midnightmarauder's reviews
60 reviews

I began reading this series because I really missed the lightheartedness of children's literature. Books for adults are rarely ever adventurous or heartwarming, but children's books always are. So far, I really like Owly and Wormy. They're such cute characters.

You Were Always Mine by Jo Piazza, Christine Pride

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emotional hopeful inspiring medium-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

5.0

You Were Always Mine by Christine Pride & Jo Piazza follows the story of Cinnamon, a thirty-something year old woman who feels like her life is stagnated. She hasn't been dealt the best hand of cards in her life:

her mother abandoned her when she was young, leaving her bouncing around from her grandmother's house, to foster homes, to her paternal aunt's house, then into homelessness

, which she has kept well-hidden through a string of little white lies. She lives in the fictional town of Sibley Bay, Georgia, where she has a decent job as a professor at a community college, and a husband who dreams of opening his own restaurant. Cinnamon does feel a bit of resentment towards her husband, Jayson, who is revealed to have

drained their life-savings into "The Ruins", the restaurant he wants to build

. Yet, despite her anger and his all-around disregard as to how his choice has affected their lives, she still tries to be a loving wife.

Cinnamon spends time at the local park during her lunch break, where she meets Daisy, a young girl who she forms a bond with. Her and Daisy meet up with each other every day over the span of a couple of months and talk about their lives. Since Cinnamon is so used to sharing the fictional parts of her upbringing to people, she naturally does the same with Daisy. This ends up backfiring when she finds an abandoned baby in the park one afternoon.

Attached to the baby's carseat is a note from Daisy, simply saying, "Please, Cinnamon." Cinnamon freaks out a bit and ponders on whether or not she should surrender the baby to the police, or keep her. She ultimately decides on the latter.

The main topic that was explored in this novel was how race plays a part in people's everyday life, whether intentionally or unintentionally. As the novel takes place in the south, racial differences between black and white people were touched on a lot. For instance, during Cinnamon's

time in foster care

, she was neglected by her

white foster parents

, mentioning that one

foster mother

would buy her a bunch of different hats just because she couldn't be bothered to learn how to do her hair. There was also Daisy herself revealing her grandfather's staunch racism and how both him and her grandmother made it clear how much they hated black people. There was also the obvious implications of Cinnamon, a unambiguous black woman being the mother of a pale-skinned, blue-eyed baby. Most people assumed that she was a nanny to the infant and were rude about how she could possibly be the child's mother. In a way, I understand some of the judgement that people displayed. I can't imagine how tricky it may be to be a black parent trying to teach your white child about racism, as they'll most likely never experience it in the same way. However, no one really bats an eye when white parents adopt black children, nor worries about how they might go about doing the same thing.

Another big topic that was covered in the novel was what it means to be a parent, especially a mother. The mothers/motherly figures in the novel weren't exactly the best examples. Cinnamon's mother

abandoned her

, and Daisy's mom

drowned in a lake shortly after hving her

. So, they each lost out on that part of their lives. Even the closest thing Cinnamon had to a mother, her aunt, treated her like a project that needed to be fixed and ultimately left her

homeless

, not really apologizing/regretting what she had done until she

was on the brink of death

. With that being said, what Cinnamon could've treated the baby the same way. However, she knew, based on her own upbringing, that she didn't want to subject the baby to the things she had to go through and made it a point to break the cycle.

Cinnamon's adamancy about breaking the cycle ties into the last main topic of the novel: the foster care system and its effects on people's lives. Cinnamon's

experience in foster care

greatly shaped how she handled finding the baby and making the choice of whether or not she wanted to keep her. Because she had gone through it feeling unloved and discarded, she felt as though surrendering the baby to the authorities would lead her into that very same life. She definitely projected her own childhood trauma onto the infant and used it as fuel to create a better outcome (which I loved!)

Ultimately, this book was a great read. I love a good heartfelt story with a happy ending. I feel that both authors did a wonderful job at tackling a largely unexplored issue (i.e. black families adopting white children) and executed their message respectfully, while also being realistic about people's reactions.

Content Warnings

The Untelling by Tayari Jones

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emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad slow-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

The Untelling is Tayari Jones' second novel. It follows a woman named Ariadne (who goes by Aria), who experiences the trauma of losing both her father and her baby sister in a car crash when she was 10 years old. Years later, at the age of 25, she notices that the trauma not only affects her, but her mother and older sister too, so much so that her relationship with them is greatly affected, which is the central theme of the novel.

Aria's older sister, Hermoine, was 15 at the time of the car crash, and left the family shortly afterward. She gets married to Mr. Phinazee, who was her father's best friend. Their relationship started while she was still a minor, which greatly bothers their mother, Eloise. She blames Hermoine for being "fast" instead of reprimanding Mr. Phinazee for preying on a teenager. The anger that Eloise exudes towards her daughters is something that came about after the crash.

One of the other issues that was heavily tackled in the novel was the meaning of family and how it can look different from the norm. Initially, Aria has a nuclear family: a mother, father, and the two and a half kids. But, once her father and baby sister pass away, all there's left is her, her mother, and Hermoine. They stay together until Hermoine gets married and starts her own family, and when Aria moves out and begins her life. Aria starts feeling sick one day and decides that she is pregnant, and tells Dwayne. Dwayne decides to propose to her in order to give the baby a "proper" family. Later, when Aria goes to the doctor to see how far along she is, she finds out that

she's infertile.

Heartbroken, she keeps it from Dwayne for as long as possible, until she's forced to come clean.

All in all, I loved this book. This book makes the last physical book I've read by Tayari Jones. She is such a phenomenal writer. I can't wait to see what she writes next.

Content Warnings

A Map to the Sun by Sloane Leong

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adventurous emotional reflective sad fast-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

3.0

A Map to the Sun follows the story of two friends, Ren and Luna, whose friendship bloomed one summer. They become extremely close and spend just about every day together during that summer, until Ren moves away without saying goodbye. After that, Ren tries to move on, but the feelings come rushing back after Luna becomes the new student at Ren's high school.

This story was okay. I initially read it because by the synopsis, I felt that it would have lesbian undertones, or even a full-blown lesbian relationship. The undertones are there (Ren's frustration over Luna leaving seems much deeper than just friendship betrayal, and Luna's relationship with her boyfriend just seems to be one that she entered into out of boredom instead of actual attraction), but I wish there was some kind of explicit portrayal.

I did like the different topics that were covered in the book (such as addiction, self-harm, and grooming), but it just wasn't as detailed as I wanted it to be overall.

Content Warnings

Sugar, Baby by Celine Saintclare

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adventurous dark emotional informative sad 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

4.0

Sugar, Baby by Celine Saintclaire follows Agnes, a young woman in her early 20s who's trying to find herself. She feels stagnated in her life, as she's working a dead-end job as a maid for rich residents. The daughter of one of her clients, Emily, sees Agnes' disdain and offers her an alternative: sugaring.

Agnes grew up in a household where she was raised by her single mother, Constance, alongside her sister, Marlena, in a boring town Agnes calls "The Wasteland". Constance, a very religious woman, sheltered her daughters as much as possible and didn't really allow them much room to fly away from the nest. This caused Agnes to resent her and the life she had to live under her mother's watchful eye, which eventually lead her into sugaring.

Agnes' decision to go into sugaring was definitely something she did initially to spite her mother. After getting caught in a lie about her whereabouts,

Constance puts Agnes out

. She has nowhere to go other than Emily's apartment in London that she shares with shares with three other girls/sugar babies: Yomawu, Sara, and Kiki. There, she is able to continue her endeavors with no judgement. Eventually, she grew to somewhat enjoy it.

This book covered a lot of different themes. Aside from the theme of parental rebellion, another theme that was explored in the novel was how wanting a better life for yourself could lead you into destructive paths. At first, sugaring wasn't so bad to Agnes. She found one consistent person, Matthew, who she was able to explore with, alongside getting paid. But,

once that fell through

, finding someone else to fill that void took some more effort. The contrast between the amount of work it took for Agnes to make money from sugaring in comparison to her counterparts (i.e., Emily and the rest of the girls in the flat) was pretty big. Especially the amount of effort that her white counterparts (Emily and Sara) had to contribute. Sugaring also became stressful for Agnes when she eventually started to feel overwhelmed at being treated like a sexual object instead of a person (an aspect of sugaring that initially made her reluctant to try it).

Content Warnings

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midnightmarauder's reviews 60 reviews

midnightmarauder's reviews
60 reviews