Tag: #InTheNook

Posted on

In The Nook With… Because I Could Not Stop For Death

“Working with your hands will drive your hardship away.  Tears will make it worse.”

Hello Adventurers!

Long time, no write.  Between facing health challenges (which eventually led to having surgery), hunting for and moving into a new apartment, and taking courses to hopefully change careers, life has been extremely busy.  I haven’t had much time for reading.  Luckily for me I was invited to join a murder-mystery-themed book club (which I might talk about more in another post), which introduced me to today’s read.

And what a treat of a read it was!

Because I Could Not Stop for Death by Amanda Flower takes us to Massachusetts in the 1850s, where we follow Willa Noble, a humble and diligent young housemaid as she begins work in the home of Emily Dickinson.  When Willa’s brother dies in a stable accident and she suspects foul play, she and Emily become a somewhat unlikely investigating duo, uncovering a more complicated plot than either would have imagined.

I am so glad that I encountered this book, as there is so much to love about it.  Those of you who have read my previous posts will know that I have never been much of a murder mystery reader.  It’s not that I hate the genre; it just never actively piqued my interest before.  Last year it had been my goal to venture out and try other genres, but as always, life got in the way.  If it hadn’t been for the book club bringing this to my attention, I would never have read it, and I definitely would have missed out.

I am a sucker for a period drama, whether on the stage or the page, and this book does not disappoint.  Amanda Flower transports us to 1855 Massachusetts in such a way that you feel at home there.  It’s not that you feel that luxurious sort of ‘home’ that period pieces give you when they focus on the lives of the wealthy.  Instead, it’s more of that feeling you get when you put on an old, tattered sweater that you’ve worn a hundred times to get things done around the house.  The picture of the past painted for us feels easy to slip into, and it’s facilitated by the likeability of the protagonist. 

Willa’s disposition and her station in society make her easy to sympathize with.  I also happen to love seeing a historical figure reimagined, so I thoroughly enjoyed the portrayal of Emily Dickinson here.  The two are a pleasant pair to follow.  Emily’s forthrightness and bucking of traditional roles plays well against Willa’s more conservative and uncertain way of walking through the world, and both women are clever and sincere.  They make for great companions in this investigation.

Flower walks a bit of a delicate balance, keeping the story from becoming too dark even while dealing with the difficult subject of runaway slaves.  She focuses on the plight of our main characters while still treating the subject matter respectfully and giving it a significant presence.  And the mystery is satisfying, too.  You’re provided with enough breadcrumbs to puzzle things out as Willa and Emily go on their journey without being hit over the head.  I won’t say that I was kept guessing entirely to the end, but it was pretty close. 

Apparently this is the first in a series, so I am looking forward to the rest.

Have you read Because I Could Not Stop for Death?  What did you think?  Let me know down below in the comments, and I’ll see you on our next adventure! -Cozie

Family Friendly Content Considerations:

Recommended for Middle School and Up

Mild Warning for Light Violence and Adult Situations

Email: chat@nookandbook.club

Twitter: @TheNookAndBook

Instagram: @nook.and.book

Posted on

In The Nook With… Shadow Man

“He wanted the illusion for his daughter and his wife that nothing ugly happened here.  It was the illusion that all happy childhoods were built upon.  To be happy in this world, you had to ignore some things.”

Hey Adventurers!

I’m back again.  I’ve really been struggling this year, so I’m sorry that the wait has been so long.  I wanted to get the 2023-review-ball rolling earlier, but life sometimes gets in the way.  They say, “you plan, and God laughs,” but it’s painful to think that an all-powerful God is laughing at me while I futilely try my best, so I prefer to think of it as God lovingly redirecting me.  I hope your year has been going well.  Anyway…

Alan Drew’s Shadow Man follows Benjamin Wade, a detective who moves his family from chaotic Los Angelos back to his quiet, perfectly planned hometown of Rancho Santa Elena after an incident on the job, hoping to save his marriage and start over.  The emergence of a serial killer in this normally safe community, however, forces him and everyone around him to face harsh realities that places like Santa Elena work so hard to hide from.  This book is the first up in my experiment of trying new genres that I don’t usually read, and what a way to begin!

I must start off by saying just how beautiful the writing of this book is. Every detail, from the dusty Southern California scenery, to the complex family, friend, and community relationships, to the tumultuous inner world of the characters, feels excruciatingly real.  The pace is near perfect, giving you enough time to digest, but never enough to get comfortable.  You feel the urgency of the case as if you yourself were Detective Wade.  The characters have a unique depth while at the same time feeling perfectly ordinary, reminding you that the disturbing events that occur here in this supposedly safe community can occur, and are occurring, in safe little neighborhoods all around you.  The thing that I find most beautiful about Shadow Man, however, is the story itself.  It’s a hard story, but it’s a necessary story.

That being said, I find it extremely hard to recommend this book to anyone.  Shadow Man is not for the faint of heart, and I feel that even the strongest person emotionally may find this story hard to stomach.   To be honest, my mental health has not been amazing so far this year, and that made this read hard to get through.  I found this book in a little free library in town, which I enjoy visiting, but I would have a hard time with the idea of a little reader happening upon this in said free library and reading it on their own.  Hopefully they would have a loving adult with them who could help them decide which books are age appropriate.

This book is nothing like the cozy mystery novels you snuggle up with for comfort or the paint-by-numbers crime dramas that you consume effortlessly multiple times a week.  You will not be taken away on a nice journey that relieves you of your real-world woes, nor will you be able to put aside the painful aspects of the crime in this novel to focus on putting the investigative puzzle pieces together.   Alan Drew really forces us to see everyone’s pain, their ugly thoughts, and the parts of themselves that they hate or don’t understand, even the serial killer’s.  There is a great deal of pain coming from all sides, and the only way to get to the end of this novel is to go through it all with the characters.  Shadow Man also has a lot to say about the complicity of a community in its own people’s suffering, and what we are willing to ignore in order to preserve our own happiness.  This book confronts and at the same time is compassionate toward its audience, which is quite rare.

Read at your own risk, but if you do read it, I think it will be worth it.  I think you will be changed.  And let me know if you do!  – Cozie

Family Friendly Content Considerations:

Extreme Content Warning – Recommended for Adults Only

Adult Themes

Mild Use of Adult Language

Sexual Situations

Blood and Violence, including Sexual Violence

Email: chat@nookandbook.club

Twitter: @TheNookAndBook

Instagram: @nook.and.book

Posted on

In The Nook With… Black Buck

“In sales and in life, you’re either all in or you’re not.”

Welcome back Adventurers!

I know it’s been a while since we went on a literary journey together, but unfortunately, I have had to take a break and deal with my health.  It turns out that my body has an unbridled contempt for me and is determined to destroy me from the inside out, even if it has to go down with me.  Anyway, enough about that.  Let’s talk about this wild book!

Mateo Askaripour’s Black Buck is a hyperbolic tale about a young black man named Darren Vender who leads a fairly uncomplicated life in Bed-Stuy, working as a manager in Starbucks, living with his mom, and enjoying time with his best friend Jason and his girlfriend Soraya.  But when one moment of courage turns into a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to enter the white world of sales and startups, his life starts changing in ways neither he nor anyone around him expects.

Honestly, I don’t know where to start with this one.  There’s so much to talk about.  I want to begin by saying that this one is strictly for adults.  Sorry kids, but there’s plenty of other amazing works for you to read that are more age-appropriate.

That being said, this book is definitely a wild ride.  From the very beginning, Askaripour creates a casual yet exciting atmosphere as he sets the stage for this story.  Darren Vender is a very likeable character at the outset, even if he doesn’t stay that way (no spoilers), and the group that rallies around him endears itself to you pretty quickly, especially his mom, who wants the best for him and does whatever she can to push him to get more out of life.  The author incorporates some delicious humor throughout that had me laughing out loud at times, and that almost never fails to hit, even when the circumstances in the novel get dire. And the circumstances get very dire. The reader is worked up to a frenzy as more and more pressure lands on Darren and he makes more and more difficult choices, wrestling with the consequences along the way.  And the author keeps you guessing as to where this story will go next.

I will say, however, that not only does our main character change for the worst as he moves up in the business world, a black man trying to be himself in a space that is constantly trying to change or label him, but the circle of family and friends that supposedly support him falls apart in a way that makes me dislike them as much as I began to dislike Darren himself.  Askaripour doesn’t entirely take sides, but I find it hard to judge some of Darren’s mistakes as much as the other characters do.  But maybe that’s the author’s intention.

As far as the cultural content of this book, I feel hugely conflicted.  As a black woman who spent the first half of her childhood in a poorer, predominately black area in Queens and the second half, as well as the college years, in ‘whiter’ and more affluent areas, there are some aspects of this novel that truly resonate with me.  I have had that experience of sticking out in a sea of white individuals, some of whom genuinely care about you but don’t know how to cross the divide, some who want to reshape you in their own image and make you feel, unintentionally and intentionally, that your culture and understanding of the world results from ignorance and that you need white help to elevate yourself, some who put you in a box that they can understand, and some who outright do not like you.

But unlike Darren, I don’t feel that pain of being confronted with a rigged game.  I don’t feel that there’s a war between my people and white people.  I wouldn’t say that I think everyone starts out on equal footing, but I have never felt the contempt for white people that our main character seems to, and I don’t think that the book is necessarily critical of this.  The business world laid out for us in Black Buck seems to be comprised of white people who hate you, white people who see you as black when they want to, and white people who are oblivious to your black problems, and they all want the world to stay just the way it is. It is neglectful of all the white people who know that things can be improved and are honestly trying.  Much of what the author critiques about the white world of business is not, from my perspective, due to its whiteness, but to the fact that humans who gain power without being grounded behave inhumanely. People in the world of Black Buck criticize Darren for becoming more ‘white’, when actually he’s becoming more powerful and less humble, and those things are not the same.  

Alright, guys. I want to hear from you.  Have you read this book? If not, then I definitely recommend it.  It’s a great read and very thought provoking, and I would love to chat about it with you guys, so let me know what you think in the comments.  And subscribe to my blog in order to get notified when the next post hits! See you soon! – Cozie

Family Friendly Content Considerations:

For Adults Only

Mature Themes

Multiple Depictions of Sexual Activity

Extensive Use of Profanity

Depictions of Violence

Email: chat@nookandbook.club

Twitter: @TheNookAndBook

Instagram: @nook.and.book

Posted on

In The Nook With… Every Other Weekend

“Thing is, you can be cursed and not cursed at the same time.  Just because you have trouble doesn’t mean you’re troubled all the time.”

Hello Adventurers!

Grab your tea or cocoa (or soda, or apple juice, or IPA, whatever you want – I can’t tell you what to do) because it’s that time again. Today’s journey is a great recovery from last time, and I have to say that it’s probably one of the best ways I have ever spent a dollar.  Yes, this book cost me a dollar.  I found this book in the dollar store around Christmastime looking for some bows, and I was honestly shocked that the dollar store even had books.  I have no idea how the book ended up there, but I am so glad it did because I don’t think I would have seen this book otherwise. And I would have definitely been missing out.

Zulema Renee Summerfield’s Every Other Weekend follows the life of eight-year-old Nenny, child of divorced parents whose life becomes a series of trips back and forth between her mother’s noisy, blended-family home and her father’s empty, lifeless one. Along the way she struggles to navigate her endless fears, the slew of tragedy and trauma around her, and her desires for real home and family.

First off, I have to say that every aspect of this book makes me feel like it was written for me.  The tale is broken up into mostly one-to-five-page chunks (which is wonderful for my childlike attention span) as it follows the thought process and emotional life of this little girl whose world is in a constant state of unrest. Her parents get divorced and they live in separate homes.  She, her mom, and her two siblings move into a house with her mom’s new husband and his two children, whose parents are also divorced.  The emotional lives of the parents involved are unstable, and it trickles down to the children. And in the midst of all this, life’s unexpected troubles continue to crop up (no spoilers), continuing to unravel her already rocky sense of safety and comfort. 

Summerfield is expert in her handling of fear and anxiety at an age where you really don’t have words to even express it.  The story is told to us in fragments, almost as if we are getting a window into how Nenny herself sees the life she’s been thrust into.  Her world is interrupted every other weekend, and again when tragedy strikes, and again when adults make decisions around her that she has no say in.  She looks for comfort in the people should be able to get it from, but the problem with tragedy and family trouble is that everyone in the family is going through it, and they may not be able to see their way through their own mess enough to help you with yours, even if they want to.  They may not even see you at all.  But Summerfield also reminds sends glimmers of hope our way, as Nenny finds hope and comfort in short, beautifully imperfect moments, and a few people who show her what love really means.

I love Nenny.  Nenny, with her never-ending anxieties and her deep-rooted longings that she can’t really express, is me.  Honestly, Nenny is everyone.  That’s not to say that everyone comes from a broken home with parents that hardly speak to each other.  I don’t.  But many of us can say that we’ve been through so much, even from childhood, and we haven’t always even had the mental and emotional tools to deal with it all.  We can say that we’ve needed to grieve without even knowing that’s what we needed, or even knowing how to do it.  We’ve entered difficult, traumatizing seasons in our life, without asking for it or expecting it, that seem like they will never end.  There isn’t a soul on this Earth who gets through life without realizing that pain and fear are a part of it, and part of growing up is learning how to make a safe space for yourself in spite of it.

I cannot recommend this book more.  It’s wonderful, and if you’ve ever felt alone in your suffering, this is one book you shouldn’t miss. Oh, and let me not forget to mention that this book is a great nostalgia trip for anyone who lived in (or wishes they lived in) the 80s! It will certainly give you those vibes.

Have you read Every Other Weekend? What did you think? Let me know in the comments and subscribe to get notified when my next review comes out. 

Thank you to l.lorraine.w85 for subscribing to the Nook. You are an adventurer! Happy literary trails! – Cozie

Family Friendly Content Considerations:

Recommended for Middle School Age and Above

Occasional Harsh Language

Discussion of Violent Imagery

Email: chat@nookandbook.club

Twitter: @TheNookAndBook

Instagram: @nook.and.book

Posted on

In The Nook With… Thoughtreal

“Desire can lead to good things, things that must be and should be pursued.  Like love.”

Welcome back adventurers!

I know that I said I would post this review Sunday evening, but I have been awake since Sunday evening working on it, so that still counts, right? Anyways, today you are in for quite the strange trip, and I don’t think the writer intended it to be as strange as it was.

Michael Gryboski’s Thoughtreal tells the story of Detective Brittany Johnson as she investigates a seemingly impossible triple homicide in Washington, DC with few clues. In the process she meets a man with incredible powers, a tragic past, and a brother that he is scared to face but will ultimately have to, despite the danger.

I was so anxious about writing this review.  You guys have no idea how long I debated with myself about whether or not I should even do it.  You see, this would be my first ‘bad’ review on the blog, and I hate writing negative things about someone’s work.  I know that this person put a lot of time and effort into their story and I don’t want to discourage that.  The concept of this tale was really intriguing to me.  The idea of two brothers going through the same terrible events and coping with them in completely different ways drew me in.  There are a few gripping sequences in the book as well, including an armed shootout that was genuinely exciting.  For the most part, though, this book turned out to be a disappointment.

At 299 pages, this book isn’t very long.  There is nothing wrong with that, of course.  When I saw the length, I was excited to read a succinct and fast-paced science fiction novel.  I am a slow reader to begin with, so short and sweet is okay with me.  But unfortunately, you don’t get a lot out of those 299 pages, in plot or character development.  All we get to learn about Brittany is that she has trouble with men and she stopped going to church.  All we learn about Adonijah and Absalom, the brothers at the center of this mystery, is that they had a specific tragedy in their past (that I won’t reveal here), they like books, and they have studied different religious philosophies.  That’s it.  The characters all feel flat.  It’s hard to engage with them.  There is more time spent on describing different physical locations and their rich history than on the characters’ inner life, motivations, and emotions, so its hard to care for them. There is an attempt at writing romance, but it feels forced, and you don’t feel enough for the characters to want to see it happen.  Aside from the relationship between the two brothers, there is little emotional development in the book at all. This not only leaves you disconnected, but it also has you perplexed, wondering why characters choose to do or not do things that would easily get them what they want.

On top of that, very little actually happens in the book. I don’t want to spoil anything, but there is very little to spoil.  There are some murder cases, a short and relatively uneventful investigation, a lot of discussion, and finally a big showdown.  It feels like such a long journey to get to the end, but once you’ve gotten there, you realize that you haven’t traveled much at all.

On a smaller note, the language itself makes the book difficult to read.  Gryboski takes more words than necessary to describe minute actions like swiping right or left on a dating app and details the same environments for us at length multiple times.  Some of the word choices seem bizarre, and the ordering of scenes can be a bit disorienting, so it’s hard to develop a flow while you’re reading. Overall, it was quite a difficult read and took me longer than usual.  Gryboski has some great ideas but they are not well fleshed out here.

Have you read Thoughtreal? Do you agree with me or was I too hard on him? Let me know in the comments below! See ya next time! -Cozie

Family Friendly Content Considerations:

Recommended for Older Teens and Adults

Violence

Mild Sexual Situations

Twitter: @TheNookAndBook

Instagram: @nook.and.book

chat@nookandbook.club

Posted on

In The Nook With… Kindred

Amazon.com: Kindred (0046442083690): Octavia E. Butler: Books

“My back had already begun to ache dully, and I felt dully ashamed. Slavery was a long slow process of dulling.”

Hello Adventurers!

This book was also recommended to me by a friend and after reading this one, I needed a moment. Or two. Or a couple hours.

Octavia Butler’s Kindred tells the story of Dana, a black 26-year-old woman from 1976 who finds herself pulled backward through time repeatedly to save the life of Rufus, a young white boy living in the ante bellum south. On each trip back, she becomes more and more enmeshed in the dangerous world of American slavery, and it becomes more and more difficult to maintain her sanity, or obtain her safety.

There is no comfort for you in this one.  I’m not the kind of person who believes that all stories should have a happy ending or should make you feel good.  I believe that stories should take you somewhere, and when you get there, if they’ve spoken well and you’ve listened well, they should leave you changed.  But I can say that from a couple chapters in, I found myself looking for a light at the end of the tunnel for these characters, and after a certain point, I knew that there wouldn’t really be one.

This story is hard.  That’s kind of a plain way to put it, but it’s true.  When Dana is amongst the slaves, being treated like a slave herself, we observe them speaking about the nature of their situation – how they work, what they aren’t allowed to do, what the masters will do to them – so casually.  No, casual is not quite the right word for it.  They are not at ease with their situation.  They speak in hushed tones. They have rage, and fear, and desperation, and despair.  But there is no surprise in it.  It’s very matter of fact. These emotions are everyday life to them.  And what makes this tale so different from our limited school education or many slavery stories we are told is that Dana is a free woman from a time where she is not conditioned to think of herself as a slave.  When she is thrown into slavery, she can’t readily conform to the cruel ways of the time, she struggles over and over again with what is expected of her and what is done to her in that time, and through her we experience the era with a sickening newness.  It tears the bandage that time has slowly placed over the historical wound and asks you to actually examine it, bloody and gaping. And you experience Dana’s mental, emotional, and physical battle with others and herself as the expectations of the time slowly threaten to change her.

The other element of this work that cannot go without mention is the relationships between Dana, her white husband, Rufus, and the other slaves.  I don’t want to spoil too much, but Butler does not let you get away with simply hating all the white people and loving all the black people.  Time and time again she shows you how you can have complicated, intense feelings for someone no matter how much you have been hurt by them, and how these feeling may not all be negative.  Chapter by chapter, you see these characters care for one another, be abusive, trust each other, betray each other, hate each other, and question their hate. I wouldn’t even begin to say that you will love the slaveowners of the ante bellum south, but you will see them fully.  And you will see the slaves fully. As ugly as it gets, you see them because Dana sees them. And just like Dana and her husband Kevin, you must reconcile what you see with what you’ve been taught.

There are so many more gems in this amazing story that I would love to talk about, but if I did, this review would literally never end. I think I must be a glutton for punishment, because despite the fact that there is so much anguish and fear in these pages with very little break from it, I could not put it down. It is a truly gripping page-turner, and I could not recommend it more.

Family Friendly Content Considerations:

Best for older teens and adults

Violence (including sexual violence)

Have you read this one? If so, what do you think?  Leave a comment below or hit me up at chat@nookandbook.club. I would love to hear your thoughts!

Posted on

In The Nook With… Akata Witch

Hello Adventurers!

I just read Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor, which tells the story of Sunny Nwazue, a young, American-born Nigerian albino with a difficult home life who is looking for her place in the world. We meet her at a time in her life when she is about to discover her magical powers, her history, and her role in a world that she never knew about before.

This book was recommended to me by a friend when I was looking for something new to read.  Although I will read pretty much any genre, I especially love fantasy/adventure, and this turned out to be right up my alley.

The first thing that struck me about Akata Witch was the truly rich and immersive world that Nnedi Okorafor creates.  There is such a strong, earthy feel to it, while at the same time taking you beyond the physical world into a spiritual one.  Between the exploding tungwas raining guts on the unsuspecting, the awe-inspiring and surprising spirit faces, and the spicy local treats like pepper soup, there’s plenty of sights, sounds, textures, tastes, and even smells that draw you into both the culture of Nigeria and the otherworldly space of the Leopard people. She truly amazes.

Before I read the book, I had heard many people describe it as the ‘black girl version of Harry Potter’, and I can see where they are coming from. Both stories center around a pre-teenaged protagonist being dropped into an overwhelming new world of magic, about which they know nothing. Both characters have a history that connects them to this new world which they need to learn about in order to understand who they really are.  Both books gather together a rag-tag group of kids and saddles them with the very dangerous adult problems of this other world.  And there are a number of smaller ways that parallels could be drawn (juju knives instead of wands, or leopards and lambs instead of wizards and muggles).

But I wouldn’t say that they’re the same. The world that Sunny is thrown into starts out much darker, much scarier.  The Leopard world values knowledge and rewards its community for gaining it but doing so comes at a cost.  There is no safe place for these children.  The use of magic often has difficult consequences or requires the sacrifice of personal comfort and even safety, but gaining that knowledge is not negotiable and the characters have to be willing to risk it. Both Harry Potter and Akata Witch ask these young children to face evil that is much bigger than them. But while the teachers and mentors of Hogwarts try to shield Harry from that danger, those of Leopard Knocks thrust Sunny and her friends into it full force, accepting that they have a role to play and pushing them to face it, no matter the risk.  I wrestled with this theme in the book, and honestly, I still am.  On the one hand, I felt anger at those adults for not protecting the kids as they should, but on the other hand, maybe you can’t protect someone from their journey, even if it might be perilous.

There is a truly beautiful aspect of the world of the Leopard people, however, in which the part of someone that non-magical people would consider a hinderance or deformity is actually a source of unique power for each leopard.  I won’t go into too much detail, but I felt really comforted and inspired by this, and I think many other readers will also.

Family Friendly Content Considerations: Recommended for later teens and up

Violence and Fear

Discussion of Magic/Juju

What did you think about Akata Witch? Let me know in the comments, and I’ll meet you back here with the next book. (Hint: There will be time travel.)