Month: June 2020

Review: Pizza Girl

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Review for “Pizza Girl” by Jean Kyong Frazier (2020)

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

The unnamed narrator of this novel is 18 years old and unexpectedly pregnant, living with her boyfriend and mother and working at a local pizza parlor. Very early on its apparent that although her mom and boyfriend are overjoyed about the new baby, she is not. The narrator is depressed and extremely unhappy, drinking in her spare time and consumed with memories of her now-deceased alcoholic father. It is at the pizza parlor where she meets Jenny, a mother who calls in with an unusual order. For the rest of the novel, Jenny becomes the singular obsession of the narrator, occupying her thoughts, motivations, and desires.

Although this book falls along the lines of a dark comedy, it’s a tough read. While the narrator’s observations of life and the people around her are funny, she makes some very poor choices here, some of which I found irredeemable. I mean, let’s face it, no matter how many ha-ha’s there are, watching to the narrator getting wasted while pregnant is simply awful. I couldn’t shake the feeling that this is some kind of cautionary tale here, with the tragic life of the narrator at the center. Sadly, it’s a fascinating train wreck that you can’t look away from.

And another thing…the narrator is Korean American, a fact that’s alluded to several times in the book. However, there’s very little commentary on how her racial identity fits in with the text. This is interesting, because there’s mention of how her Korean mother was attracted to the “Americanness” of her father (who, in this case, turned out to be an abusive drunk). The “Americanness” of Jenny (blonde, white, slender and traditionally ‘beautiful’) also plays a role in the narrator’s fixation on her. While I’m not saying that every book with non-White characters has to have specific racial commentary, I am wondering why more wasn’t said about it here. It certainly would have added some depth to the story, nahmean?

Four stars. Definitely recommended.

Review: The Book of Rosy

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Review for “The Book of Rosy: A Mother’s Story of Separation at the Border” by Rosayra Cruz and Julie Collazo

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Although the plot of this story centers around the life of a woman named Rosayra Cruz, this is essentially a book divided in half with two distinct voices. The first section focuses on why and how Rosy left Guatemala for asylum in the U.S. In addition to surrounding the grinding poverty of the region, Rosy’s husband was violently murdered in 2008. She also discusses numerous gang extortion attempts on her business and her own brush with death with a stranger’s bullet. Rosy subsequently takes her youngest son (she has 4 children in all) and leaves for the U.S. She works for a while in States, but later returns to Guatemala for her oldest son, who at barely 12 years old is being threatened by local gangs. It is on her way back from the second trip when she is detained by Customs and Border Patrol in Arizona and both of her sons taken away from her as a part of Trump’s ‘zero tolerance’ family separation policy.

The second section of this book details activist Julie Collazo’s effort to create the non-profit group Immigrant Families Together. Her group begins to raise bail funds for detained migrant women, one of whom is Rosy. After Rosy is released from custody, the kindness that surrounds her through the efforts of activists, teachers, and the community is nothing less than inspiring.

I won’t spoil the book by telling you how it ends, but I definitely recommend this over many of the migration stories coming out right now that have questionable points of view (*ahem* “American Dirt” *ahem*).

Definitely put this on your TBR list. Four solid stars.

Review: We Are Not From Here

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Review for “We Are Not From Here” by Jenny Torres Sanchez (2020)

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

At the beginning of this novel, 15-year-old Pulga (“Flea”), Pequena (“Tiny”), and Chico (“Boy”), three teenagers from Puerto Barrio, Guatemala, are living their normal lives. Pulga and Chico are brothers by choice, Pequena and Pulga are cousins. Life is hard in their barrio and trouble lurks around every corner, especially after Pulga and Chico witness the murder of a store owner by a local narco, the same criminal who raped and seeks to force Pequena into marriage. In response, the three teens sneak away from their families and leave for a better life in the United States.

After crossing a river and arriving at the Mexican border, the first obstacle the trio must conquer is La Bestia, a series of trains that run northward through Mexico. Migrants often ride on top of the trains, which are highly dangerous and claim many lives and severed limbs. The teens also face hunger, illness, corrupt police, the grueling heat of the desert, and criminals. Although most of this novel is bleak they do find kindness, which gets them to the next phase and beyond.

The story switches between the narration of Pulga, the practical, de facto leader of the group, and Pequena, prone to dreams and flights of fancy to escape reality. This book is brutally honest and terrifying, considering the ages of the protagonists who are experiencing these horrors first hand. The fear and the desperation in this book is real, and I felt every single moment of it.

This book tugs at your heart strings. It’s the best I’ve read this year so far. Although it is YA, the audience is anyone who wants to know about the people whose lives we’ve devalued by separating their families and imprisoning them at our borders. It also gives a clear picture for the those who ask why they come, even if it means death.

Five strong stars–please read this book.

Review: Clap When You Land

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Review for “Clap When You Land” by Elizabeth Acevedo (2020)

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

This is a beautifully multi-layered novel written in verse. Much like her other two novels (“The Poet X” and “With the Fire on High”), Elizabeth Acevedo manages to hit the ball out of the park again. She’s incapable of writing bad books, she has a gift and it is plainly evident in her writing.

“Clap When You Land” is a dual, alternating narrative told by two sisters who, at the beginning of the novel, do not yet know that they share a father in the same man. Camino lives in the Dominican Republic and longs to go to Columbia University in NYC, where her father lives and works for most of the year. Yahaira lives in Manhattan and hasn’t spoken to her dad since she found out that he has another wife in the DR. Their lives are vastly different: Yahaira has a girlfriend and loves to play chess, Camino is a talented swimmer and works with her aunt, a local healer. Both girls’ lives collide when their father dies in an airplane crash on his way from NYC to the island. Slowly, the two girls discover one another’s existence and carefully begin to form a bond.

Once again, this is a wonderfully complex book that explores toxic masculinity, socioeconomics, family bonds, and coming to terms with family secrets. I highly recommend reading this, you won’t want to miss it!

Review: My Vanishing Country

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Review for “My Vanishing Country” by Bakari Sellers (2020)

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Part memoir, part cultural critique, and part political analysis, “My Vanishing Country” is the story of Bakari Sellers, who became the youngest member of the South Carolina Legislature when he was elected to that role in 2006. Sellers, a lawyer and CNN analyst, grew up in the small rural town of Denmark, South Carolina. He writes with vivid imagery of fishing in local ponds, riding his bike on dirt roads, and, well…just being a country boy. This part of the book connected with me the most as a Southern girl myself and recalling my own memories of summers spent on my grandparents’ farm in Tennessee.

Despite growing up in a racially segregated rural setting, Sellers’ family history is rich with civil rights history. Both of his parents were activists; with prominent members of the movement such as Jesse Jackson, Julian Bond, and Stokely Carmichael counted among their friends. After graduating from Morehouse, Sellers went into politics and won a seat in the SC Legislature. After an unsuccessful bid for lieutenant governor, he returned to practicing law and became a political commentator and analyst on CNN. His public role on CNN became more prominent after the shooting deaths of 9 Black churchgoers by a white supremacist in his home state of South Carolina in 2015.

There are a lot of reviews comparing this book to J.D. Vance’s “Hillbilly Elegy,” but honestly I don’t think that Vance’s book holds a candle to this one. Sellers gives a more balanced critique of Black life, highlighting the joy and the pain of growing up in a Black rural setting. There are also chapters that give analysis the 2016 presidential race, Black mental health, and other nuanced topics that Vance misses in his discussion of the white rural working class.

Overall I really liked this book. Solid 4 stars.