Quicksand by Nella Larsen

 

Hello my lovely readers!

Man, I've been pumping these reviews out lately! I'm in a reading mood, FINALLY, so I must post accordingly am I right?

Anyway, I first discovered author Nella Larsen in either 2018 or 2019. I'd visited a bus bookshop and the owner recommended I should read Passing.  I loved it. It blew me away. Naturally, when I saw that Quicksand was also written by the same author and it was her first novel, I had to buy it. The summary looked interesting...but it sadly....that was the only good part of this book. Let's get into it.

SUMMARY

Helga Crane was born to a white mother and an absent father and was despised for her dark skin. Helga teaches at an all-black school in the South, but even there she feels different. 

She moves to Harlem and then eventually Denmark, but everywhere she goes, she can't seem to find a comfortable life and place for herself.

This semi-autobiographical tale shows that choosing emotional freedom can translate into a narrow existence and invokes the international dimension of 1920s Black American  culture.

The House in the Pines by Ana Reyes

 

Hello my lovely readers!

This was another audiobook exclusive for me after finishing The Mother Next Door. I was looking for something in the same vein and the plot for this book seemed interesting. But woof. I was sorely disappointed. Let's just....get this over with.

SUMMARY
Maya was a senior in high school when her best friend, Aubrey, mysteriously dropped dead in front of the man Frank whom they'd been spending time with all summers.

Then, seven years later, Maya, who now lives in Boston with her boyfriend, sees the same thing happen on Youtube. A young woman dies in a diner sitting across from Frank.

Plagued with a secret addiction, Maya is now plunged into the trauma that defined her life all over again. She returns to her hometown to relive that fateful summer. At her mother's house, she excavates fragments of her past, but all roads lead back to Frank's cabin.

When No One is Watching by Alyssa Cole

Hello my lovely readers!

Alright. I'd read the summary for this book and it seemed interesting, but it had so many mixed reviews that I held off on purchasing it. Thank goodness I did. This will be extremely...rant-y. So let's get into it.

SUMMARY
Sydney Green is a Brooklyn native who loves her neighborhood. But every time she blinks, things keep changing. Elderly neighbors are moving out of their brownstones, FOR SALE signs are popping up overnight and no one seems to notice...or care.

Sydney's new neighbor, Theo is an unlikely ally and their deep dive into the history of the neighborhood quickly becomes a descent into paranoia and fear.

The Mother Next Door by Tara Laskowski

 

Hello my lovely readers!

I was in a reading slump much of April, but audiobooks came to the rescue! I listened to this one exclusively on Libby. Let's get into it.

SUMMARY
Teresa has moved back to her college hometown because her husband got a job at the local high school as vice principal.

It's here on the cul-de-sac of Ivy Pines Drive that she encounters the Ivy Five...well the Ivy Four now. What happened to the last member? Why does no one talk about her?

The annual Halloween block party is the pinnacle of the year for this neighborhood and this year's party should be the best yet. But the women, including Teresa begin receiving anonymous messages that threatens to expose the quiet neighborhood's dark past--and the lengths they've gone to hide it.

Secrets begin to seep out and the women realize, Ivy Pines Drive will never be the same.

Rest in Pieces: The Curious Fates of Famous Corpses by Bess Lovejoy

 

Hello my lovely readers!

For my second career, I want to be a funeral director. Death has always fascinated me and I was really excited to read this book. I was holding my breath though, because the last book that I read on death was AWFUL. (I'm looking at you, All the Living and the Dead) But this book? It was amazing. Let's get into it!

SUMMARY

Everyone dies. No one can escape that. But for some of the most influential figures in history, death marked the start of a new adventure.

Some of these famous corpses have been stolen, sold, frozen, impersonated, stuffed and even stored in a lawyer's office. Their body parts have gone on voyages that crisscross the globe and stretch the imagination.

Counterfeiters tried to steal Lincoln's corpse. Einstein's brain went on an cross-country road trip. And after Lord Horatio Nelson died, his sailors submerged him in brandy...and drank it. Rest in Pieces by Bess Lovejoy connects the lives of the famous dead to the hilarious and horrifying adventures of their corpses and traces the evolution of cultural attitudes toward death.

Waiting to Exhale by Terry McMillan

 

Hello my lovely readers!

I'll admit, I've never read a Terry McMillan book, nor did I have an interest in reading any of them. I did watch the movies though! Last week, in advance of Library Week, I found that my local library would have an event where she would be speaking, so I thought I'd finally pick up one of her books and read it before I meet her! Let's see what all the fuss is about....

SUMMARY
Four Black women lean on each other while "waiting to exhale." They're all waiting for that man who will take their breath away.

Savannah, is a successful television producer who believes that one day, her married lover will leave his wife for her. However, when she realizes he won't, she's tasked with finding a man of her own who will love her for who she truly is.

Bernadine,  abandoned her career to support her husband and raise a family. Then he tells her he's leaving her for a white woman he works with sending Bernadine into an emotional tailspin.

Robin, is a high-powered executive and the long-term mistress of her married lover. Once she dumps him, she finds dating extremely difficult.

Gloria is a single mother after finding out that her ex-husband is gay. She's working hard to figure things out on her own and things begin to look up when she falls in love with her new neighbor.

The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke by Jeffrey C. Stewart

Hello my lovely readers!

Well this book took me literally, TWO MONTHS to read....but I finished it! As you already know, I love the Harlem Renaissance. I love all of the work that came out of it, it's players, it's supporters...if there's anything that's tied to the Harlem Renaissance, sign me up!

When I saw this book at The Strand in New York City, I HAD to get it. I had already read The New Negro before I got this book. I wasn't too thrilled with the book, but I think I'm going to read it again now that I'm older and just finished this biography. Let's get into it!

SUMMARY
A tiny, well-dressed, Black Victorian from Philadelphia would go on to be the "father" of the Harlem Renaissance, mentoring a generation of young artists, including Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. He called them the "New Negro"--the creative African Americans whose art, literature, music, and drama would inspire Black people to greatness.

In The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke by Jeffrey C. Stewart, Stewart offers the definitive biography of Locke from his childhood, to becoming the first African American Rhodes Scholar and earning a PhD in philosophy at Harvard University to his long career as a professor at Howard University.

We learn about his promotion of the literary and artistic work of African Americans as the quintessential creations of American modernism as well as his private life, especially his lifelong search for love as a closeted homosexual man in the 1920s.

Stewart's thought-provoking biography recreates the worlds of this illustrious, enigmatic man who, in promoting the cultural heritage of Black people, became -- in the process -- a New Negro himself.

A Mind of its Own: A Cultural History of the Penis by David M. Friedman

 

Hello my lovely readers!

You ever read a book that is absolutely fascinating at the start and then begins to lose its way the longer you read it? That's what happened to me with A Mind of Its Own: A Cultural History of the Penisby David M. Friedman. Let's get into it.

SUMMARY
Whether enemy or ally, demon or god, the penis is much more than a body part. Here, in an enlightening and entertaining cultural study, is a book that puts into context the central role of the penis within Western civilization. Deified by ancient pagan cultures and demonized by the early Roman church, the penis was later secularized by pioneering anatomists such as Leonardo da Vinci. 

After being measured 'scientifically' in an effort to subjugate some races while elevating others, the organ was psycho-analyzed by Sigmund Freud. Now, after being politicized by feminism and exploited in countless ways by pop culture, Friedman shows how the arrival of erection industry products such as Viagra is more than a health or business story. It is the latest chapter in one of the longest sagas in human history: the story of man's relationship with his penis.