I highly recommend this book despite a couple of fatphobic descriptions, because overall it portrays a compelling portrait of feminist resistance, sisterhood, and courage despite an uber-patriarchal dictatorship.
Author Archives: bbwesquire
Everyone In This Room Will Someday Be Dead
Do you have a friend who tries her best but struggles all the time? Or maybe that’s you? Either way, you will enjoy the story of Gilda, a twentysomething lesbian atheist who ends up working as a receptionist in a Catholic church. It’s coming in July 2021.
The Night Tiger (spoilers)
Spoiler and Fatphobic Writing Warning: Don’t keep reading if you don’t want to read specific instances of fatphobia or the identity of one of the villians from Yangsze Choo’s The Night Tiger, which is generally reviewed here. I didn’t see the subtle fatphobia present while I was reading The Night Tiger, which I generally loved,Continue reading “The Night Tiger (spoilers)”
The Night Tiger
The Night Tiger, by Yangsze Choo (2019) transported me back to 1931 Malaya (now Malaysia) with a tale of murder, romance, and weretigers. I loved Choo’s 2013 The Ghost Bride and have no idea why I didn’t highlight it in my best of 2020 posts, so I was looking forward to The Night Tiger. IContinue reading “The Night Tiger”
This is How It Always Is
This Is How It Always Is (2017) by Laurie Frankel is contemporary fiction that tells the story of the family created by Rosie, an ER doctor, and Penn, a writer, and the five children they have: Roo (Roosevelt), Ben, the twins Rigel and Orion, and baby Claude. At first it seems that all five areContinue reading “This is How It Always Is”
Tell The Wolves I’m Home
Tell The Wolves I’m Home (2012) by Carol Rifka Brunt was a achingly beautiful novel about grief, families, growing up, and being different, set in 1986-1987 in New York. The teenage narrator, June, and her sister, Greta, visit their Uncle Finn every weekend in the City so that he can paint their portrait. Finn isContinue reading “Tell The Wolves I’m Home”
The Awkward Black Man
The Awkward Black Man by Walter Mosley (2020) is a terribly anti-fat book of seventeen short stories. I had a bad feeling when the first line of the first story “The Good News Is” ended with “after a lifetime of carrying an extra thirty pounds or more, I was finally losing weight.” While some ofContinue reading “The Awkward Black Man”
The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek
The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson (2019) tells the story of Cussy Mary, a Pack Horse Librarian in Kentucky during the Great Depression in the 1930s. Cussy Mary, known as Bluet to her friends, is one of the rare “Blue People” of the mountains, whose skin is blue. We don’t knowContinue reading “The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek”
The Cutting Season
The Cutting Season, by Attica Locke (2012) is an adept, completely absorbing crime/ mystery novel that grapples with race and history. Set in 2009, five years after Hurricane Katrina decimated New Orleans, Caren Gray, law school dropout and mother to 9-year-old Morgan, is managing the historical plantation Belle Vie south of Baton Rouge. Belle VieContinue reading “The Cutting Season”
Girl, Woman, Other
The award-winning Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo is deserving of every award received and more.
Reading While Fat 