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sargasso_c's Reviews (516)
With each page I turned I could feel this book inside of me. It taught me more about myself than any textbook I was handed in a classroom. The novel is aptly named because it is not a homecoming, it is not a triumphant return from strange and exciting experiences. It is a constant striving and reaching and remembering in spite of all the odds, even when the effort seems futile. It is a homegoing.
A story told in relationships and sexual encounters that parallels the idle desperation we have to connect, and the idle fear we have of recurring connection.
This is an wonderful, in-depth examination of mothers. As usual with Oyeyemi's work, it is not what you expected but it is just what you needed.
This book takes on the reality of how little it is that little black bodies are valued. The children in this book continue to be put aside, ignored, and harmed. Even during the true tragedy that is the crux of this book - the disappearance of black children - it seems that hardly any adult is able to see the children as they need to be seen. In a world in which they are seen as props at best and victims at worst, the children in this book find solace within themselves and - when they can - each other.
This was an adorable book with many important lessons held between its pages. Charles shows that - while beauty is not the only thing - it can be found anywhere, most often in the kind acts and words of others.
I absolutely adore Julia and her unapologetic, in-your-face confidence that often borders (and tips over into) blatant arrogance. It's not often that I get to see a young female (not to mention a differently abled person of color) who takes their story into their own hands - good choices or no. I identify with how Julia tries to survive being attached to as little people as possible, and appreciated the realism of the way she glorified a criminal life only to question whether it was something she could truly handle later on in the book. I think this is a great book for everyone, but especially young girls as it shows that abounding confidence is not at all bad thing. Rather, it is something that can save you when you are learning from your mistakes.
Strange Weather by Joe Hill is a new breed of horror novel to which I had not yet been introduced. Hill uses everyday horrors - prejudice, inaction, strong people with arbitrary moral codes - and combines it with a single element in each of his novellas. That element can be celestial or scientific, coincidental or carefully planned. In any case that essential element results in a story that reveals a basic human truth. Hill’s horror novellas did not have me keeping my lights on through the night because I was scared, but rather because I wanted to read the next page. His terror came to me in the days after I read the book as I saw scenes of everyday life that were too close to the horrors represented in his works.