One of Our Kind (2024) is bestselling YA author Nicola Yoon’s adult fiction debut, so I was very much looking forward to it, and I was not disappointed. That being said, a quick scan of some of the Goodreads reviews told me my opinion was in no way universal–many people did not like it atContinue reading “One of Our Kind”
Tag Archives: Black experience
The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store
I was thrilled to finally get to read The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store (2023) by James McBride, as I’ve loved his writing since reading his memoir The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother and the brilliant pre-civil war historical fiction The Good Lord Bird. In The Heaven and EarthContinue reading “The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store”
The Vanishing Half
I’m late to The Vanishing Half (2020) by Brit Bennett, which was deservedly named a best book of the year by many popular news outlets, and was one of Barack Obama’s favorite books of the year. Beginning in 1968, when one of the “lost twins” of Mallard, Louisiana, returns after having run away at 16Continue reading “The Vanishing Half”
Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World
From the Central Park birder who was involved in a viral racist incident in 2020 comes this well-written, insightful, and funny memoir that I highly recommend.