging in examining how he/she may also be enacting microaggressions of class and race in his/her everyday life.
Stony the road:reconstruction, white supremacy and the rise of jim crow
by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow takes a historical look at at the time after the abolition of slavery up through the Harlem Renaissance. Focusing specifically on visual culture of the time period, Gates traces how white supremacist ideas rolled back the advancements made in the period of Reconstruction and set the stage for one of the most violent periods in African American history and codified anti-Black racism through Jim Crow.
In addition, Gates traces how Black intellectuals used the concept of “The New Negro” to battle structural racism and demand that America recognize the humanity of Black people.
What I loved about this book was Gates’s usual methodical tracing of history looking at the ways in which concepts and ideologies can be traced not only in the past but up into our present time. By showing us how anti-Black racism became codified through the time known as Reformation as a reaction to the advancements made with the abolition of slavery, Gates draws parallels to the current threads of anti-Black racism today.
The book also has an incredible index of images from the time of Reconstruction, Reformation, and Jim Crow depicting the visual culture of the periods.