A Bound Woman Is a Dangerous Thing

This isn’t a book that I’ve seen around or reviewed often. In fact, I had to request my library purchase it since they didn’t already have a copy when I went looking to borrow it. So, I had to wait for it to be bought and delivered before, excitingly, being the first person to borrow…

Stamped From the Beginning

This book is intimidating – it is heavy and thick – but I knew as soon as I saw the IG-hosted readalong from @melanatedreader, @_pagesgaloree, and @booksteanhenny that that was the community to read with and the time to pick it up. (As an exciting addition, my college roommate messaged and wanted to join as…

Wild Swans

I was recommended this book by a coworker many years ago and a combination of events this year, including AAPI Heritage Month, a book choice recommendation for a book club topically related to Mother’s Day, and prompt #15 for The Reading Women Challenge 2020 (a biography) finally had me picking this one up. Wild Swans…

How We Get Free

This book was chosen by a friend as the first book of an Anti-Racist Book Club that she started. I know that the reactions to white people, white women, starting book clubs like this to address racism is very understandably skeptical as an empty gesture that will soon be moved on from… All I can…

Wolf Hall

This book has sat on my shelf, unread, for years. It’s curious, because it’s so lauded a historical fiction of a time period that I love reading about, so I can’t figure out why I hadn’t picked it up before. But the recent publication (and Women’s Prize short-listing) of the final book in the trilogy,…

The Deep

Just about two years ago I read Solomon’s debut novel, An Unkindness of Ghosts, and was so impressed with the world-building, the diversity of the characters, the writing…it was a fantastic debut. And it was before I really had any idea about Afrofuturism as a genre, so it felt truly groundbreaking to me. I am…

When Women Ruled the World

I picked this book up to fulfill Prompt 6: Nonfiction by a Woman Historian on The Reading Women Challenge 2020. I have always been fascinated by ancient Egypt and I have read a ton of historical fiction about these great Queens, including a fantastic one about Nefertiti by Michelle Moran and a 1000+ page one…

Black Leopard, Red Wolf

I have had every book that Marlon James has ever written on my TBR (and, for most of them, on my shelves) for years. I’ve heard his writing is amazing and the stories are intense and affecting, but for some reason this mood reader has just never been in the mood. And then BLRW was…

The Half-Drowned King

Alright, you know how sometimes your brain does weird things and gets you all confused? Well, that happened to me with this book so hard. When I first read a description of it, I was like, “Yes! This sounds amazing and I want to read it!” And then, somehow, I got this book and The…

A Gentleman in Moscow

This book has been on my TBR since it’s publication in 2016. Years ago, definitely before I started officially blogging my reviews, I had read a previous novel of Towles’, Rules of Civility. I really enjoyed it. I remember thinking it was a great period piece, though I don’t remember a lot of the details,…