sharese_reads's reviews
20 reviews

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense 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

4.0

Aftershocks by Nadia Owusu

emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

I just want to say thank you to Nadia Owusu for writing a memoir with such vulnerability and depth. Her story is reflective in self, world politics, religion, morals, physical health, mental health, loss and love in all forms... and so much more. 

I especially enjoyed listening to it read by the author. What a gift Ms. Owusu has given of herself to readers. I highly recommend this read, especially in the audiobook format. 

My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

dark emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

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

4.0

This fast paced dark thriller is one that sucks you into the environment in which it is written. Braithwaite does an excellent job of getting you into the head, heart and habitat of Korede, the sister of beautiful, self absorbed, sociopathic Ayoola. 

In this tense novel Korede must contend with her sister’s possibly murderous habit while watching the man she has loved fall for said sister. The novel moves between the present and past as we learn about the environment that made the sisters who they are: a murderer and a perfectionist obsessed with cleanliness and order. The constant and heart of this book is the relationship and bond between the sisters: is it able to withstand the strain of (suspected) murder, deceit, breech of trust, and unrequited love? 

What I enjoyed most about My Sister the Serial Killer was- just about everything. The writing is excellent and immersive; the character development is well done, albeit abbreviated as this story itself is. At times the prose reads as poetry. And the ending *chef’s kiss* 💋 perfection. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child abuse, Murder, and Domestic abuse

Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert

adventurous hopeful informative inspiring medium-paced

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

4.0

What I enjoyed so much about this book are many things- the description of Chloe’s condition: so detailed that you really got a good picture of what fibromyalgia entails, the way her weight is never the focus of anything, that is truly fat liberation: when one does not have to constantly be cognizant of oneself as walking around in a fat body, and finally the baggage that we all carry into relationships from our pasts and how we deal with these on an individual level and take responsibility for them in order to not burden and instead support our partners. 

As a woman who is Chloe’s described size, has a chronic health condition and is in an interracial relationship with a wonderful person (so much of Red reminded me of my own partner), I found this story relatable. However, Chloe’s story and personality are very different than mine and so I got to learn and was surprised and delighted in her journey. Not to mention the sex was very realistically done and consent and safety were at the forefront *swoon*. If you are looking for a sex positive book, well developed romance novel, or a book about black joy, love and family- I highly recommend you pick this one up. 

Polar Vortex by Shani Mootoo

emotional reflective tense 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

3.5

Polar Vortex is written in way that gets you inside the head of Priya a Canadian immigrant by way of Trinidad. She wakes up on the day that her estranged best friend Prakash is coming to the home she shares with her wife Alex. The rest of the story plays out with the interactions between Priya and Alex and eventually Prakash. There is a sense of uncertainty and awkwardness that pervades throughout and highlights the cracks in the relationships between everyone involved. 

Mootoo’s writing is beautiful and deep. The pace of the book is slow and builds steadily then retracts back into itself to build again. The push and pull of Priya’s thoughts is something I think every woman has gone through, especially is situations of the relentless pursuits of a persistent man whose feelings are unrequited. Honestly, two such men and my interactions with them came to mind while I was reading this book. The intimacy with which Priya’s current thoughts are experienced is well done. The detours the story takes into her past and Prakash’s are informative and compelling. I haven’t read a book recently that centered middle aged women and I very much enjoyed that aspect as well. I related to the main character even without sharing her cultural and generational identity. The backdrop of a very snowy and cold week was also perfect for this chilly story.

Difficult Women by Roxane Gay

dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

3.0

I enjoyed the diversity of these stories. There were many literary transitions between them, the characters were diverse as well as the themes and atmosphere of the stories. 

On the front of my copy of the book there is a USA Today quote that states the character are “our mothers, sisters and partners”. This did not ring true for me as all of the stories revolve around the women and their relationship to men. There weren’t any stories rooted in mother daughter difficult relationships, Deep lesbian relationships, stories of women Addicted, celibate women who focus all their energy on becoming the best xyz they could be, it was all women in relation to men- mostly terrible men, some not so terrible. 

But these aren’t my stories. They aren’t my mother, sister or partner. They are another’s and for that I definitely respect them and enjoyed the literary melange that Roxane Gay has gifted us.

The Trespasser by Tana French

dark mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

The Trespasser  follows Detective Antoinette Conway. It opens with a preface that gives us background that she does not know who her father is but knows that she is brown (her mom is white- the settling is Dublin, Ireland). Conway is the only woman on her detective squad. She and her partner, a red headed male named Moran, try to figure out a case involving a young woman who has been murdered in her home. The story is multilayered and the reader gets the story both in Conway’s head and happening outside of it. 

Race does not play a prominent factor in this story however sex/gender does. All of the women in this book experience patriarchal aggressive on small and large scale. The main character internalizes a lot of this misogyny and it definitely shows in the book. 

Tana French definitely knows how to write a book. The plot is slow and simmers with a few hot pops here and there. The psychology and setting are dark and shrouded in a misty fog you can feel while reading it. It was a great book to read during this dreary weather we’ve had this week.

Luster by Raven Leilani

dark tense medium-paced

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

3.0

Luster by Raven Leilani was a force of a book.  I was hesitant to check it out as I had seen some people put it on their list of books that disappointed them.  I also had seen some excerpts of the sexual violence included and it made me pause.  However, I was offered this book free through Libro.fm when they were doing their local bookstore purchase promo and so I decided that I would listen to it during my daily walks around my neighborhood.  It took that place of my dateline and murder, mystery and makeup podcasts. 

As this book has been well reviewed many know the plot: the book revolves around Edie who strikes up a sexual relationship with an older man and then moves in with his family (white wife, black adopted daughter) when she loses her job and apartment.  What ensues is the dynamics between all of these people, the development and disintegration of relationships between each of them. 

Leilani writes from a place and point of view of my own self-absorbed and aware generation, which I appreciate.  Her feminist manifesto in the end left me cheering.  Her characters, though very flawed, were relatable and the women were well developed (Eric was not but I think that was on purpose). The character development of Edie, her backstory and what made her who she is was thought out and woven into the novel wonderfully.  All in all I think the writing, character development and the overall story was well done in a perfectly unsettling way. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Abortion and Violence

His Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medie

emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Have you ever been reading a book and half way through you know what you are going to say? And then by the end the author has turned everything on it’s head and burst the whole notion of what you thought was the character development open? That is exactly what happened to me in @peacemedie’s #HisOnlyWife. 

In His Only Wife Afi is arranged to be married to Eli. It is an arrangement made by Aunty, Eli’s mother. With the intent that Afi convince Eli to leave his evil girlfriend with whom he lives and shares a child. What transpires is at once uncomfortable, heart wrenching, breathtaking and in the end entirely relatable to anyone who has been in a situation similar to Afi’s 🙋🏼‍♀️. 

Initially I arched my eyebrow at the stark diversion between the two women the way that “the woman” was described as everything we in American society deem least appeasing about a black woman (even though neither the author nor any characters in the book are American- I ‘m stating this from my lens as I am): dark, mannish, angry, dismissive, having children just to get money. While Afi is all the opposite of that: light, womanly, eager to please, in it for the “right” reasons. But Medie turns all of this on its heads so intricately that by the time it all turns over you are left breathless.

Medie is a gender and politics scholar and that plays out beautifully in the book, her depth and range of the intricacies of how the politics of the main character’s culture influence who she is and the goings on around her are well established. I finished this book with my heart racing and with a hope that there is a sequel. 🙏🏻Has anyone heard this might be happening? She definitely left an opening for one! 

Memorial by Bryan Washington

reflective medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Bryan Washington's debut novel is one that left me thinking about the characters as I moved through my daily life, not actively reading.  He does an excellent job developing each character giving them depth and dimension (the one exception to this is Omar who seems to be all things good and laid back).  This book for me was a fast paced entertaining read.  I enjoyed learning about the food and culture of both Houston and Japan and it was enthralling to be tangled in the lust and physical connection that this book depicts well. 

Memorial follows Benson and Mike, a black and Japanese couple who are four years into their relationship and at a point that it is has become mostly unhealthy.  Mike leaves to go visit his estranged dying father in Japan at the same time that his mother comes to Houston and is therefore forced to stay in a one bedroom apartment with her son's boyfriend.  The story is broken up into three parts being narrated by Benson, then Mike and Benson again. It moves between the present and the pasts of both of the men and you get a good depiction of who they are and what transpired that make them develop into that. 

Benson and Mike have similar "speaking" style in narration- I am not sure if that is Washington's nod to the idea that we become more like our partners and begin to speak like them or if it is an oversight of editing.  The way the author seems to differentiate between the two is that in Benson's two parts there are chapters and in Mike's there are not. Two things were distracting and off putting me to me: the use of curse words like "shit", "fuck" and "piss" that made both characters seem somewhat tacky and inelegant and the fact that everyone in this story was smoking cigarettes all of the time. 

All in all this book was a very entertaining read, and for a couple of days after I was still thinking about the consequences and choices of the characters.  If you read this book and want to discuss aspects of it please PM me.  I wish it would have been a book club choice that I was a part of because I do think there is a lot to discuss here.