Hey #bookstagram, how's your reading month going?
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I just finished my 8th book this month, and my third 5⭐ read (go July!), those are some pretty good stats by my standards! All the thank yous to @candice_reads for sending me a gorgeous hardback copy of this painfully beautiful, powerful book - A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum.
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Set in an America at once foreign to many and staggeringly close at hand, A Woman Is No Man is a story of culture and honor, secrets and betrayals, love and violence. It is an intimate glimpse into a controlling and closed cultural world, and a universal tale about family and the ways silence and shame can destroy those we have sworn to protect.
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I have no idea why some books don't get a UK hardback publication and we're forced to wait for the paperback, especially because this novel is so worthy 🙌🏾. Such an immersive read, thank you Etaf Rum for writing, and Candice for so kindly sending me a copy.
“Hell, when I die, bury me the way I came. I want to be ready to show God my scars and ask why.” #SheWouldBeKing by Wayétu Moore.
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Thank you to @pushkin_press for my #gifted copy of this novel. Loosely based on a short chapter in Liberian history, a fiction retelling of the country’s founding. (And one of my favourite books of the year!) Gbessa, exiled from her West African village of Lai. June Dey, fleeing a plantation in Virginia. Norman Aragon, child of a white British coloniser and Maroon slave. All three with unique gifts needed to form a new nation.
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I’ve been thinking about how to review this novel for a while, cliché as this sounds, I know my review won’t do it justice. The seamless storytelling perfectly weaving magical realism and historical fiction. I was Googling words to look for the one that best described my experience with this book, and I found it: transcendent - “beyond or above the range of physical human experience.” Because of my struggle to put into words how exceptional this book is, and the feeling it created within me while I was reading it, and the remaining feeling once I read the last page. If you’ve ever LOVED a book, you [hopefully] know exactly the feeling I’m talking about!
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The power, depth and beauty of both the characters and storytelling, the growth and journey of the characters, the vivid imagery, the history - o the praise I could give this book is endless! Immerse yourself in this story, you won’t regret it!
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#wayetumoore #historicalfiction #magicalrealism #bookstagram #mugmonday #booklove #blackgirlsread #favouritebook #bookreccomendation #bibliophile #blackauthors #booksthatmatter #liberia #readstagram #readersofig #booksofinstagram #readeveryday #alwaysreading #bookaddiction #booklifestyle #bookish
So, the other day, I read Sirens by Joseph Knox, and I loved it with my whole heart! It was sharp, gritty, hypnotic, great characters, gripping plot. Naturally, I had to buy the next two books in the series - The Smiling Man and The Sleepwalker - and oh yeah, sprayed edges 😍.
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Sirens reminded me why #crimefiction is my favourite genre. It made me fall in love with the genre all over again!!!!
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QOTD: What book last reminded you why you love a genre?
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#crimethriller #crimenovel #sirens #thesmilingman #thesleepwalker #josephknox #sprayededges #crimeseries #bookstagram #beautifulbooks #bookcommunity #booklifestyle #myreadinglife #bookphoto #bookrecommendation #readersofinstagram #booklove
#ComeBackForMe
Happy hardback publication day to @heidiperks, and thank you @rachelkennedy90 for my copy of this one!
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Stella and her family fled the island, a body discovered in the garden of her childhood home – coincidence or not? Now, questioning her past and desperate to unearth the truth, Stella returns to the isolated island. But she quickly finds that the community she left isn’t as welcoming as she remembers – and that people in it will go to any length to protect their secrets.
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#BookReview: Any crime reader will tell you they love a mystery they cannot solve; and that it is a real skill on the author’s part to craft this mystery in a way that keeps you engaged, suspicious, and trying to connect the dots with every page you turn! Perks has achieved this; what at first seems like a ‘kill and run’ turns into a complex mystery. One that questions the morals and decisions of characters; one that has you liking some while fearing others.
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An isolated island – anyone else love a small-town mystery? The atmosphere created in these close-knit communities is one of my favourite. That simmering feeling that all is about to implode had me flying through the pages, desperate for the reveal and the fallout.
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I'm definitely going to be reading more from Perks!
“Women of color don’t matter in America unless we are rich and famous.” - Speaking of Summer by Kalisha Buckhanon.
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My thanks to @counterpointpress for the #gifted copy.
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Summer is another missing Black woman in America. Faced with authories indifference, Autumn will do anything to find her twin sister, Summer. But the loss becomes too great, the mystery too inexplicable, and Autumn starts to unravel. #SpeakingOfSummer is a novel about urban peril & victim invisibility, and the fight to discover the complicated truths at the heart of every family.
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#BookReview: Literary in nature, with important themes. More than a "missing person" novel, SoS unpicks Autumn's early childhood & her present day life, and looks at how her experiences impacted her.
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The pace was steady, there was a slight lull in the middle but a turn of events caused the pace to pick up. Not ‘light’ reading, this novel sheds light on many important issues as described in the blurb, and that’s the reason I recommend it – for the insight into the experiences it details.
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Also with themes of mental health, which are always of great interest to me. How the mind constructs itself, and it’s ability, or inability, to cope.
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It didn’t read as fluidly as it, perhaps, could have but I definitely want to read more from Buckhanon, particularly her novel Upstate.
