Author: Jen

“Noor” Review

Posted on by Jen

“Noor” by Nnedi Okorafor

Anwuli Okwudili prefers to be called AO. To her, these initials have always stood for Artificial Organism. AO has never really felt…natural, and that’s putting it lightly. Her parents spent most of the days before she was born praying for her peaceful passing because even in-utero she was “wrong”. But she lived. Then came the car accident years later that crippled her even further. Yet instead of viewing her strange body the way the world views it, as freakish, unnatural, even the work of the devil, AO embraces all that she is: A woman with a ton of major and necessary body augmentations. And then one day she goes to her local market and everything goes wrong.

Once on the run, she meets a Fulani herdsman named DNA and the race against time across the deserts of Northern Nigeria begins. In a world where all things are streamed, everyone is watching the “reckoning of the murderess and the terrorist” and the “saga of the wicked woman and mad man” unfold. This fast-paced, relentless journey of tribe, destiny, body, and the wonderland of technology revels in the fact that the future sometimes isn’t so predictable. Expect the unaccepted.

Review

This was a quick fun read. All of the characters are cool and the world building was interesting. I did think it sort of ends abruptly and ambiguously. It’s not entirely clear what was going to happen next to the characters though there’s hints that they’ll be okay.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “Noor”.

Book Details

The entire cover is yellow/gold with a black women from the chest up facing towards the right but with her head turned slightly forward. The women has her hair up and arranged on the back of her head and is wearing what looks like a jewel on her forehead and a necklace.

Author’s Website
Nnedi Okorafor
Publisher / Date
DAW, November 2021
Genre
Science Fiction, Fantasy
Page Count
224
Completion Date
June 20, 2023

“Four Hundred Souls” Review

Posted on by Jen

“Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019” edited by Ibram X. Kendi with Keisha N. Blain

The story begins in 1619—a year before the Mayflower—when the White Lion disgorges “some 20-and-odd Negroes” onto the shores of Virginia, inaugurating the African presence in what would become the United States. It takes us to the present, when African Americans, descendants of those on the White Lion and a thousand other routes to this country, continue a journey defined by inhuman oppression, visionary struggles, stunning achievements, and millions of ordinary lives passing through extraordinary history.

Four Hundred Souls is a unique one-volume “community” history of African Americans. The editors, Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain, have assembled ninety brilliant writers, eighty of whom takes on a five-year period of that four-hundred-year span with ten lyrical interludes from poets. The writers explore their periods through a variety of techniques: historical essays, short stories, personal vignettes, and fiery polemics. They approach history from various perspectives: through the eyes of towering historical icons or the untold stories of ordinary people; through places, laws, and objects. While themes of resistance and struggle, of hope and reinvention, course through the book, this collection of diverse pieces from ninety different minds, reflecting ninety different perspectives, fundamentally deconstructs the idea that Africans in America are a monolith—instead it unlocks the startling range of experiences and ideas that have always existed within the community of Blackness.

This is a history that illuminates our past and gives us new ways of thinking about our future, written by the most vital and essential voices of our present.

Review

This is definitely a book everyone should read but obviously especially white people. There’s 80 essays written by 80 writers covering the span of 400 years broken up in 5 year spans. While each story is very surface level they all explain a lot about what was going on at the time. Everything is important to know and think about. Things haven’t actually changed as much as some would like to believe. The last story covers the span between 2014 and 2019 – COVID is mentioned briefly in the conclusion and acknowledgments. Anyone who’s been paying attention knows what comes next. The epidemic only highlighted what was already true about this country and how white people respond to black people.

Book Details

The book cover is mostly yellow or orange with a line of black down the middle in the shapes of black stick figures representing people walking in a line from top to bottom of the cover. The title and editors are over the top of the cover in white.

Editors’ Website
Ibram X. Kendi with Keisha N. Blain
Publisher / Date
One World, February 2021
Genre / Topics
Essays, History, Race
Page Count
528
Completion Date
June 20, 2023

“How Long ’til Black Future Month?” Review

Posted on by Jen

“How Long ’til Black Future Month?” by N.K. Jemisin

Three-time Hugo Award winner and NYT bestselling author N. K. Jemisin challenges and delights readers with thought-provoking narratives of destruction, rebirth, and redemption that sharply examine modern society in her first collection of short fiction, which includes never-before-seen stories.

Spirits haunt the flooded streets of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In a parallel universe, a utopian society watches our world, trying to learn from our mistakes. A black mother in the Jim Crow South must save her daughter from a fey offering impossible promises. And in the Hugo award-nominated short story “The City Born Great,” a young street kid fights to give birth to an old metropolis’s soul.

Review

This is a great collection of short stories all written by N. K. Jemisin. Some of them are early ideas that would become her larger works. Others are stories she had written for other publications. All are great. I also highly recommend reading the introduction to the book for more background and to know where the title of the book comes from. I really enjoyed each story and will likely read more by this author at some point.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “How Long ’til Black Future Month?”.

Book Details

On the cover a young black woman is facing towards the right in profile with her long hair styled with decorations that are white geometric shapes. The shirt or dress she is wearing has a thick collar that looks like two rows of white balls. The title of the book and authors name are on the top and bottom of the cover.

Author’s Website
N.K. Jemisin
Publisher / Date
Orbit, November 2018
Genre
Historical Fiction, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Short Stories
Page Count
416
Completion Date
June 14, 2023

“The Disordered Cosmos” Review

Posted on by Jen

“The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey Into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred” by Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

In The Disordered Cosmos, Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein shares her love for physics, from the Standard Model of Particle Physics and what lies beyond it, to the physics of melanin in skin, to the latest theories of dark matter—along with a perspective informed by history, politics, and the wisdom of Star Trek.

One of the leading physicists of her generation, Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein is also one of fewer than one hundred Black American women to earn a PhD from a department of physics. Her vision of the cosmos is vibrant, buoyantly nontraditional, and grounded in Black and queer feminist lineages.

Dr. Prescod-Weinstein urges us to recognize how science, like most fields, is rife with racism, misogyny, and other forms of oppression. She lays out a bold new approach to science and society, beginning with the belief that we all have a fundamental right to know and love the night sky. The Disordered Cosmos dreams into existence a world that allows everyone to experience and understand the wonders of the universe.

Review

Dr. Prescod-Weinstein included a chapter at the end of the book where she pointed out that while the book is challenging we shouldn’t be so hard on ourselves if we don’t understand everything. Especially since it’s stuff that takes years for people to fully understand. The point is that we get ideas of different elements of physics and then learn more about the challenges anyone who is not white and male have faced when trying to become physicists. I got more out of that part of it than anything else really. The learning of how much needs to change to make learning more welcoming to all. It’s also always fun when a fellow Star Trek fan can use various quotes and ideas from the show to explain things or make a point. I do think some people will struggle to get through the beginning of the book as the language is a bit complex but physics is complex. I think this a book worth reading to learn about various issues.

Book Details

Author’s Website
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
Publisher / Date
Bold Type Books, March 2021
Genre / Topics
Memoir, Science, Physics, Race, LGBTQIA+
Page Count
336

Completion Date
June 3, 2023

“We Don’t Swim Here” Review

Posted on by Jen

“We Don’t Swim Here” by Vincent Tirado

Bronwyn is only supposed to be in rural Hillwoods for a year. Her grandmother is in hospice, and her father needs to get her affairs in order. And they’re all meant to make some final memories together.

Except Bronwyn is miserable. Her grandmother is dying, everyone is standoffish, and she can’t even go swimming. All she hears are warnings about going in the water, despite a gorgeous lake. And a pool at the abandoned rec center. And another in the high school basement.

Anais tries her hardest to protect Bronwyn from the shadows of Hillwoods. She follows her own rituals to avoid any unnecessary attention—and if she can just get Bronwyn to stop asking questions, she can protect her too. The less Bronwyn pays attention to Hillwoods, the less Hillwoods will pay attention to Bronwyn. She doesn’t get that the lore is, well, truth. History. Pain. The living aren’t the only ones who seek retribution when they’re wronged. But when Bronwyn does more exploring than she should, they are both in for danger they couldn’t expect.

Review

This was a really fun read. I was one of those books where once I started I just kept going and finished it all in one go. I loved all of the characters and the central mystery was great. The town was suck in a trap of its own making from the past act and couldn’t see a way out of it because so much had gone into covering up what that act actually had been that only a few left knew the full story. I really enjoyed the resolution of everything though there was on plot point I wish had been explained. I believe I know the answer given what is said throughout the book but it’s never explicitly said nor does anyone in the town seem to realize the truth of that plot point of everything that’s gone on. Though to be fair the main characters are teens and it’s the kind of story where adults don’t entirely know what they should know. It works either way.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “We Don’t Swim Here”.

Book Details

The heads of two young people, both Black, are on the cover facing away from each other. One is clearly visible while the other is almost entirely blurred out. The background of the cover is dark greenish blue water at the top and solid black from the middle down.

Author’s Website
Vincent Tirado
Publisher / Date
Sourcebooks Fire, May 2023
Genre
Mystery, Thriller
Page Count
320
Completion Date
May 20, 2023

“Land of Big Numbers” Review

Posted on by Jen

“Land of Big Numbers” by Te-Ping Chen

Gripping and compassionate, Land of Big Numbers traces the journeys of the diverse and legion Chinese people, their history, their government, and how all of that has tumbled—messily, violently, but still beautifully—into the present.

Cutting between clear-eyed realism and tongue-in-cheek magical realism, Chen’s stories coalesce into a portrait of a people striving for openings where mobility is limited. Twins take radically different paths: one becomes a professional gamer, the other a political activist. A woman moves to the city to work at a government call center and is followed by her violent ex-boyfriend. A man is swept into the high-risk, high-reward temptations of China’s volatile stock exchange. And a group of people sit, trapped for no reason, on a subway platform for months, waiting for official permission to leave.

With acute social insight, Te-Ping Chen layers years of experience reporting on the ground in China with incantatory prose in this taut, surprising debut, proving herself both a remarkable cultural critic and an astonishingly accomplished new literary voice.

Review

I enjoyed all of the stories in this book one way or another. Some were a little confusing – but I’m pretty sure that was a the point in at least one case. Things were happening for basically no reason at all besides government regulations. Each story was interesting with good characters to learn about. That said to some degree I did feel like there could have been more variety in the stories told or at least more depths to the “why” of things if there was a specific cultural element to everything. Not that things have to be explained to outsiders but I felt like something was missing from some of the stories.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “Land of Big Numbers”.

Book Details

Four images in the shape of China are shown on the cover in various colors one half covering the other downwards. The title of the book is over the images.

Author’s Website
Te-Ping Chen
Publisher / Date
Houghton Mifflin, February 2021
Genre
General Fiction, Short Stories
Page Count
256
Completion Date
May 20, 2023