Reviews May Vary

Here I am! Back with more book recommenda4ons for you. Yes. I am once again recommending two books. This month’s theme is Femininity. I’ll admit, I was a liAle bit challenged to find something that I’ve read recently that I thought represented the theme well. I recommended Hood Feminism last month, and that one would fit well here; it may have been a bit on the nose, in fact. Read below and see how you think I did s4cking to the theme. Drop me a line at Reviews May Vary@ gmail.com with your thoughts and comments about these books as well as recommenda4ons that you think I should read. Both of these books have trigger warnings for at least a reference to past assault. Take care of yourselves, sibs. dated other guys. He even joins the purity pledge at church so he can spend more 4me with her. He thinks that because his inten4ons are good, his behaviors are jus4fiable. This is an excellent fic4onalized explora4on of teen rela4onships with family, friends, and the church. The role of religion in educa4on and iden4ty development is also great as the teens figure how to become the kind of person they want to be. But I’m recommending this book because of the cadre of young women surrounding Del that ul4mately help him see what a fool he is. His sister is star4ng a Youtube channel about empowering women. He has a love interest who is aAemp4ng to hold herself accountable for some bad decisions and shake off her reputa4on as valuable only as part of the school’s power couple. An old friend is a member of the group of teen moms who have put their town on the map for an alleged pact to get pregnant.

Not So Pure and Simply by Lamar Giles (Young Adult, Contemporary Fic>on)

It’s a little weird to recommend a book during Femininity month that centers a male. Its annoying, in fact, when our femininity is defined mostly in contrast to masculinity or when we are shouldered with making men beAer through our struggle. This book definitely has some of that so skip it if this ain’t your month for that foolishness. But hear me out. This is one of my few 5-star reads this year. Giles gives us a young man, Del, who is running face first into the toxic lessons that he has learned about how to be a man. Del thinks he’s a “nice guy” who deserves to get the girl because he’s been pa4ent while she’s And there’s a new friend and co-worker well, you get the idea. These young women run the gamut of representa4on of the kinds of girls that you know from high school and remind us that men are beAer for having strong (and vulnerable) women in their worlds. This book was wriAen by one of the cofounders of #WeNeedDiverseBooks, a grassroots organiza4on that advocates essen4al changes in the publishing industry to produce and promote literature that reflects and honors the lives of all young people.

Here Comes the Sun by Nicole Dennis- Benn (Adult Contemporary Fic>on)

Here comes the Sun is a book set in Jamaica, taking place par4ally on a resort in Montego Bay. Did you know Montego Bay was a real place? Neither did I. Anyway, Margot works as part of the house keeping staff with a big dreams. She wants to take over management of the resort and she wants to make enough money to pay for her sister, Thandi, to go to school. She has been hustling and using her feminine wiles to work her way up. When the opportunity to expand her side hustle to make more money for herself and the owner of the resort, she loses herself in the opportunity. This book is told with different characters as the foci in different chapters. Some4mes we see a bit about Thandi, who is struggling with feeling ugly due to her dark skin and sets out to find a way to get lighter. Some4mes we see Margot, selling herself in more ways than one and finding solace in her forbidden rela4onship with a woman. Some4mes we see Delores, the girl’s mother, who introduced Margot to the concept of what her body can do for the family and her trauma4zing response to her daughter’s sexuality. We also get flashbacks of their lives together. Set beside an expanding resort that threatens their neighborhood and highlights the limited way that commercial tourism positively impacts poor communites, this story is full of women who are trying to balance expecta4ons and the freedom they hope doesn’t tear their relationships apart. This is an own-voices novel, wriAen by a Jamaican lesbian.