Lonnie is going through big changes in his life—with his parents newly divorced, he's trying to figure out his new normal. He likes living with his mom and sister, but misses spending time with his father—and the short drives to and from school just aren't enough.
His dad is determined to make every moment count, relying on the car rides to talk about all of the big things that are hard to talk about elsewhere—divorce, sexuality, racism and more. As Lonnie gets used to this new dynamic and hard conversations, will he be better able to connect to his dad? Or will this new family structure force them even further apart?]]>
author: Lawrence Lindell
name: Mirai
average rating: 3.54
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/31
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: comics-graphic-novels, books-i-wish-i-read-as-a-yute, for-the-bbs
review:
I love graphic novels as they are a medium unlike no other. The ability to tell a narrative in a way that is simple, effective and still fulfilling is tea. Buckle up was a cute book that touched on a slew of topics that many lil black kids deal with in their day to day - having these topics represented in their media is paramount. Would recommend. 3.75/5
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Now her guilt over her mother’s condition keeps her tethered to the island, relegated to conning gullible tourists with useless talismans and phony protection rituals. But when one of those tourists ends up at the center of a string of strange murders, the truth that Selina has been denying can no longer be there is evil lurking in the forests that surround St. Virgil. Another thing that can’t be avoided? Selina’s ex-boyfriend Gabriel, newly employed at the local newspaper and eager to put his investigative skills to use.
Desperate to put an end to the killings and claim justice for Selina’s family, these two former lovers race to find answers. But evil bides its time. And as long-buried feelings and long-hidden secrets about Selina’s family’s past begin to reveal themselves, only one answer remains—and it waits in the forest.]]>
I started reading the physical book but had to return it to d ppl library]]>
author: Sarah Dass
name: Mirai
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: to-read
review:
I'm 3 chappies in but I'm gonna move it to my "to read" pile as there's too many books in my currently reading.
I started reading the physical book but had to return it to d ppl library
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author: Shirley Jackson
name: Mirai
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1959
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/20
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves:
review:
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Before a bomb ended his life in the summer of 1980, Walter Rodney had created a powerful legacy. This pivotal work, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, had already brought a new perspective to the question of underdevelopment in Africa. his Marxist analysis went far beyond the heretofore accepted approach in the study of Third World underdevelopment. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa is an excellent introductory study for the student who wishes to better understand the dynamics of Africa’s contemporary relations with the West.]]>
author: Walter Rodney
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.43
book published: 1971
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: african-literature, caribbean-ting-alyuh-come-ennn, history, liberation-is-the-answer-kt, to-read
review:
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Author Oyeronke Oyewumi reveals an ideology of biological determinism at the heart of Western social categories-the idea that biology provides the rationale for organizing the social world. And yet, she writes, the concept of “woman,” central to this ideology and to Western gender discourses, simply did not exist in Yorubaland, where the body was not the basis of social roles.
Oyewumi traces the misapplication of Western, body-oriented concepts of gender through the history of gender discourses in Yoruba studies. Her analysis shows the paradoxical nature of two fundamental assumptions of feminist theory: that gender is socially constructed and that the subordination of women is universal. The Invention of Women demonstrates, to the contrary, that gender was not constructed in old Yoruba society, and that social organization was determined by relative age.
A meticulous historical and epistemological account of an African culture on its own terms, this book makes a persuasive argument for a cultural, context-dependent interpretation of social reality. It calls for a reconception of gender discourse and the categories on which such study relies. More than that, the book lays bare the hidden assumptions in the ways these different cultures think. A truly comparative sociology of an African culture and the Western tradition, it will change the way African studies and gender studies proceed.]]>
author: Oyèrónk?? Oyěwùmí
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.41
book published: 1997
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: absolute-faves, feminists-and-other-wh-res, history, gender-theory, to-read
review:
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Her people, the wajinru – water-dwelling descendants of pregnant African slave women thrown overboard by slavers – live idyllic lives in the deep. Their past, too traumatic to be remembered regularly, is forgotten by everyone, save one. Save the historian.
Yetu remembers for all the wajinru, and the memories – painful and wonderful, traumatic and terrible and miraculous, are destroying her. And so she flees to the surface, escaping the memories and the expectations and the responsibilities – and discovers a world the wajinru left behind long ago.
Yetu will learn more than she ever expected to about her own past – and about the future of her people. If they are all to survive, they’ll need to reclaim the memories, reclaim their identities – and own who they really are.
Inspired by the hit song by clipping. (comprised of Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, and Jonathan Snipes), The Deep will resonate long after the last page is turned.]]>
As someone with a low tolerance for fictional narratives about enslavement and the Trans-Atlantic trade of enslaved Africans, The Deep was a sensitive and cultured reimagining. Would recommend 4/5. ]]>
author: Rivers Solomon
name: Mirai
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/01
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: supernatural, the-theys-and-the-gays
review:
The Deep did not disappoint. A unique exploration on identity and the significance of historical consciousness. I listened to the Audiobook read by Daveed Diggs and laughed out loud when he said "I know you wish you did not read this so fast, you had it on 2x didn't you?." And he's close lol, but instead I wish this novella was longer. Beautifully written and a story that enraptures you from the first few words... I feel like this is a story that tells so many stories at once- the pain of knowing and understanding the violent history of our ancestors. The trauma from trying to suppress it or to bear with it. The identity crises that arise when we try to unpack our history and what it can or cannot tell us about ourselves.
As someone with a low tolerance for fictional narratives about enslavement and the Trans-Atlantic trade of enslaved Africans, The Deep was a sensitive and cultured reimagining. Would recommend 4/5.
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Update:
Taproot was a gorgeously illustrated graphic novel. I was locked into the characters and their romance arc from the first panel! I love that the beats of the novel were different from the traditional novels ( whether graphic or not) that we see. I agree with other reviews that the plot was a bit off-some parts definitely needed more fleshing out. I didn't quite catch what Hamal did or didn't do that put the balance in danger.....
Absolutely loved the ending. I am a sucker for supernatural queer love and loved seeing POC in this type of genre :)
3.9/5]]>
author: Keezy Young
name: Mirai
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/31
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: comics-graphic-novels
review:
Very cutesy. Almost bawled my eyes out for Blue there-- such a wholesome ending!
Update:
Taproot was a gorgeously illustrated graphic novel. I was locked into the characters and their romance arc from the first panel! I love that the beats of the novel were different from the traditional novels ( whether graphic or not) that we see. I agree with other reviews that the plot was a bit off-some parts definitely needed more fleshing out. I didn't quite catch what Hamal did or didn't do that put the balance in danger.....
Absolutely loved the ending. I am a sucker for supernatural queer love and loved seeing POC in this type of genre :)
3.9/5
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When Rin aced the Keju—the Empire-wide test to find the most talented youth to learn at the Academies—it was a shock to everyone: to the test officials, who couldn’t believe a war orphan from Rooster Province could pass without cheating; to Rin’s guardians, who believed they’d finally be able to marry her off and further their criminal enterprise; and to Rin herself, who realized she was finally free of the servitude and despair that had made up her daily existence. That she got into Sinegard—the most elite military school in Nikan—was even more surprising.
But surprises aren’t always good.
Because being a dark-skinned peasant girl from the south is not an easy thing at Sinegard. Targeted from the outset by rival classmates for her color, poverty, and gender, Rin discovers she possesses a lethal, unearthly power—an aptitude for the nearly-mythical art of shamanism. Exploring the depths of her gift with the help of a seemingly insane teacher and psychoactive substances, Rin learns that gods long thought dead are very much alive—and that mastering control over those powers could mean more than just surviving school.
For while the Nikara Empire is at peace, the Federation of Mugen still lurks across a narrow sea. The militarily advanced Federation occupied Nikan for decades after the First Poppy War, and only barely lost the continent in the Second. And while most of the people are complacent to go about their lives, a few are aware that a Third Poppy War is just a spark away . . .
Rin’s shamanic powers may be the only way to save her people. But as she finds out more about the god that has chosen her, the vengeful Phoenix, she fears that winning the war may cost her humanity . . . and that it may already be too late.]]>
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves: currently-reading
review:
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Nick and Charlie are very much in love. They've finally said those three little words, and Charlie has almost persuaded his mum to let him sleep over at Nick's house ... But with Nick going off to university next year, is everything about to change?
By Alice Oseman, winner of the YA Book Prize, Heartstopper encompasses all the small moments of Nick and Charlie's lives that together make up something larger, which speaks to all of us.
Contains discussions around mental health and eating disorders, and sexual references.]]>
author: Alice Oseman
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/14
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: the-theys-and-the-gays, comics-graphic-novels
review:
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Collects: Saga #1-6.]]>
author: Brian K. Vaughan
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at: 2024/10/05
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: comics-graphic-novels
review:
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![呪術廻戦 3 [Jujutsu Kaisen 3]](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1589220156l/43789214._SY75_.jpg)
author: Gege Akutami
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/13
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: mangas, comics-graphic-novels
review:
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Collects: Saga #7-12.]]>
author: Brian K. Vaughan
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at: 2024/10/18
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: comics-graphic-novels
review:
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Neesha Sparks is a disabled, vocal community activist with a passion for costume design. Gabby Graciana is an optimistic surfer - and, like Neesha, a new kid at school. When the two girls discover that they like the same manga series, Navigator Nozomi, they become more than just fellow new kids. But it was more than just having read the same book series--neither of them had finished it! Soon, they become new friends on a mission - to track down the remaining Navigator Nozomi books. This slice-of-life romance follows the two girls as they adventure across North Carolina to find each book, with their story intercut with the tales of Navigator Nozomi. Neesha and Gabby find more than just the books though—they find acceptance, friendship, understanding, and love.]]>
author: Jeremy Whitley
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.37
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/28
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: comics-graphic-novels
review:
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author: Blue Delliquanti
name: Mirai
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/02
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: comics-graphic-novels
review:
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Impelled to write this story by the haunting image of young Alan Kurdi, the three-year-old Syrian boy whose body washed upon the beach in Turkey in September 2015, Hosseini hopes to pay tribute to the millions of families, like Kurdi's, who have been splintered and forced from home by war and persecution, and he will donate author proceeds from this book to the UNHCR (the UN Refugee Agency) and The Khaled Hosseini Foundation to help fund lifesaving relief efforts to help refugees around the globe. Hosseini is also a Goodwill Envoy to the UNHCR, and the founder of The Khaled Hosseini Foundation, a nonprofit that provides humanitarian assistance to the people of Afghanistan.]]>
author: Khaled Hosseini
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/02
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: comics-graphic-novels
review:
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Collects: Saga #13-18.]]>
author: Brian K. Vaughan
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at: 2024/11/10
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: comics-graphic-novels
review:
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Collects: Saga #19-24.]]>
author: Brian K. Vaughan
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at: 2024/11/24
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: comics-graphic-novels
review:
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Maya’s family is cursed.
Or blessed, it depends on who you talk to. For as far back as anyone can remember, her family has had to ability to see a mysterious pillar of light in the distance. Those who have tried to find it have never come back. Maya has no idea what you're meant to find if you follow the light. Adventure? Destiny? But what if your destiny isn't a good thing?
Maya’s sister left to follow her light…and has been missing ever since.
That’s how Maya finds herself on a surreal road trip with two people she barely knows, headed towards a ghost town where her sister was last seen. Unfortunately, the closer Maya gets to her sister...the closer she gets to her own pillar of light. Maya doesn't know if she's ready to face her destiny but if it means finding her sister then she'll do whatever it takes.]]>
author: Ananth Hirsh
name: Mirai
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/02
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: comics-graphic-novels
review:
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With stunning urgency and grace, Ocean Vuong writes of people caught between disparate worlds, and asks how we heal and rescue one another without forsaking who we are. The question of how to survive, and how to make of it a kind of joy, powers the most important debut novel of many years.]]>
author: Ocean Vuong
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/25
date added: 2025/03/25
shelves:
review:
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I Write What I Like contains a selection of Biko's writings from 1969, when he became the president of the South African Students' Organization, to 1972, when he was prohibited from publishing. The collection also includes a preface by Archbishop Desmond Tutu; an introduction by Malusi and Thoko Mpumlwana, who were both involved with Biko in the Black Consciousness movement; a memoir of Biko by Father Aelred Stubbs, his longtime pastor and friend; and a new foreword by Professor Lewis Gordon.
Biko's writings will inspire and educate anyone concerned with issues of racism, postcolonialism, and black nationalism.]]>
author: Steve Biko
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.36
book published: 1978
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: to-read
review:
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What if social transformation and liberation isn't about waiting for someone else to come along and save us? What if ordinary people have the power to collectively free ourselves? In this timely collection of essays and interviews, Mariame Kaba reflects on the deep work of abolition and transformative political struggle.
With chapters on seeking justice beyond the punishment system, transforming how we deal with harm and accountability, and finding hope in collective struggle for abolition, Kaba's work is deeply rooted in the relentless belief that we can fundamentally change the world. As Kaba writes, "Nothing that we do that is worthwhile is done alone."]]>
author: Mariame Kaba
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.65
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: to-read
review:
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IN THE YEAR 2044, reality is an ugly place. The only time teenage Wade Watts really feels alive is when he's jacked into the virtual utopia known as the OASIS. Wade's devoted his life to studying the puzzles hidden within this world's digital confines, puzzles that are based on their creator's obsession with the pop culture of decades past and that promise massive power and fortune to whoever can unlock them.
But when Wade stumbles upon the first clue, he finds himself beset by players willing to kill to take this ultimate prize. The race is on, and if Wade's going to survive, he'll have to win—and confront the real world he's always been so desperate to escape.]]>
author: Ernest Cline
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/02
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves:
review:
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In a world where demons feed on unsuspecting humans, fragments of the legendary and feared demon Ryoma Sukuna were lost and scattered about. Should any demon consume Sukuna’s body parts, the power they gain could destroy the world as we know it. Fortunately, there exists a mysterious school of Jujutsu Sorcerers who exist to protect the precarious existence of the living from the undead!
Yuji Itadori is high schooler who spends his days visiting his bedridden grandfather. Although he looks like your average teenager, his immense physical strength is something to behold! Every sports club wants him to join, but Itadori would rather hang out with the school outcasts in the Occult Club. One day, the club manages to get their hands on a sealed cursed object, but little do they know the terror they’ll unleash when they break the seal...?]]>
author: Gege Akutami
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2024/07/24
date added: 2025/02/27
shelves:
review:
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Unsure of what he could have possibly done to catch the eye of the boy who could easily have anyone he wants, Jay isn't about to ignore the surprising but welcome attention. But as everything in his world begins to heat up, especially with Leroy, whispered rumors over the murder of a young Black journalist and long-brewing territory tensions hang like a dark cloud over his neighborhood. And when Jay and Leroy find themselves caught in the crossfire, Leroy isn't willing to be the reason Jay's life is at risk.
Dragged into the world of the Black Diamonds--whose work to protect the Black neighborhoods of Savannah began with his father and now falls to his older brother--Leroy knows that finding out who attacked his brother is not only the key to protecting everyone he loves but also the only way he can ever be with Jay. Wading through a murky history of family trauma and regret, Leroy soon dis-covers that there's no keeping Jay safe when Jay's own family is in just as deep and fighting the undertow of danger just as hard.
Now Jay and Leroy must puzzle through secrets hiding in plain sight and scramble to uncover who is determined to eliminate the Black Diamonds before someone else gets hurt--even if the cost might be their own electric connection.]]>
author: Keith F. Miller Jr.
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/13
shelves: to-read
review:
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As if that's not scary enough, Halloween is just around the corner and the frights are coming at Greg from every angle.
When he discovers a bag of gummy worms, it sparks an idea. Can Greg get his mom off his back by making a movie.... and will he become rich and famous in the progress? Or will doubling down on this path just double Greg's troubles?]]>
author: Jeff Kinney
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/07
date added: 2025/02/07
shelves:
review:
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After a disastrous competition at school, Greg decides that he's officially retired from ANY kind of sport! That is, until his mom persuades him to give it one more go and makes Greg reluctantly agree to sign up for basketball.
Tryouts are a MESS, and Greg is sure he won't make the cut. But he unexpectedly lands a spot on the worst team.
As Greg and his new teammates start the season, their chances of winning even a single game look slim. But in sports, anything can happen. When everything is on the line and the ball is in Greg's hands, will he rise to the occasion? Or will he blow his big shot?
See the Wimpy Kid World in a whole new way with the help of Greg Heffley's best friend in the instant #1 bestsellers Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid: Rowley Jefferson's Journal, Rowley Jefferson's Awesome Friendly Adventure and Rowley Jefferson's Awesome Friendly Spooky Stories!
WHAT'S IN DIARY OF A WIMPY KID?
50% words, 50% cartoons, 100% hilarious!
Stories that all readers can't wait to get their hands on
Laughter guaranteed!
Have you read all the DIARY OF A WIMPY KID series?
Diary of a Wimpy Kid
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Roderick Rules
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Ugly Truth
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Third Wheel
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Hard Luck
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Old School
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Double Down
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Getaway
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Meltdown
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Wrecking Ball
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Big Shot - The hilarious BRAND NEW novel - pre-order now!]]>
author: Jeff Kinney
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/06
date added: 2025/02/06
shelves:
review:
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Newly divorced stone butch Jordan moves into her friend Leah’s spare room, ready, at 49, to take on a new job and finally explore kink and polyamory. But moving to NYC during the holidays sends grief crashing through her, and Jordan realizes that when she isn’t solely focused on caring for others, her own feelings are unavoidable. Including her feelings for Leah.
51 year old queer femme Leah, an experienced submissive kink educator who owns a sex shop, has recently come to terms with being gray ace and is trying to rework her life and relationships to honor that.
Leah has a brainstorm to help them both: she offers Jordan eight kink lessons, one for each night of Chanukah, to help Jordan find her feet as a novice dominant, and to create a structured space where Leah can work on more deeply honoring her own consent, now that she knows she’s gray ace.
She’d planned to keep it casual, but instead the experience opens cracks in the armor Leah’s been using to keep people at a distance and keep herself safe. Now she needs to grapple with the trauma that’s been impacting her life for years.
Can these two autistic queers find ways to cope with the changes they are making in their lives and support each other, as they build something new they hadn’t thought was possible?
This kinky polyamorous Chanukah f/f romance includes a friends to lovers, roommates to lovers, kink lessons, seasoned romance and getting your groove back tropes, and polyamorous, gray ace, pansexual, Jewish, fat, autistic, disabled, arthritis, PTSD and depression representation.]]>
author: Xan West
name: Mirai
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/02
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves:
review:
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Jordan Alexander is in a rut. Her life is not what she envisioned for herself, and she’s barely able to scrape by on the salary she makes as a coffee shop manager. Suddenly facing the daunting prospect of either finding a new roommate or a more affordable place to live, Jordan's stress levels reach a boiling point.
Noémie St. Pierre is a customer from hell. Every weekday morning, Noémie struts into the coffee shop like she owns the place and often makes a fuss. Jordan can’t stand the woman.
But Noémie's life isn't as perfect as it seems, and when her father—founder of the globally expanding Poutine Heaven franchise—cuts off her financial support, Noémie's world is turned upside down. Desperate, Noémie gets a job at the coffee shop, and upon learning of Jordan’s housing woes, proposes they move in together. Reluctantly, Jordan agrees.
As they navigate their new living arrangement, Jordan uncovers surprising depth to Noémie that challenges her previous assumptions, and she develops feelings she never expected. But Noémie dates men, and Jordan doesn’t do relationships. So, all Jordan can hope is that her feelings won’t brew complications.]]>
author: M.C. Hutson
name: Mirai
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/31
shelves: to-read
review:
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The Wretched of the Earth is a brilliant analysis of the psychology of the colonized and their path to liberation. Bearing singular insight into the rage and frustration of colonized peoples, and the role of violence in effecting historical change, the book incisively attacks the twin perils of post-independence colonial politics: the disenfranchisement of the masses by the elites on the one hand, and intertribal and interfaith animosities on the other.
Fanon's analysis, a veritable handbook of social reorganization for leaders of emerging nations, has been reflected all too clearly in the corruption and violence that has plagued present-day Africa. The Wretched of the Earth has had a major impact on civil rights, anticolonialism, and black consciousness movements around the world, and this bold new translation by Richard Philcox reaffirms it as a landmark.]]>
author: Frantz Fanon
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.35
book published: 1961
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/29
shelves: currently-reading
review:
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Woman or man? This internationally acclaimed novel looks at the world through the eyes of Jess Goldberg, a masculine girl growing up in the "Ozzie and Harriet" McCarthy era and coming out as a young butch lesbian in the pre-Stonewall gay drag bars of a blue-collar town.
Stone Butch Blues traces a propulsive journey, powerfully evoking history and politics while portraying an extraordinary protagonist full of longing, vulnerability, and working-class grit. This once-underground classic takes the reader on a roller-coaster ride of gender transformation and exploration and ultimately speaks to the heart of anyone who has ever suffered or gloried in being different.
Dear Reader:
I want to let you know that Stone Butch Blues is an anti-oppression/s novel.
As a result, it contains scenes of rape and other violence.
None of this violence is gratuitous or salacious.
Leslie]]>
author: Leslie Feinberg
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.52
book published: 1993
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/31
date added: 2025/01/21
shelves:
review:
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When Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he runs away until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck has faked his own death to escape his violent father. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.
Brimming with nuanced humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a literary icon, this brilliant and tender novel radically illuminates Jim's agency, intelligence, and compassion as never before. James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first-century American literature.
Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780385550369.]]>
author: Percival Everett
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/16
shelves: to-read
review:
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Rich with hard-won wisdom and humanity, set in locales from Miami and Port-au-Prince to a small unnamed country in the Caribbean and beyond, Everything Inside is at once wide in scope and intimate, as it explores the forces that pull us together, or drive us apart, sometimes in the same searing instant.
In these eight powerful, emotionally absorbing stories, a romance unexpectedly sparks between two wounded friends; a marriage ends for what seem like noble reasons, but with irreparable consequences; a young woman holds on to an impossible dream even as she fights for her survival; two lovers reunite after unimaginable tragedy, both for their country and in their lives; a baby's christening brings three generations of a family to a precarious dance between old and new; a man falls to his death in slow motion, reliving the defining moments of the life he is about to lose.
This is the indelible work of a keen observer of the human heart--a master at her best.]]>
author: Edwidge Danticat
name: Mirai
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/15
shelves: to-read
review:
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At an astonishingly young age, Edwidge Danticat has become one of our most celebrated new novelists, a writer who evokes the wonder, terror, and heartache of her native Haiti--and the enduring strength of Haiti's women--with a vibrant imagery and narrative grace that bear witness to her people's suffering and courage.]]>
author: Edwidge Danticat
name: Mirai
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1994
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/15
shelves: to-read
review:
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Nadezhda is running away from her problems—mainly her family's supernatural murder cult that's constantly putting her loved ones in danger. Fortunately, her grandmother left her the house at the edge of a swamplife preserve so she can go off-grid for a while.
It turns out the shack isn't the only thing she's inherited—the ancient kikimora who followed her family from Ukraine years ago is still dwelling in the swamp and she's looking for an offering.
Suddenly the tales Nadezhda heard of the creature don't seem so scary anymore, and she's willing to fight off her natural instincts to run if it means she gets to give herself to the most beautiful monster.
Content Warnings:
This book is intended for the 18 and up audience. Please check the author's website for detailed warnings.]]>
author: Darva Green
name: Mirai
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/15
date added: 2025/01/15
shelves:
review:
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After losing spectacularly to her ex-girlfriend in their first game since their break up, Scottie Zajac gets into a fender bender with the worst possible person: her nemesis, the incredibly beautiful and incredibly mean Irene Abraham. Things only get worse when their nosey, do-gooder moms get involved and the girls are forced to carpool together until Irene’s car gets out of the shop.
Their bumpy start only gets bumpier the more time they spend together. But when an opportunity presents itself for Scottie to get back at her toxic ex (and climb her school’s social ladder at the same time), she bribes Irene into playing along. Hijinks, heartbreak, and gay fake-dating scheme for the ages. From author Kelly Quindlen comes a new laugh-out-loud romp through the ups and downs of teen romance.]]>
author: Kelly Quindlen
name: Mirai
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/10
date added: 2025/01/14
shelves: sapphic-tings, the-theys-and-the-gays
review:
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Using three interwoven narratives spanning the US, Trinidad, and Jamaica, Carol Mitchell’s debut gives voice to an immigrant woman forced to confront her repressed memories of violent trauma.]]>
author: Carol Mitchell
name: Mirai
average rating: 3.81
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/13
date added: 2025/01/13
shelves: caribbean-ting-alyuh-come-ennn
review:
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The poetry of Nikki Giovanni has spurred movements, turned hearts and informed generations. She’s been hailed as a firebrand, a radical, a healer, and a sage; a wise and courageous voice who has spoken out on the sensitive issues, including race and gender, that touch our national consciousness.
As energetic and relevant as ever, Nikki now offers us an intimate, affecting, and illuminating look at her personal history and the mysteries of her own heart. In A Good Cry, she takes us into her confidence, describing the joy and peril of aging and recalling the violence that permeated her parents’ marriage and her early life. She pays homage to the people who have given her life meaning and joy: her grandparents, who took her in and saved her life; the poets and thinkers who have influenced her; and the students who have surrounded her. Nikki also celebrates her good friend, Maya Angelou, and the many years of friendship, poetry, and kitchen-table laughter they shared before Angelou’s death in 2014.]]>
author: Nikki Giovanni
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/08
date added: 2025/01/08
shelves:
review:
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Twyla and Roberta have known each other since they were eight years old and spent four months together as roommates in the St. Bonaventure shelter. Inseparable at the time, they lose touch as they grow older, only to find each other later at a diner, then at a grocery store, and again at a protest. Seemingly at opposite ends of every problem, and in disagreement each time they meet, the two women still cannot deny the deep bond their shared experience has forged between them.
Written in 1980 and anthologized in a number of collections, this is the first time Recitatif is being published as a stand-alone hardcover. In the story, Twyla's and Roberta's races remain ambiguous. We know that one is white and one is black, but which is which? And who is right about the race of the woman the girls tormented at the orphanage?
Morrison herself described this story as "an experiment in the removal of all racial codes from a narrative about two characters of different races for whom racial identity is crucial." Recitatif is a remarkable look into what keeps us together and what keeps us apart, and about how perceptions are made tangible by reality.]]>
author: Toni Morrison
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.31
book published: 1983
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/21
date added: 2025/01/08
shelves: feminists-and-other-wh-res, liberation-is-the-answer-kt
review:
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Celebrating a new generation of bestselling and acclaimed Black writers, The Black Girl Survives in This One makes space for Black girls in horror. Fifteen chilling and thought-provoking stories place Black girls front and center as heroes and survivors who slay monsters, battle spirits, and face down death. Prepare to be terrified and left breathless by the pieces in this anthology.
The bestselling and acclaimed authors include Erin E. Adams, Monica Brashears, Charlotte Nicole Davis, Desiree S. Evans, Saraciea J. Fennell, Zakiya Dalila Harris, Daka Hermon, Justina Ireland, L. L. McKinney, Brittney Morris, Maritza & Maika Moulite, Eden Royce, and Vincent Tirado, with a foreword by Tananarive Due.]]>
author: Desiree S. Evans
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/08
date added: 2025/01/08
shelves:
review:
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Achilles, "the best of all the Greeks," son of the cruel sea goddess Thetis and the legendary king Peleus, is strong, swift, and beautiful, irresistible to all who meet him. Patroclus is an awkward young prince, exiled from his homeland after an act of shocking violence. Brought together by chance, they forge an inseparable bond, despite risking the gods' wrath.
They are trained by the centaur Chiron in the arts of war and medicine, but when word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, all the heroes of Greece are called upon to lay siege to Troy in her name. Seduced by the promise of a glorious destiny, Achilles joins their cause, and torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus follows. Little do they know that the cruel Fates will test them both as never before and demand a terrible sacrifice.]]>
author: Madeline Miller
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/07
shelves: to-read
review:
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But there is no time to pout or sulk, or even grieve the life she lost.?She's too?busy keeping a roof over her daughters' heads and food on the table.?And in the process of saving them all, Soledad rediscovers herself. From the ashes of a life burned to the ground, something bold and new can rise.
But then an unlikely man enters the picture—the forbidden one, the one she shouldn't want but can't seem to resist. She's lost it all before and refuses to repeat her?mistakes. Can she trust him? Can she trust?herself?
After all she's lost . . .and found . . .can she be brave enough to make room for what could be?]]>
author: Kennedy Ryan
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/05
shelves: to-read
review:
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Sometimes, the worst day of your life happens, and you have to figure out how to live after it.
So Clementine forms a plan to keep her heart safe: work hard, find someone decent to love, and try to remember to chase the moon. The last one is silly and obviously metaphorical, but her aunt always told her that you needed at least one big dream to keep going. And for the last year, that plan has gone off without a hitch. Mostly. The love part is hard because she doesn’t want to get too close to anyone—she isn’t sure her heart can take it.
And then she finds a strange man standing in the kitchen of her late aunt’s apartment. A man with kind eyes and a Southern drawl and a taste for lemon pies. The kind of man that, before it all, she would’ve fallen head-over-heels for. And she might again.
Except, he exists in the past. Seven years ago, to be exact. And she, quite literally, lives seven years in his future.
Her aunt always said the apartment was a pinch in time, a place where moments blended together like watercolors. And Clementine knows that if she lets her heart fall, she’ll be doomed.
After all, love is never a matter of time—but a matter of timing.]]>
author: Ashley Poston
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/05
shelves: to-read
review:
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When Haitians tell a story, they say "Krik?" and the eager listeners answer "Krak!" In Krik? Krak! Danticat establishes herself as the latest heir to that narrative tradition with nine stories that encompass both the cruelties and the high ideals of Haitian life. They tell of women who continue loving behind prison walls and in the face of unfathomable loss; of a people who resist the brutality of their rulers through the powers of imagination. The result is a collection that outrages, saddens, and transports the reader with its sheer beauty.]]>
author: Edwidge Danticat
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1996
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/04
date added: 2025/01/04
shelves:
review:
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author: Anna-Marie McLemore
name: Mirai
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: to-read
review:
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All Cal Sanders wants is to grow grapes and make great wine. When an opportunity arises to manage a vineyard on the central coast of California, he jumps at the chance—happy to get away from his transphobic, small-minded conservative town. He just wants to live the life he’s always wanted to, as the man he’s always been.
As Mia and Cal navigate the challenges of running a winery, they encounter a disgruntled employee, unravel an extraordinary mystery, and find a deep connection growing between them that takes them both by surprise.]]>
author: L. Dreamer
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: to-read
review:
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Bryce Cormier never left Duchesne and has no regrets, except that falling in love as a trans guy in a tiny town is easier said than done. When Chelsea comes home after more than a decade away, Bryce thinks he may have found the perfect woman. At least until Chelsea's burgeoning celebrity spills over and turns his world upside down.
It turns out love is like a good gumbo--what seems simple is complex, and the best results require a bit of courage. And like all the recipes say... First, you make a roux.]]>
author: Aurora Rey
name: Mirai
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: to-read
review:
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Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person's decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins.]]>
author: Brit Bennett
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: teenage-me-thought-this-was-fire-ok, the-theys-and-the-gays
review:
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Dionne spends the summer in search of love, testing her grandmother's limits, and wanting to go home. Phaedra explores Bird Hill, where her family has lived for generations, accompanies her grandmother in her role as a midwife, and investigates their mother's mysterious life.
When the father they barely know comes to Bird Hill to reclaim his daughters, and both Phaedra and Dionne must choose between the Brooklyn they once knew and loved or the Barbados of their family.]]>
author: Naomi Jackson
name: Mirai
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: to-read
review:
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As Nahr sits, locked away in solitary confinement, she spends her days reflecting on the dramatic events that landed her in prison in a country she barely knows. Born in Kuwait in the 70s to Palestinian refugees, she dreamed of falling in love with the perfect man, raising children, and possibly opening her own beauty salon. Instead, the man she thinks she loves jilts her after a brief marriage, her family teeters on the brink of poverty, she’s forced to prostitute herself, and the US invasion of Iraq makes her a refugee, as her parents had been. After trekking through another temporary home in Jordan, she lands in Palestine, where she finally makes a home, falls in love, and her destiny unfolds under Israeli occupation.]]>
author: Susan Abulhawa
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/01
shelves: to-read
review:
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“Ancestors said they experience life through your eyes. Living your life as full as you can nourishes them. You being alive is enough for them.” “I pray that you see life through. I pray that you let it show you just how good it can get.” “If you’re feeling stuck, speak to the heavens. A path to freedom will open up.”
Ancestors Said is full of 365 affirmations, prayers, and reflections just like these. It is designed to be used all year long, helping the reader along a healing journey and leading them to experience a deep connection with the ancestors and joy in their daily life.]]>
author: Ehime Ora
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.65
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/28
date added: 2024/12/28
shelves:
review:
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They took our magic.
They tried to bury us.
Now we rise.
Zélie Adebola remembers when the soil of Or?sha hummed with magic. Burners ignited flames, Tiders beckoned waves, and Zélie’s Reaper mother summoned forth souls.
But everything changed the night magic disappeared. Under the orders of a ruthless king, maji were killed, leaving Zélie without a mother and her people without hope.
Now Zélie has one chance to bring back magic and strike against the monarchy. With the help of a rogue princess, Zélie must outwit and outrun the crown prince, who is hell-bent on eradicating magic for good.
Danger lurks in Or?sha, where snow leoponaires prowl and vengeful spirits wait in the waters. Yet the greatest danger may be Zélie herself as she struggles to control her powers and her growing feelings for an enemy.]]>
author: Tomi Adeyemi
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/17
date added: 2024/12/17
shelves:
review:
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Sully Morales, home cooking hustler, and self-proclaimed baking brujita lands in Scotland on a quest to find her purpose after spending years as her family’s caregiver. But now, with her home life back on track, it's time for Sully to get reacquainted with her greatest love, baking. Winning the Holiday Baking Challenge is a no brainer if she can convince her grumpy AF baking partner that they make a great team both in and out of the kitchen before an unexpected betrayal ends their chance to attain culinary competition glory.]]>
author: Adriana Herrera
name: Mirai
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/17
date added: 2024/12/17
shelves:
review:
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Bee Tyler needs a break. In the bustling San Francisco tech community, no one ever seems to stand still—especially her perfect sister and business partner, Beth. So when her best friend suggests a getaway on the wildly popular house-swap app, Vacate, Bee decides a countryside retreat might be exactly what she needs.
Clover Mills has had a year. Between losing her mother and making the complicated decision to leave her fiancé, sticking around the idyllic Christmas obsessed town of Salem, Ohio, just doesn’t feel right. So when she hears about Vacate, she jumps at the chance to spend the holidays in the unfamiliar city of San Francisco.
Soon enough, Bee is living in Clover’s cozy Salem cottage, and Clover is living in Bee’s sleek San Francisco apartment. As Clover can’t seem to stop running into Bee’s frustratingly gorgeous sister, Beth, and Bee finds herself spending more and more time with Clover’s ultra charming ex-fiancé, Knox, the two women realize that this Christmas they may find just what they were looking for and more…]]>
author: Georgia K. Boone
name: Mirai
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/10
shelves: to-read
review:
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Then Gar accepts a wild dare out of the blue. It impresses the Chosen Ones and his social status soars. But other things are changing, too. Gar grows six inches overnight. His voice drops and, suddenly, he’s stronger and faster. He’s finally getting everything he wanted, but his newfound popularity comes at a price. Gar has to work harder to impress his new friends. The dares keep getting bigger and the stakes keep getting higher.
When Gar realizes the extent of his physical changes, he has to dig deep and face the truth about himself–and the people who truly matter–before his life spirals out of control.]]>
author: Kami Garcia
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/09
shelves: to-read
review:
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Starting over isn’t easy. Raven remembers how to solve math equations and make pasta, but she can’t remember her favorite song or who she was before the accident. When strange things start happening—things most people would consider impossible—Raven starts to think it might be better not to know who she was in her previous life.
But as she grows closer to her foster sister, Max, her new friends, and Tommy Torres, a guy who accepts her for who she is now, Raven has to decide if she’s ready to face what’s buried in the past...and the darkness building inside her.
From the #1 New York Times best-selling co-author of Beautiful Creatures Kami Garcia and artist Gabriel Picolo comes this first graphic novel in the Teen Titans series for DC Ink, Teen Titans: Raven.]]>
author: Kami Garcia
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/09
shelves: to-read
review:
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Lynn’s surgery has begun, and Mel is right by her side, assisting with the operation. Things are going smoothly—until the director hears that Mel has postponed her surgeries so she can operate on her girlfriend. The tension sky rockets in an already tense situation as Sue bursts in on the operation and orders Mel to leave the room immediately. With Lynn’s heart literally on the line, Mel is forced to choose between giving in to her ex’s orders and seeing her girlfriend’s surgery through to the end.]]>
author: Ratana Satis
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.26
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/09
shelves: to-read
review:
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Collects: Saga #25-30.]]>
author: Brian K. Vaughan
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/04
shelves: to-read
review:
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Elton, Vincent, and Scott arrive from America to visit preserved sites from the transatlantic slave route, and to explore the country's underground queer scene. Their activities are narrated by their two combative guides: Kobby, their way into Accra's privileged circles; and Nana, the voice of tradition and religious principle. The pair's tense relationship sets the tone for what becomes a shocking and unsettling tale of murder that is at times funny, at times erotic, yet always outspoken and iconoclastic.]]>
author: Kobby Ben Ben
name: Mirai
average rating: 3.56
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/04
shelves: african-literature, to-read
review:
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author: Mosab Abu Toha
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.73
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/18
shelves: to-read
review:
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So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song—complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? This piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller. That is what June believes, and The New York Times bestseller list agrees.
But June cannot escape Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens her stolen success. As she races to protect her secret she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.]]>
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Mirai
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/07/31
date added: 2024/11/16
shelves:
review:
This book was “interesting”. “Interesting is a word people use when they can’t think of anything better to say.”- RFK, Yellowface. This book was entertaining and I learned a lot about the publishing world. The protagonist was frustrating and intentionally written to be so. The themes highlighted were important but the execution fell flat. The work wasn’t as nuanced and intersectional as it could’ve been but I still appreciated the story. It was funny, it was entertaining, it did give little fires everywhere .. which was also mentioned in the book lol. Very contemporary and was a good non-fiction social commentary read.
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Throughout her childhood, Safiya Sinclair’s father, a volatile reggae musician and militant adherent to a strict sect of Rastafari, became obsessed with her purity, in particular, with the threat of what Rastas call Babylon, the immoral and corrupting influences of the Western world outside their home. He worried that womanhood would make Safiya and her sisters morally weak and impure, and believed a woman’s highest virtue was her obedience.
In an effort to keep Babylon outside the gate, he forbade almost everything. In place of pants, the women in her family were made to wear long skirts and dresses to cover their arms and legs, head wraps to cover their hair, no make-up, no jewelry, no opinions, no friends. Safiya’s mother, while loyal to her father, nonetheless gave Safiya and her siblings the gift of books, including poetry, to which Safiya latched on for dear life. And as Safiya watched her mother struggle voicelessly for years under housework and the rigidity of her father’s beliefs, she increasingly used her education as a sharp tool with which to find her voice and break free. Inevitably, with her rebellion comes clashes with her father, whose rage and paranoia explodes in increasing violence. As Safiya’s voice grows, lyrically and poetically, a collision course is set between them.
How to Say Babylon is Sinclair’s reckoning with the culture that initially nourished but ultimately sought to silence her; it is her reckoning with patriarchy and tradition, and the legacy of colonialism in Jamaica. Rich in lyricism and language only a poet could evoke, How to Say Babylon is both a universal story of a woman finding her own power and a unique glimpse into a rarefied world we may know how to name, Rastafari, but one we know little about.']]>
This book is vital to Caribbean literature and so I will be recommending this book to every W.I. bibliophile I know.]]>
author: Safiya Sinclair
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/11/05
date added: 2024/11/16
shelves: absolute-faves
review:
Safiya Sinclair is a brilliant writer. Each line of this memoir is so intentional, eloquent and poetic. I have never chased after the words of non-fictional work with such fervour. I honestly felt honoured to read the retelling of the author’s life in Jamaica. I saw myself in young Safiya’s experiences, education and desires.
This book is vital to Caribbean literature and so I will be recommending this book to every W.I. bibliophile I know.
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Questions like this sit between the lines of this stunning collection of stories that engage the nuance of African women's histories. Their history is not just one thing, there is heartbreak and pain, and joy, and flying and magic, so much magic. An avenging spirit takes on the patriarchy from beyond the grave.
An immigrant woman undergoes a naturalization ceremony in an imagined American state that demands that immigrants pay a toll of the thing they love the most to be allowed to stay. A first-generation Zimbabwean-American woman haunted by generational trauma is willing to pay the ultimate price to take her pain away—giving up her memories. A neighborhood gossip wakes up to find that houses are mysteriously vanishing in the night. A shapeshifting freedom fighter leaves a legacy of resistance to her granddaughter.
In Drinking from Graveyard Wells, Yvette Lisa Ndlovu assembles a collection of poignantly reflective stories that ventilate the voices of African women charting a Black history across oceans between southern Africa and America. Ndlovu's stories play with genres ranging from softly surreal to deeply fantastical. Each narrative is wrapped in the literary eloquence and tradition of southern African mythology, in a way that transports readers into the lives of African women who have fought across time and space to be seen.
Drawing on her own experiences as a Zimbabwean whose early life was spent under the Mugabe dictatorship, Ndlovu's stories are grounded in truth and empathy. Ndlovu boldly offers up alternative interpretations of a past and a present that speculates into the everyday lives of a people disregarded. Her words explore the erasure of African women—while highlighting their beauty potential and limitless possibility. Immersed in worlds both fantastical and familiar, readers find themselves walking alongside these women, grieving their pain, and celebrating their joy, all against the textured backdrop of African histories, languages, and cultures.]]>
Home became a thing with horns, Three Deaths and The Ocean of Time are my favourites.]]>
author: Yvette Lisa Ndlovu
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/16
date added: 2024/11/16
shelves: african-literature
review:
An amazing collection of short stories. I learned so much about Zimbabwean culture, history and life.
Home became a thing with horns, Three Deaths and The Ocean of Time are my favourites.
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As President Claremont kicks off her reelection bid, Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret relationship with Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations. What is worth the sacrifice? How do you do all the good you can do? And, most importantly, how will history remember you?]]>
author: Casey McQuiston
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/08
date added: 2024/11/16
shelves: the-theys-and-the-gays
review:
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Notes from a trip to Russia
Poetry is not a luxury
The transformation of silence into language and action
Scratching the surface : some notes on barriers to women and loving
Uses of the erotic : the erotic as power
Sexism : an American disease in blackface
An open letter to Mary Daly
Man child : a black lesbian feminist's response
An interview : Audre Lorde and Adrienne Rich
The Master's tools will never dismantle the Master's house
Age, race, class, and sex : women redefining difference
The uses of anger : women responding to racism
Learning from the 60s
Eye to eye : black women, hatred, and anger
Grenada revisited : an interim report]]>
This work is a collection of essays, letters, speeches and poems by the late feminist scholar.
Lorde examines topics such as racism, sexism, white feminism, lesbianism, and US imperialism (Monroe Doctrine) in the Caribbean.
By way of these essays Lorde reminds us that all systems of oppression are connected and that the existing masculinist racist hierarchies must be eradicated from our society to achieve true liberation.
My favourite essays from this work are:
1. Uses of the erotic: the erotic as power
2. Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism
3. The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.
4. Eye to Eye: Black women, hatred and anger
The first two I especially love as she talks about the utility and importance of an emotion and psyche that are often stripped from Black women. Black women are not allowed to be angry without being perceived as a threat, their anger however, is very justified— as the most hated people in the world.
She speaks of the erotic as a resource and power;
“For the erotic is not a question only of what we do; it is a question of how acutely and fully we can feel in the doing. Once we know the extent to which we are capable of feeling that sense of satisfaction and completion, we can then observe which of our various life endeavours brings us closest to that fullness.”
Audre Lorde has a profound way with words, I enjoyed reading this work as her command of literature had me in awe. We love when they serve black lesbian poet writing prose.
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author: Audre Lorde
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.54
book published: 1984
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/21
date added: 2024/11/16
shelves: feminists-and-other-wh-res, the-theys-and-the-gays, absolute-faves, gender-theory, sapphic-tings
review:
Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde.
This work is a collection of essays, letters, speeches and poems by the late feminist scholar.
Lorde examines topics such as racism, sexism, white feminism, lesbianism, and US imperialism (Monroe Doctrine) in the Caribbean.
By way of these essays Lorde reminds us that all systems of oppression are connected and that the existing masculinist racist hierarchies must be eradicated from our society to achieve true liberation.
My favourite essays from this work are:
1. Uses of the erotic: the erotic as power
2. Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism
3. The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.
4. Eye to Eye: Black women, hatred and anger
The first two I especially love as she talks about the utility and importance of an emotion and psyche that are often stripped from Black women. Black women are not allowed to be angry without being perceived as a threat, their anger however, is very justified— as the most hated people in the world.
She speaks of the erotic as a resource and power;
“For the erotic is not a question only of what we do; it is a question of how acutely and fully we can feel in the doing. Once we know the extent to which we are capable of feeling that sense of satisfaction and completion, we can then observe which of our various life endeavours brings us closest to that fullness.”
Audre Lorde has a profound way with words, I enjoyed reading this work as her command of literature had me in awe. We love when they serve black lesbian poet writing prose.
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Initially published in 2017, this work is divided into two parts. Part one recounts a real Israeli war-crime that took place in historic Palestine, one year after the Nakba (1949). Where a Palestinian family was martyred and the surviving young girl was tortured, r and then also martyred.
Part two narrates the fictionalised story of Palestinian woman , 25 years later, who reads about this heinous act in the newspaper and is transfixed by the minor detail, that it occurred on her birthday. We follow the protagonist as she navigates occupied Palestine in search of the site where these horrors occurred.
Sparing no detail, the author ensures by way of this text that we bear witness to the atrocities of the violent settler-colonial project of Israeli occupation in Palestine.
“I keep listening, my ears trained to the sound of repeated bombings, and I feel a strange closeness with Gaza, as well as a desire to hear the shelling from nearby, and to touch motes of dust from the buildings being bombed. The absence of dust brings an awareness of how profoundly far I am from anything familiar, and how impossible it will be to return.”- Adania Shibli
We can clearly see the necessity of this text. We constantly clamber and search for answers, for a why, just like the protagonist.
The differences among the wretched of the earth are minor. We've all heard the saying, "this could be us." But Shibili calls for us to remember, this IS happening to us.
It is a haunting story that is being told each and every day by real people in present-day occupied Palestine. The horrors persist, but so will we.
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.
Free Palestine.
#readingisresistance ]]>
author: Adania Shibli
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2024/09/07
date added: 2024/11/16
shelves:
review:
Minor detail by Palestinian author Adania Shibili
Initially published in 2017, this work is divided into two parts. Part one recounts a real Israeli war-crime that took place in historic Palestine, one year after the Nakba (1949). Where a Palestinian family was martyred and the surviving young girl was tortured, r and then also martyred.
Part two narrates the fictionalised story of Palestinian woman , 25 years later, who reads about this heinous act in the newspaper and is transfixed by the minor detail, that it occurred on her birthday. We follow the protagonist as she navigates occupied Palestine in search of the site where these horrors occurred.
Sparing no detail, the author ensures by way of this text that we bear witness to the atrocities of the violent settler-colonial project of Israeli occupation in Palestine.
“I keep listening, my ears trained to the sound of repeated bombings, and I feel a strange closeness with Gaza, as well as a desire to hear the shelling from nearby, and to touch motes of dust from the buildings being bombed. The absence of dust brings an awareness of how profoundly far I am from anything familiar, and how impossible it will be to return.”- Adania Shibli
We can clearly see the necessity of this text. We constantly clamber and search for answers, for a why, just like the protagonist.
The differences among the wretched of the earth are minor. We've all heard the saying, "this could be us." But Shibili calls for us to remember, this IS happening to us.
It is a haunting story that is being told each and every day by real people in present-day occupied Palestine. The horrors persist, but so will we.
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.
Free Palestine.
#readingisresistance
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But then, there’s this gorgeous girl on the train.
Jane. Dazzling, charming, mysterious, impossible Jane. Jane with her rough edges and swoopy hair and soft smile, showing up in a leather jacket to save August’s day when she needed it most. August’s subway crush becomes the best part of her day, but pretty soon, she discovers there’s one big problem: Jane doesn’t just look like an old school punk rocker. She’s literally displaced in time from the 1970s, and August is going to have to use everything she tried to leave in her own past to help her. Maybe it’s time to start believing in some things, after all.
Casey McQuiston’s One Last Stop is a magical, sexy, big-hearted romance where the impossible becomes possible as August does everything in her power to save the girl lost in time.]]>
author: Casey McQuiston
name: Mirai
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/26
date added: 2024/11/16
shelves: sapphic-tings
review:
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Tourists flock to the Caribbean for its beaches and spread more than just blankets and dollars. Indeed, tourism has overly affected the culture there. Resisting Paradise explores the import of both tourism and diaspora in shaping Caribbean identity. It examines Caribbean writers and others who confront the region's overdependence on the tourist industry and the many ways that tourism continues the legacy of colonialism.
Angelique V. Nixon interrogates the relationship between culture and sex within the production of “paradise” and investigates the ways in which Caribbean writers, artists, and activists respond to and powerfully resist this production. Forms of resistance include critiquing exploitation, challenging dominant historical narratives, exposing tourism's influence on cultural and sexual identity in the Caribbean and its diaspora, and offering alternative models of tourism and travel.
Resisting Paradise places emphasis on the Caribbean people and its diasporic subjects as travelers and as cultural workers contributing to alternate and defiant understandings of tourism in the region. Through a unique multidisciplinary approach to comparative literary analysis, interviews, and participant observation, Nixon analyzes the ways Caribbean cultural producers are taking control of representation. While focused mainly on the Anglophone Caribbean, the study covers a range of territories including Antigua, the Bahamas, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, as well as Trinidad and Tobago, to deliver a potent critique.]]>
author: Angelique V. Nixon
name: Mirai
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/22
shelves: to-read
review:
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It’s the night before Death-Cast goes live, and there’s one question on everyone’s mind: Can Death-Cast actually predict when someone will die, or is it just an elaborate hoax?
Orion Pagan has waited years for someone to tell him that he’s going to die. He has a serious heart condition, and he signed up for Death-Cast so he could know what’s coming.
Valentino Prince is restarting his life in New York. He has a long and promising future ahead and he only registered for Death-Cast after his twin sister nearly died in a car accident.
Orion and Valentino cross paths in Times Square and immediately feel a deep connection. But when the first round of End Day calls goes out, their lives are changed forever—one of them receives a call, and the other doesn’t. Though neither boy is certain how the day will end, they know they want to spend it together…even if that means their goodbye will be heartbreaking.
Told with acclaimed author Adam Silvera’s signature bittersweet touch, this story celebrates the lasting impact that people have on each other and proves that life is always worth living to the fullest.]]>
author: Adam Silvera
name: Mirai
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2024/08/07
date added: 2024/10/11
shelves: the-theys-and-the-gays
review:
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Noah Blue’s finally got her foot in the door. After clawing her way to the top of the charts with her webcomic, she’s garnered enough attention to earn a full-time position at a comic company re-launching their cult classic comic: Queen Leisah.
Queen Leisah is predicted to be an instant bestseller with movie deals already in the making. Things are falling into place. There’s nowhere to go but up…as soon as she gets one person out of her way.
Sage Montgomery has always been the best artist in every building she’s stepped foot in. Raw talent’s gotten her webcomic to the top of the charts every month for the past eight years. She’s been the best for as long as she can remember. Sure, her career has plateaued but that can be fixed with a big, mainstream comic.
She was promised full creative control over Leisah. Instead, she got a shared credit with the one artist who’s been breathing down her neck since college. The one artist who has a fighting chance of being better than her. Sage and Noah have to work as a team — or, at least appear to work as a team. They thought the hardest part of the relaunch would be drawing together. But that’s easy in comparison to resisting their feelings for each other.
__
Outdrawn is a slow-burn, rivals-to-lovers sapphic romance. This book is a standalone.]]>
author: Deanna Grey
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2024/09/08
date added: 2024/10/11
shelves: sapphic-tings, the-theys-and-the-gays
review:
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Momo Gardner is the kind of friend who’s always ready to lend a helping hand. She’s introverted, sensitive, and maybe a little too trusting, but she likes to believe the best in people. PG, on the other hand, is a bit of a lone wolf, despite her reputation for being a flirt and a player. Underneath all that cool mystery, she’s actually quick to smile, and when she falls for someone, she falls hard. An unexpected meet-cute brings the two together, kicking off the beginning of an awkward yet endearing courtship—but with their drastically different personalities, Momo’s overprotective friend, and PG’s past coming back to haunt her, Momo and PG’s romance is put to the test.]]>
Not to mention the art? Stunning (I almost favourited the entire book). The scenes were designed so beautifully. Brava.
If Eunnie has zero fans, i’m dead. 5 stars!!! ]]>
author: Eunnie
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/15
date added: 2024/10/11
shelves: absolute-faves, sapphic-tings
review:
This is one of the best graphic novels I have ever read. Granted I might be biased because I am undeniably Momo.
However, I must say this was so cute and unexpectedly very real and relatable (did not expect myself to be tearing up at some parts).
Not to mention the art? Stunning (I almost favourited the entire book). The scenes were designed so beautifully. Brava.
If Eunnie has zero fans, i’m dead. 5 stars!!!
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It makes Cyn see Jucee in a different light. One with far fewer boundaries and a lot more kissing.
Juleesa Jones makes great money dancing the early shift and spends most evenings with her son, her Sanity family or at Cyn’s house. Relationships are? not ?high on the priority list—until she’s forced to admit that maybe friendship isn’t the only thing she wants from her bestie.
But hooking up with your ride-or-die is risky. Jucee isn’t just Cyn’s best friend—Jucee is her muse. When Cyn lays down her beats, it’s Jucee she imagines in the club throwing it back to every note. If they aren’t careful, this could crash and burn…but isn’t real love worth it?]]>
(Spoilers ahead maybe)
But in all seriousness, I really enjoyed this book. Davaughn and Kris didnt quite do it for me (great writing, I just couldn't get into the characters and their storyline). However, this book really explored some necessary themes. I appreciated the author using this imaginative work to tackle both the personal challenges and the existing issues within the queer dating pool such as biphobia, unhealed trauma, self sabotage, fear of abandonment, and insecure attachment styles. What's more, it was a refreshing read; seeing healthy co-parenting, fat bodies, and sex work shown in a positive light, with chosen familes supporting it all.
No doubt, I saw myself in Julessa, her character was so down to earth and free. Reading about her growth in this book was aspiring (did not expect allat from a cute lil wlw romance book lol).
Cyn's storyline was a lot less relatable but I loved seeing the dynamic she shared with her accepting and loving parents and siblings (we love black families who are allies!). Cyn got on my nerve with the way she treated Julessa at times though. I do wish they had not taken so long before they got to just having a simple conversation (was dragginggg it)... but that's usually the whole arc of many romance novels (all miscommunication trope haters assemble here).
The chemistry Higgins created between these two was undeniable and the spicy scenes were enchanting.
4 stars, we do love a friends to lovers Sapphic romance in this house.]]>
author: Chencia C. Higgins
name: Mirai
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/23
date added: 2024/10/09
shelves: sapphic-tings, the-theys-and-the-gays
review:
This is my favourite book by Chencia Higgins. She did her big one I fear.
(Spoilers ahead maybe)
But in all seriousness, I really enjoyed this book. Davaughn and Kris didnt quite do it for me (great writing, I just couldn't get into the characters and their storyline). However, this book really explored some necessary themes. I appreciated the author using this imaginative work to tackle both the personal challenges and the existing issues within the queer dating pool such as biphobia, unhealed trauma, self sabotage, fear of abandonment, and insecure attachment styles. What's more, it was a refreshing read; seeing healthy co-parenting, fat bodies, and sex work shown in a positive light, with chosen familes supporting it all.
No doubt, I saw myself in Julessa, her character was so down to earth and free. Reading about her growth in this book was aspiring (did not expect allat from a cute lil wlw romance book lol).
Cyn's storyline was a lot less relatable but I loved seeing the dynamic she shared with her accepting and loving parents and siblings (we love black families who are allies!). Cyn got on my nerve with the way she treated Julessa at times though. I do wish they had not taken so long before they got to just having a simple conversation (was dragginggg it)... but that's usually the whole arc of many romance novels (all miscommunication trope haters assemble here).
The chemistry Higgins created between these two was undeniable and the spicy scenes were enchanting.
4 stars, we do love a friends to lovers Sapphic romance in this house.
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Eve Brown is a certified hot mess. No matter how hard she strives to do right, her life always goes horribly wrong—so she’s given up trying. But when her personal brand of chaos ruins a wedding, her parents draw the line. It's time for Eve to grow up and prove herself—even though she's not entirely sure how…
Jacob Wayne is always in control. The uptight B&B owner expects nothing less than perfection from his employees, so when a purple-haired tornado of a woman applies for his open chef position, he tells her the?brutal truth: not a chance in hell. Then she hits him with her car—supposedly by accident.
Now his arm is broken, his B&B is understaffed, and the dangerously unpredictable Eve is fluttering around, trying to?help. Before long, she’s infiltrated his work, his kitchen—and his spare bedroom. Sunny, chaotic Eve is his natural-born nemesis, but the longer these two enemies spend in close quarters, the more their animosity turns into something else entirely...]]>
author: Talia Hibbert
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/11
date added: 2024/09/25
shelves: absolute-faves
review:
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For fans of?Sorry to Bother You and The Wolf of Wall Street—a crackling, satirical debut novel about a young man given a shot at stardom as the lone Black salesman at a mysterious, cult-like, and wildly successful startup where nothing is as it seems.
There’s nothing like a Black salesman on a mission.
An unambitious twenty-two-year-old, Darren lives in a Bed-Stuy brownstone with his mother, who wants nothing more than to see him live up to his potential as the valedictorian of Bronx Science. But Darren is content working at Starbucks in the lobby of a Midtown office building, hanging out with his girlfriend, Soraya, and eating his mother’s home-cooked meals. All that changes when a chance encounter with Rhett Daniels, the silver-tongued CEO of Sumwun, NYC’s hottest tech startup, results in an exclusive invitation for Darren to join an elite sales team on the thirty-sixth floor.
After enduring a “hell week” of training, Darren, the only Black person in the company, reimagines himself as “Buck,” a ruthless salesman unrecognizable to his friends and family.?But when things turn tragic at home and Buck feels he’s hit rock bottom, he begins to hatch a plan to help young people of color infiltrate America’s sales force, setting off a chain of events that forever changes the game.
Black Buck is a hilarious, razor-sharp skewering of America’s workforce; it is a propulsive, crackling debut that explores ambition and race, and makes way for a necessary new vision of the American dream.]]>
author: Mateo Askaripour
name: Mirai
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2024/09/25
date added: 2024/09/25
shelves:
review:
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Miss Major Griffin-Gracy is a veteran of the infamous Stonewall Riots, a former sex worker, and a transgender elder and activist who has survived Bellevue psychiatric hospital, Attica Prison, the HIV/AIDS crisis and a world that white supremacy has built. She has shared tips with other sex workers in the nascent drag ball scene of the late 1960s, and helped found one of America’s first needle exchange clinics from the back of her van.
Miss Major Speaks is both document of her brilliant life–told with intimacy, warmth and an undeniable levity-and a roadmap for the challenges black, brown, queer and trans youth will face on the path to liberation today.
Her incredible story of a life lived and a world survived becomes a conduit for larger questions about the riddle of collective liberation. For a younger generation, she warns about the traps of ‘representation,’ the politics of 'self-care,' and the frequent dead-ends of non-profit organizing; for all of us, she is a strike against those who would erase these histories of struggle.
Miss Major offers something that cannot be found an affirmation that our vision for freedom can and must be more expansive than those on offer by mainstream institutions.]]>
author: Miss Major Griffin-Gracy
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.66
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/25
shelves: to-read
review:
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An unusual girl. An enigmatic man. An ancient castle. What could go wrong?
An outcast her entire life, Corvina Clemm is left adrift after losing her mother. When she receives the admission letter from the mysterious University of Verenmore, she accepts it as a sign from the universe. The last thing she expects though is an old, secluded castle on top of a mountain riddled with secrets, deceit, and death.
An enigma his entire life, Vad Deverell likes being a closed book but knowing exactly everything that happens in the university. A part-time professor working on his thesis, Vad has been around long enough to know the dangers the castle possesses. And he knows the moment his path crosses with Corvina, she's dangerous to everything that he is.
They shouldn't have caught each other's eye. They cannot be. But a chill-inducing century-old mystery forces them to collide. People have disappeared every five years over the past century, Corvina is getting clues to unraveling it all, and Vad needs to keep an eye on her.
And so begins a tale of the mysterious, the morbid, the macabre, and a deep love that blossoms in the unlikeliest of places.]]>
author: RuNyx
name: Mirai
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/07
shelves: to-read
review:
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author: James Baldwin
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1974
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/15
shelves: to-read
review:
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author: N.K. Jemisin
name: Mirai
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at: 2024/08/13
date added: 2024/08/13
shelves: to-resume, dnf
review:
47% read, dnf.
will return to give a proper review but half a book spent on exposition and world building is crazy.
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Before she can rest in peace, Charlotte Usher must return to the tragic site of her death: high school. She still has one last assignment to complete, but no one explained what happens if you fall in love with your class project. Charlotte would die (again) for love. But when her ticket to the afterlife means having to face the dreaded, all-too-familiar pains of being invisible, it may be too much for her to withstand.]]>
author: Tonya Hurley
name: Mirai
average rating: 3.66
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves:
review:
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From the revolutionary "Seduction" to the tender new poem, "Just a Simple Declaration of Love," from the whimsical "I Wrote a Good Omelet" to the elegiac "All Eyez on U," written for Tupac Shakur, these poems embody the fearless passion and spirited wit for which Nikki Giovanni is beloved and revered.
Romantic, bold, and erotic, Love Poems expresses notions of love in ways that are delightfully unexpected. Articulating in sensuous verse what we know only instinctively, Nikki Giovanni once again confirms her place as one of our nations's most distinguished poets and powerful truth-tellers.
In a career that has spanned more than a quarter century, starting with her explosive early years in the Black Rights Movement, Nikki Giovanni has earned a reputation as one of America's most celebrated and controversial writers. Her mind-speaking work has made her a universal favorite and a number-one best-seller.The love poems-the revolutionary "Seduction," the whimsical "I Wrote a Good Omelet," and the tender "My House" to name just a few-are among the most beloved of all Nikki Giovanni's works. Now, Love Poems brings together these and other favorites with over twenty new poems. Romantic, bold, and erotic, Love Poems will once again confirm Nikki Giovanni's place among the country's most renowned poets and truth tellers.]]>
author: Nikki Giovanni
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1997
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: currently-reading
review:
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![呪術廻戦 2 [Jujutsu Kaisen 2]](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1589220237l/43160733._SY75_.jpg)
author: Gege Akutami
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/31
date added: 2024/07/31
shelves: mangas
review:
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Weirdness and wonders abound in this colorful celebration of Afro-Caribbean culture by the author of the beloved Jumbies series.
Twelve-year-old Misty and her mother have just moved from Trinidad to Brooklyn, New York, in time for the annual carnival celebrations over Labor Day weekend. Misty has plenty to deal with getting used to living with her cousins Aiden and Brooke in her new surroundings. On top of that, her mom is too busy trying to find a job and her aunts and uncles are too preoccupied with carnival preparations to pay any attention to her.
Then really strange things begin to happen. A ball of feathers in the basement turns into a creature that squeaks and rolls around. When Misty and her cousins eat pieces of mango anchar, flames shoot out of their mouths. Most disturbing of all, Misty begins to see visions of the future--scary visions that soon come true.
Misty discovers that she and her cousins come from a long line of mokos, people who have special powers meant to help them protect their community. Misty can see impending danger, Aiden can heal, and Brooke has crazy physical strength. The trio is just learning about their skills when Misty senses something watching her. And then each of the carnival events is disrupted by a different disaster. Some kind of evil force is clearly trying to stop the festivities. But why? And will moko magic be enough to save the day?]]>
author: Tracey Baptiste
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/31
shelves: to-read
review:
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author: Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani
name: Mirai
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/24
shelves: to-read
review:
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Princess Amelia’s kingdom, Marion, is in shambles after months of their trade routes being ravaged by pirates, and now the only seemingly option left is for her to save it through a marriage alliance. When she gets an exorbitant offer from the royalty of Iliad—a country shrouded in mystery—Amelia accepts without question and leaves her home to begin a new life.
But she lands on Iliad’s shores to find that her betrothed isn't the country’s prince, but the recently coronated Queen Salira.
?
Shocked, Amelia tries to make sense of her situation and her confused heart: Salira has awakened strange new feelings inside her, but something dark hides behind the Queen's sorrowful eyes. Amelia must fight the demons of her own anxiety disorder before she can tackle her wife's, all while war looms on the horizon.]]>
author: Anna Kopp
name: Mirai
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/16
date added: 2024/07/24
shelves: comics-graphic-novels, sapphic-tings
review:
3.5. Cute, felt like the plot point about her anxieties/ depression was left unfinished. The animations were stunning.
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Yuta Okkotsu is a nervous high school student who is suffering from a serious problem—his childhood friend Rika has turned into a curse and won't leave him alone. Since Rika is no ordinary curse, his plight is noticed by Satoru Gojo, a teacher at Jujutsu High, a school where fledgling exorcists learn how to combat curses. Gojo convinces Yuta to enroll, but can he learn enough in time to confront the curse that haunts him?]]>
author: Gege Akutami
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2024/07/22
date added: 2024/07/24
shelves: comics-graphic-novels, mangas
review:
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In 1899, Yusuf Diya al-Khalidi, mayor of Jerusalem, alarmed by the Zionist call to create a Jewish national home in Palestine, wrote a letter aimed at Theodore Herzl: the country had an indigenous people who would not easily accept their own displacement. He warned of the perils ahead, ending his note, “in the name of God, let Palestine be left alone.” Thus Rashid Khalidi, al-Khalidi’s great-great-nephew, begins this sweeping history, the first general account of the conflict told from an explicitly Palestinian perspective.
Drawing on a wealth of untapped archival materials and the reports of generations of family members—mayors, judges, scholars, diplomats, and journalists—The Hundred Years' War on Palestine upends accepted interpretations of the conflict, which tend, at best, to describe a tragic clash between two peoples with claims to the same territory. Instead, Khalidi traces a hundred years of colonial war on the Palestinians, waged first by the Zionist movement and then Israel, but backed by Britain and the United States, the great powers of the age. He highlights the key episodes in this colonial campaign, from the 1917 Balfour Declaration to the destruction of Palestine in 1948, from Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon to the endless and futile peace process.
Original, authoritative, and important, The Hundred Years' War on Palestine is not a chronicle of victimization, nor does it whitewash the mistakes of Palestinian leaders or deny the emergence of national movements on both sides. In reevaluating the forces arrayed against the Palestinians, it offers an illuminating new view of a conflict that continues to this day.]]>
author: Rashid Khalidi
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/16
shelves: currently-reading, liberation-is-the-answer-kt, history
review:
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It’s winter in Sokcho, a tourist town on the border between South and North Korea. The cold slows everything down. Bodies are red and raw, the fish turn venomous, beyond the beach guns point out from the North’s watchtowers. A young French Korean woman works as a receptionist in a tired guesthouse. One evening, an unexpected guest arrives: a French cartoonist determined to find inspiration in this desolate landscape.
The two form an uneasy relationship. When she agrees to accompany him on trips to discover an ‘authentic’ Korea, they visit snowy mountaintops and dramatic waterfalls, and cross into North Korea. But he takes no interest in the Sokcho she knows – the gaudy neon lights, the scars of war, the fish market where her mother works. As she’s pulled into his vision and taken in by his drawings, she strikes upon a way to finally be seen.
An exquisitely-crafted debut, which won the Prix Robert Walser, Winter in Sokcho is a novel about shared identities and divided selves, vision and blindness, intimacy and alienation. Elisa Shua Duspain’s voice is distinctive and unmistakable.]]>
author: Elisa Shua Dusapin
name: Mirai
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/16
shelves: to-read
review:
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For teacher Ava Williams, some subjects are not up for debate. Like history—specifically, the one she has with Grace Jones, bowling pro and local celeb. Who is now, for no identifiable reason, teaching at the same small-town Georgia high school as Ava. Once upon a time, they were thick as thieves, best friends, rivals who pushed each other, and total bowling nerds. Then they shared a kiss, sweet and confusing…and after that, they split and nothing was ever the same.
Ava is pretty sure she has every reason to hate Grace. Especially when the school’s soggy potato of a principal announces—finally—that the students can have the bowling team Ava has been pushing for, for years…only to hand it to Grace.
Now they’re expected to be partners and lead their new bowling team to victory in six months. And with that, their rivalry is back. Fierce, ultracompetitive…and with an undeniable attraction that pushes, pulls and crashes together. It’s history. It’s chemistry. And it’s just a matter of time before it explodes…one way or the other.]]>
author: Karmen Lee
name: Mirai
average rating: 3.38
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/16
shelves: to-read
review:
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They are an unlikely pair: George is "small and quick and dark of face"; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a "family," clinging together in the face of loneliness and alienation. Laborers in California's dusty vegetable fields, they hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence. But George and Lennie have a plan: to own an acre of land and a shack they can call their own.
While the powerlessness of the laboring class is a recurring theme in Steinbeck's work of the late 1930s, he narrowed his focus when composing Of Mice and Men, creating an intimate portrait of two men facing a world marked by petty tyranny, misunderstanding, jealousy, and callousness. But though the scope is narrow, the theme is universal: a friendship and a shared dream that makes an individual's existence meaningful.
A unique perspective on life's hardships, this story has achieved the status of timeless classic due to its remarkable success as a novel, a Broadway play, and three acclaimed films.]]>
author: John Steinbeck
name: Mirai
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1937
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/16
shelves: to-read
review:
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author: Monique Roffey
name: Mirai
average rating: 3.84
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/16
shelves: to-read
review:
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In this haunting existential novella, author, philosopher, and ecologist Steven L. Peck explores a subversive vision of eternity, taking the reader on a journey through the afterlife of a world where everything everyone believed in turns out to be wrong.]]>
author: Steven L. Peck
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/16
shelves: to-read
review:
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Written in a combination of English and Trinidad Creole, Pleasantview reveals the dark side of the Caribbean dream. In this novel-in-stories about a fictional town in Trinidad, we meet a political candidate who sets out to slaughter endangered turtles for fun, while his rival candidate beats his “outside-woman,” so badly she ends up losing their baby. On the night of a political rally, the abused woman exacts a very public revenge, the trajectory of which echoes through Pleasantview, ending with one boy introducing another boy to a gun and to an ideology which will help him aim the weapon.
Merging the beauty and brutality of Trinidadian culture evoked by writers such as Ingrid Persaud and Claire Adam with the linguistic experimentation of Marlon James’s A Brief History of Seven Killings, Pleasantview is a landmark work from an important new voice in international literary fiction.]]>
Pleasantview is a series of short stories that flows like a novel as the characters bleed from one story to the next. It follows the people of Pleasantview, a town in east Trinidad and all their messiness.
And this book was in fact MESS, the trini in me did enjoy essentially macoing everybody in this town’s business. However, while enjoying the storytelling, all I could do was sympathise with the characters. I really wanted ANY of them to catch a break, a win, SUMN. Though very flawed people, I could not help but root for them at times. Notably, these fictional pieces reflect very real stories and experiences of the real people contextualised in our homeland, and so I believe they definitely need to be told-- mmm sometimes when they’re told from an imaginative perspective it does make one just ?? though.
My favourite thing about this book was the language! Celeste did an amazing job at wielding our creole, our idioms, our proverbs, etc. to build and show these characters in all their glory.
I do love when a book is written BY us FOR us, and it’s so evident that this was the case here. Moreover, there were so many moments where I was in public doubling over by what these characters were saying.
My least favourite part of this book however, was the characterisation of the black protagonists. Most times giving straight caricature. Like damn, everyone else was fleshed out and a bit more complex except Jabari and dem ]]>
author: Celeste Mohammed
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/13
date added: 2024/07/16
shelves: caribbean-ting-alyuh-come-ennn
review:
I honestly don’t know how I feel about this book. I am at war with this book. I will say that I truly enjoyed the storytelling, this was a cant-put-down-need-to-know-what-happens-next read and I kept thinking, ‘this is a debut?!’ Crazy ting. I shall explain;
Pleasantview is a series of short stories that flows like a novel as the characters bleed from one story to the next. It follows the people of Pleasantview, a town in east Trinidad and all their messiness.
And this book was in fact MESS, the trini in me did enjoy essentially macoing everybody in this town’s business. However, while enjoying the storytelling, all I could do was sympathise with the characters. I really wanted ANY of them to catch a break, a win, SUMN. Though very flawed people, I could not help but root for them at times. Notably, these fictional pieces reflect very real stories and experiences of the real people contextualised in our homeland, and so I believe they definitely need to be told-- mmm sometimes when they’re told from an imaginative perspective it does make one just ?? though.
My favourite thing about this book was the language! Celeste did an amazing job at wielding our creole, our idioms, our proverbs, etc. to build and show these characters in all their glory.
I do love when a book is written BY us FOR us, and it’s so evident that this was the case here. Moreover, there were so many moments where I was in public doubling over by what these characters were saying.
My least favourite part of this book however, was the characterisation of the black protagonists. Most times giving straight caricature. Like damn, everyone else was fleshed out and a bit more complex except Jabari and dem
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Drawing on a deep and varied archive of materials—early sexological texts, fugitive slave narratives, Afro-modernist literature, sensationalist journalism, Hollywood films—Snorton attends to how slavery and the production of racialized gender provided the foundations for an understanding of gender as mutable. In tracing the twinned genealogies of blackness and transness, Snorton follows multiple trajectories, from the medical experiments conducted on enslaved black women by J. Marion Sims, the “father of American gynecology,” to the negation of blackness that makes transnormativity possible.
Revealing instances of personal sovereignty among blacks living in the antebellum North that were mapped in terms of “cross dressing” and canonical black literary works that express black men’s access to the “female within,” Black on Both Sides concludes with a reading of the fate of Phillip DeVine, who was murdered alongside Brandon Teena in 1993, a fact omitted from the film Boys Don’t Cry out of narrative convenience. Reconstructing these theoretical and historical trajectories furthers our imaginative capacities to conceive more livable black and trans worlds.]]>
author: C. Riley Snorton
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/16
shelves: currently-reading, history
review:
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But when his best friend Autumn dares him to take Provo High’s prestigious Seminar—where honor roll students diligently toil to draft a book in a semester—Tanner can’t resist going against his better judgment and having a go, if only to prove to Autumn how silly the whole thing is. Writing a book in four months sounds simple. Four months is an eternity.
It turns out, Tanner is only partly right: four months is a long time. After all, it takes only one second for him to notice Sebastian Brother, the Mormon prodigy who sold his own Seminar novel the year before and who now mentors the class. And it takes less than a month for Tanner to fall completely in love with him.]]>
author: Christina Lauren
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/15
shelves: to-read
review:
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author: Alison Kafer
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/15
shelves: to-read
review:
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In recent years, disability activism has come into its own as a vital and necessary means to acknowledge the power and resilience of the disabled community, and to call out ableist culture wherever it appears.
Crip Kinship explores the art activism of Sins Invalid, a San Francisco Bay Area-based performance project, and its radical imaginings of what disabled, queer, trans, and gender-nonconforming bodyminds of colour can do: how they can rewrite oppression, and how they can gift us with transformational lessons for our collective survival.
Grounded in the disability justice framework, Crip Kinship investigates the revolutionary survival teachings that disabled, queer of colour community offers to all our bodyminds. From their focus on crip beauty and sexuality to manifesting digital kinship networks and crip-centric liberated zones, Sins Invalid empowers and moves us toward generating our collective liberation from our bodyminds outward.]]>
author: Shayda Kafai
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/15
shelves: to-read
review:
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author: Yenn Purkis
name: Mirai
average rating: 3.55
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/15
shelves: to-read
review:
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Widower Mukesh lives a quiet life in the London Borough of Ealing after losing his beloved wife. He shops every Wednesday, goes to Temple, and worries about his granddaughter, Priya, who hides in her room reading while he spends his evenings watching nature documentaries.
Aleisha is a bright but anxious teenager working at the local library for the summer when she discovers a crumpled-up piece of paper in the back of To Kill a Mockingbird. It’s a list of novels that she’s never heard of before. Intrigued, and a little bored with her slow job at the checkout desk, she impulsively decides to read every book on the list, one after the other. As each story gives up its magic, the books transport Aleisha from the painful realities she’s facing at home.
When Mukesh arrives at the library, desperate to forge a connection with his bookworm granddaughter, Aleisha passes along the reading list… hoping that it will be a lifeline for him too. Slowly, the shared books create a connection between two lonely souls, as fiction helps them escape their grief and everyday troubles and find joy again.?]]>
author: Sara Nisha Adams
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/14
shelves: to-read
review:
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When violinist Anna Sun accidentally achieves career success with a viral YouTube video, she finds herself incapacitated and burned out from her attempts to replicate that moment. And when her longtime boyfriend announces he wants an open relationship before making a final commitment, a hurt and angry Anna decides that if he wants an open relationship, then she does, too. Translation: She’s going to embark on a string of one-night stands. The more unacceptable the men, the better.
That’s where tattooed, motorcycle-riding Quan Diep comes in. Their first attempt at a one-night stand fails, as does their second, and their third, because being with Quan is more than sex—he accepts Anna on an unconditional level that she herself has just started to understand. However, when tragedy strikes Anna’s family she takes on a role that she is ill-suited for, until the burden of expectations threatens to destroy her. Anna and Quan have to fight for their chance at love, but to do that, they also have to fight for themselves.]]>
author: Helen Hoang
name: Mirai
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/14
shelves: to-read
review:
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author: Toni Morrison
name: Mirai
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1977
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/13
shelves: underwhelming, to-resume, to-read
review:
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A Nebula Award nominee -- A Locus Magazine recommended book]]>
author: Nalo Hopkinson
name: Mirai
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/13
shelves: to-read
review:
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