blessing_aj's reviews
379 reviews

If You Want to Make God Laugh by Bianca Marais
Did not finish book. Stopped at 59%.

I Am Still With You: A Reckoning with Silence, Inheritance, and History by Emmanuel Iduma

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

4.5

In I’m Still With You, Emmanuel Iduma sets out on a mission to unearth the mysteries surrounding the life and times of his uncle and namesake who died during the Biafran War, reportedly. The timeline of his research, begins in 2020, at the peak of the END SARS protests and somewhere along the line, his research also coincides with the Nigerian government’s attempts to clamp down on the IPOB movement in the south eastern parts of the country.

Just as the title on the U.S. publication says, this memoir is a reckoning with silence, inheritance and history and it spoke to me on so many levels. The first being that like the author, I am part of the generation that did not witness the war, but has inherited this uncomfortable silence and general vagueness as a default response to any question regarding that period and is therefore always willing to learn what I can from any available,credible source - Of which this particular book has become one. The second has to do with interpersonal relationships in the family and how that impacts our lives in ways beyond our understanding.

I genuinely loved every passage where he spoke of the tender loving friendship and companionship of his wife, not just because she’s one of my favorite authors in the world but you can almost feel the reciprocity of his affection and just how much he has been blessed by it. 

I love that there are so many theories about the inspiration for the title that can be inferred from the contents of this memoir, and that he does steer the reader’s mind towards one, but I also think that it’s beautiful that the title appears to be in conversation with the title of his wife’s debut novel. A conversation as heartwarmingly reassuring as the love they both share.

Fifth Avenue Glamour Girl by Renée Rosen

adventurous emotional informative inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This was a good read. Long-winded but understandably so, because it’s historical fiction and because all the seemingly odd pieces fit in perfectly by the time the story was over. 

I tried my best to understand Gloria and her refusal to extend as much grace to her father and herself as she did to other people and I got it, to an extent, and then I just couldn’t. This alongside the corny coincidences and the poor integration of Lee Israel’s interaction with Gloria, we’re the only cringe worthy moments I experienced while reading this. 

 I loved everything else and especially the fact that even though Estee’s tenacity was the driving force of the novel, it didn’t overshadow Gloria who is supposedly the character that should matter more to the reader. Its such a clever way to reinvent the story of a person with such a large personality as Estée Lauder.

Fevered Star by Rebecca Roanhorse

adventurous challenging dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

So much to love about this book, yet so many things irked as well. The world building was fantastic but the character development, pacing and plot were flawed. I love that it got much better towards the middle but that ending could have been handled better.

Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

adventurous dark tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This was quite the adventurous read. Roanhorse is a fabulous storyteller, so I loved it. However,  the ending fell very flat.

Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi

emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

How does a woman, born without any form of privilege survive in a world that has been designed to eat her alive, without pandering to whims and caprices of the ones who pose the greatest threat to her existence and without resorting to violence as both a preventive and defensive measure?

Herein lies the transformative power of a story, fictional or true; that fifty one years post publication, Firadus’ voice reverberates, urging women to resist as many claims as the world wants to make on our minds, bodies and power. What else is there to say?

Small Worlds by Caleb Azumah Nelson

emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

In Small Worlds, Azumah explores identity, home and love through Stephen, a young Ghanaian-British male character, who is trying to figure out what to make of his life. However, because of Azumah’s writing style, it is much more than a novel about how Stephen perceives himself as well as how his relationships and circumstances shape his life trajectory.

Somewhere in the book, Stephen reflects on the existence of gaps where language fails us, in our bid to communicate with people. But it appears that Azumah found a way to fill this gap after all, because he did some remarkable things with language in Small Worlds because the writing transcends beauty and shoots straight for the heart, and made me feel things I didn’t even know a book could do. I can’t even get into how many gorgeous quotes, I highlighted in my copy.

At the end of the day, the world as we experience it is much smaller than it is, and Small Worlds reminded me of that, in the most beautiful way.

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

adventurous dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This was a very engaging read. I loved the idea of the story and the fact that it felt like it moved at a faster pace than it was actually unfolding. 

I can see how this series would have YA’s in a chokehold. However, probably because I am a of a much older audience than those this book must have been intended for, I kept running into things that ruined the thrill for me. even though I really want to know what happens in book #2, I’m not sure if I’ll be reading that anytime soon.

The Street by Ann Petry

dark informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

A classic for a reason. I keep coming back for that first page description , but ended up reading the whole thing, this time and having my heart broken all over again. 

Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

adventurous dark informative reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

An incredible read! Much like many others have said about Octavia Butler, she was ahead of her time. I confirmed this last year, after being blown away with The Parable of the Sower and its sequel. Now, with Kindred, I am reminded once again of just how amazing she was and I think of how blessed the world but especially black readers to trudge along these fictions adventures with her, in their time.

Science fiction is a beautiful genre that I don’t read very much of, because it can get really technical and complicated. I love that Butler kept it simple and straightforward, yet was able to do justice to the themes. She understands pacing and the other elements of storytelling that make a great book like the fact that when time travel is in play, the events in the past or future should unfold in such a way that they blend seamlessly into the present so that regardless of whatever the character does, the outcome would produce the same outcome as is obtainable in the present. In the absence of this, the character must be made aware of how the butterfly effect can cause distortion to their present realities. I have read books published more recently where it seems the author(s) doesn’t really get it, but Octavia Butler did. What a legend.