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The Fire This Time. Police brutality and systemic racism are plaguing the United States as if we hadn’t gone through the Civil Rights movement. I living in France, a country without worry or anxiety when I go out, don’t have to face so much overt racism, nor too many microagressions, sit and liste
n to the countless horrific cases of police brutality ending in fatality. I am almost fifty years old and am proud to have seen a black president and hopefully a female one. However the hate crimes, police brutality, and systemic racism I fear I won’t see an end before my death.
Jesmyn Ward compiled a series of poignant essays called, The Fire This Time, that each explore the difficulty that black Americans are having today concerning race. Some Americans may not even be aware of these difficulties that are well known to black Americans. The subjects in this collection range from the role of the black father, to Phillis Wheatly, to preserving our dead, to to simply walking. Each essay is just as important as the other. There are important lessons to be learned through this read by ALL Americans. It is a must read. We can all learn something from The Fire this Time. For example, I hadn’t heard about the Know Your Rights murals informing citizens of their rights when confronted with the police. I also hadn’t heard about the remains of slaves found in the New England area that have been conveniently paved over and left to be forgotten.
Powerful, informative, and moving The Fire this Time will make you think and sadden your heart. It will make you wonder why and where have we gone wrong and why do some Americans not feel that there’s anything wrong about all these recent events which have been going on for longer than a few years. “What Baldwin understood is that to be black in America is to have the demand for dignity be at absolute odds with the national anthem.”(The Fire This Time, )
Another important essay is by Garnett Cadoan. Since when is it a crime to walk. Apparently only if one is black is it a problem. As a matter of fact a black man running, walking, and waiting on street corners for friends can get him into trouble and in some cases killed. “Walking while black restricts the experience of walking, renders in accessible the classic Romantic experience of walking alone.”(The Fire This Time, Black and blue by Garnette Cadogan)
If you don’t pick up Between the World and Me, I get it, but definitely check out this 5-star collection containing essays from important writers such as Edwidge Danticat, Jesmyn Ward, Mitchell S. Jackson, Claudia Rankine, Isabel Wilkerson, and many more.
My copy: The Fire This Time, ebook 240 pages
Rating: *****
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The Blackbirds is the latest release from Eric Jerome Dickey, known for writing contemporary novels about African-American life. Naughtier than Nice, the sequel to Naughty or Nice and One Night, a standalone were the last two novels he published in 2015. For me, It’s been a while since I’ve read anything from him so I sort of knew what I was going to be getting into with this one. Exquisite cover, 400 plus pages, this is that “girlfriend book” that everybody has been anticipating this 2016.
Four best friends as close as sisters, Kwanzaa, Ericka, Destiny, and Indigo are all trying to find love and solutions to their personal quandaries. The novel is plot driven like only Dickey knows how to do. He has his writing formula down to a science. It’s funny, zany, sexy, over the top, heartbreaking, and explanatory. Dickey has found a way to balance what would be considered a typical urban erotica novel, while packing it with loads of social commentary. He makes references to all sorts of incidents from police brutality to political to social media, etc. The Blackbirds is brimful of urban expressions and millennial lingo, so if you’re not hip to the groove I suggest you read it with the urban dictionary open.
The themes seem to be typical of what Dickey writes – sexuality, homosexuality, male/female – mother/daughter – father/daughter relationships, cheating, female friendships, illness, etc. It touches on just about everything. The thing that surprised me the most was the quantity of sex in the novel. I knew it would contain sex but not to that extent. Sex scenes took over the story in the second and third parts of the novel. So if you have a problem with reading erotica, this won’t be the book for you. Surprisingly, there is no mention on the stunning cover about the novel being erotica, but when you look on the inside flap it’s written at the top in red. Now this has intrigued me because when books are written by white authors they always put some kind of trigger warning that it contains copious amounts of sex, etc. So I’m wondering how is it that this novel has no mention of it on the front cover. Could it be that Dutton thought that the way the book was going to be marketed that only black readers would be interested in it? Or is it that Dutton assumed that black readers like reading about sex so no need to point out the obvious? Or maybe it’s just that Dutton doesn’t think that white readers will go for this one anyway because essentially it will be in the black interests section in Barnes & Noble, so no need?
To exacerbate my previous questions, I saw a comment made in the review section of Goodreads where a white man said he was disappointed by The Blackbirds. “He said he had to quit before he plucked out his eyes and that it was dreadful. He then commented that he was obviously not the the target audience and moreover he thought Dickey’s talent would shine through. Alas!” (Goodreads user) I didn’t realize the reader had to be the target audience to enjoy a book. That’s a new one for me. Granted, Dickey’s book isn’t 5-star in my opinion, but it isn’t totally bad either. If anything he’s guilty of, it is of sensationalizing his book with too much sex and trying to develop too many story lines at once; which I believe is always a trap when there are several main characters. For instance, there are a few story lines which are thrown together quickly to end the book just over 500 pages. Those story lines should have been treated with more care, but instead their development was bypassed for some juicy sex scenes, which made the last 200 pages feel rushed.
Nevertheless, The Blackbirds is a nice escape read that titillates, amuses, makes you smile, makes the head shake, and the mind say Amen (at times). It’s loud, hysterical, ratchet, violent, sexy, etc. It’s a story that reads quickly, plot developing as well as characters growing. It’s definitely worth picking up if you want erotica with a bit more real storyline. EL James could take a few pointers from Eric Jerome Dickey. I’m just sayin’ y’all. 😉
My copy: The Blackbirds – hardcover, 508 pages
Rating: ***
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My copy: The Book of Harlan – hardcover, 346 pages
Rating: *****
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If you don’t know how much mad love I have for Crystal Wilkinson’s writing, you’re going to hear all about it in this review of The Birds of Opulence, newly released in March 2016. The story explores life in small town Opulence, focalizing on the Goode-Brown family. The four generations of women, led by the spirited and strong-minded Minnie Mae.
The novel explores themes of womanhood, coming of age, mental illness, duty, and life. Wilkinson introduces the characters, while planting the seed of this town and the culture that resides there. The atmosphere Wilkinson cultivates will seize you and bring you along for the ride right from page one. This is what is so incredible about her storytelling aptitude. I was mentioning this to Andi from Estella’s Revenge and she said that she loved when that happened because a lot of authors don’t seem to know how to do that. I gave that a long hard thought and I have to agree with her. It isn’t easy to create an atmosphere and to maintain it throughout the story.
The descriptions of Opulence’s beautiful countryside, from the different women and the tests of life they go through, to the food, and the memories they recount, the story gives off deep meaning on many levels in very few pages. As you may have guessed the birds are the principal women in the book. We read about the the older women in the story and then we go full circle to the stories of their daughters. Another interesting aspect is that Wilkinson has brought in characters from her previous connected short story collection called Water Street, which I reviewed and also loved. So we have the chance to see Mona and Yolanda in The Birds of Opulence growing up and becoming young women, whereas in Water Street we only see them as women and one episode which is a memory is reality in The Birds of Opulence. We also understand their how they become friends and their connection to each other which is not explained in detail in Water Street.
“Boy give you less to worry about.” (The Birds of Opulence, p. 5) is the phrase that rings like an alarm through the entire book, uttered by Minnie Mae. Women and men aren’t equal in life’s challenges as much as we would like that to be the contrary and we witness the many injustices that happen to the different female characters. However tragic these stories, there is still a silver lining despite its bittersweetness and an entryway to more future stories about the people of Opulence.
I encourage you all to check out Crystal Wilkinson’s other short story collections Blackberries, Blackberries and Water Street. Her sensitive realistic writing style will suck you in and you won’t be able to put the book down. The Birds of Opulence is a perfect puzzle piece to her previous work and I look forward to seeing what she writes next. Who knows maybe we’ll get to learn even more about Mona….
My copy: The Birds of Opulence – hardcover, 199 pages
Rating: ****
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Day 29 – A Few Favorite Books from Last Year Today’s the last day of Black History Month but certainly not the last day of #ReadSoulLit. I encourage all of you to keep posting and talking about books by black authors, while using #ReadSoulLit! Thanks to you all for supporting and participating…
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Day 28 – Favorite Cover I had to put up this beautiful cover of the Middle Grade novel about the Gaither sisters from the series of that name. I first read One Crazy Summer four years ago and loved. It’s the first novel in this trilogy and is followed by P.S. Be Eleven and Gone Crazy in Alabama. This is a great little series for children learning about
African-American issues, history, and most of all with relatable characters. I recommend this for children ages 8-12 years old. How could anyone resist that cover?! The person behind the cover is an artist named Frank Morrison. Click his name to find out more about him. Awesome stuff!
“Newbery Honor winner and New York Times bestselling author Rita Williams-Garcia tells the story of the Gaither sisters, who are about to learn what it’s like to be fish out of water as they travel from the streets of Brooklyn to the rural South for the summer of a lifetime.
Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern are off to Alabama to visit their grandmother, Big Ma, and her mother, Ma Charles. Across the way lives Ma Charles’s half sister, Miss Trotter. The two half sisters haven’t spoken in years. As Delphine hears about her family history, she uncovers the surprising truth that’s been keeping the sisters apart. But when tragedy strikes, Delphine discovers that the bonds of family run deeper than she ever knew possible.
Powerful and humorous, this companion to the award-winning One Crazy Summer and P.S. Be Eleven will be enjoyed by fans of the first two books as well as by readers meeting these memorable sisters for the first time.” (Gone Crazy in Alabama, inside cover)
My copy: Gone Crazy in Alabama, hardcover 289 pages
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Day 27 – Book Spine Poetry 
Blacks – Gwendolyn Brooks
Some Sing, Some Cry – Ntosake Shange & Ifa Bayeza
Life in Motion – Misty Copeland
Crossing the Mangrove – Maryse Condé
The Chosen Place, The Timeless People – Paule Marshall
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Day 26 – Recommended to you I had to pick The Street by Ann Petry. It was recommended to me by Girl Danielle from OneSmallPaw on You Tube, who’s co-hosting this photo 
challenge with me.
“THE STREET tells the poignant, often heartbreaking story of Lutie Johnson, a young black woman, and her spirited struggle to raise her son amid the violence, poverty, and racial dissonance of Harlem in the late 1940s. Originally published in 1946 and hailed by critics as a masterwork, The Street was Ann Petry’s first novel, a beloved bestseller with more than a million copies in print. Its haunting tale still resonates today.” (The Street, Goodreads description)
My copy: The Street, paperback 448 pages
Check out Danielle’s review of The Street
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFYuw3EZftw
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Day 25 – Most Read Author Toni Morrison, the Queen, is my most read author. I’ve read everything except Paradise, Love, and God Help the Child. I’ll need to get on to reading these three really soon since I’v heard through the grapevine that she’s working on a new book titled Justice. Sounds intriguing….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyA8ASbYrpQ
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