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bookreviewswithkb's reviews
592 reviews
Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen by Jose Antonio Vargas
2.5
this is an important edition to the collection of work that explores immigration within america. the lack of a comprehensive, just immigration system leaves millions of human beings stuck in a cycle of being american without being able to BE american. Vargas explored his personal experience with the immigration system, what it means for him to be considered illegally living in the united states, and the ways he has paved a way for himself
overall, it did feel disjointed and i couldn’t emotionally connect due to the way the the book is written, without much detail, feeling or grappling
Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward
challenging
emotional
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.25
here’s the thing, Jesmyn Ward is an incredible writer and clearly a profound thinker and i want to read every word she ever writes✨
i live for the poetic writing style, the way she makes me feel every feeling, how i have to re-read sentences because they are so complex and beautiful. i entered into the world Ward painted in this novel, i felt the deep sense of despair, heard the poetic sounds of loss
i feel like this book is the epitome of Baldwin’s words - “you have to decide who you are, and force the world to deal with you, not its idea of you.” Annis, the protagonist, will not back down to anyone - not her sire, not her enslaver, not even the powerful spirits that accompany her. and she will not let anyone tell her what her version of freedom should look like, will not let anyone convince her to settle for less than what she dreams freedom is
if you haven’t read any of Ward’s work yet, i wouldn’t start with this one. i think Sing, Unburied, Sing and Salvage the Bones are much easier spaces to enter with her, to get a sense of her writing style before taking on Let us Descend. the magical realism was extremely strong and sometimes felt overwhelming, but i think i will have a deeper appreciation for it in a re-read
i read this with the lovely @makealongstorycount and i am so glad i could discuss it with her along the way! our @storygraph buddy read thread has an extensive set of comments 😅
The Lucky Ones: A Memoir by Zara Chowdhary
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
thank you to @netgalley and @crownpublishing for the advanced copy
it’s hard to put into words what this memoir is, what this memoir did to my heart. it is brilliant, the weaving of the author’s interpersonal experiences with the implications of living under an anti-Muslim pogrom. it is so deeply personal and intimate
what i honestly cannot get over is how Chowdhary divided her memoir into sections of elements: fire, threads, flowers, air and water - and when i say i could FEEL these elements within their section, i could feel blooming happening in the flowers section, could feel the lightness of leaving in the air section - pure and total magic
Content Warnings
Graphic: Genocide, Gore, Rape, Violence, Islamophobia, and Fire/Fire injury
Moderate: Alcoholism and Domestic abuse
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
fast-paced
- Strong character development? No
3.5
okay don’t come for me, but i didn’t love this one
it had SO much potential - superb storyline, beautiful characters, deeply important topic, beautiful writing, meaning ✅
but it didn’t impact me emotionally (maybe i’m dead inside). it felt incomplete, lacking depth, rushing the reader through to get to a non-ending. i wanted more character development, more emotional expression, more words, more description. i maybe would have appreciated it more as a short story? i don’t know
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual assault
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
emotional
informative
4.0
this is an important read, filling a gap of the untold history of the Great Migration, a period from 1915 - 1970 when 6 million Black americans left the south fleeing the atrocities of segregation, continued slavery in the form of sharecropping, and violence at the hands of white people. they headed to the north, seeking a different kind of existence. i love the use of narrative nonfiction and found it be effective in this book. but i do have some criticism of the book 😬
i was really turned off of Wilkerson’s mention of employment participation, marriage, and not having “children out of wedlock” as somehow being important values to defend the Black people who migrated North in like a “they weren’t the cause of the social ills” type of way 🥴 yes, they were not the cause, but also, it’s not because of participation in capitalism
i found it weird that there would be references to events she had discussed in early chapters, but mentioned as if we didn’t know anything about it, making certain things feel repetitive - like we would learn about the murder of Harry T. Moore and his wife in depth, and then later in the book their deaths would be mentioned all over again with almost the same level of detail, as if we hadn’t been informed about them 80 pages earlier
towards the end, i got the sense Wilkerson was so attached to the individuals in this story, that she was including information about them that wasn’t relevant to the story being told, making it drag a little
butttt all that being said i still think you should read this if you haven’t already
The Consequences: Stories by Manuel Muñoz
dark
emotional
3.0
it’s hard to rate this collection because the last story was incredibly compelling and beautiful and some of the beginning stories were really thought-provoking, but there were a few stories that i found rather boring and lacking any sort of insight into the world of the characters at the individual or societal level. in the stories that were good there were reflections on class, gender, and immigration status and what it means to care for one another
Arsenic and Adobo by Mia P. Manansala
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
2.0
i mean it was kind of cute i guess but it was extremely unrealistic in a way that made the reading of it less enjoyable. the cop just kept feeding information about the crimes to the suspected murderer?? it was also weird how someone would die and the characters would just be like how about we go get some coffee??? and even though the main character’s family was about to lose their entire business when they were already struggling, everyone just kept going on as normal and didn’t seem worried
and also - if there is a dog on the cover i expect said dog to have a bigger role in the book! poor baby was only mentioned like 3 times
Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
i honestly can’t believe what i just read!
this novel is such an interesting exploration of how someone might turn to extremist thinking. the way abandonment pierces deeply into the soul, causes us to seek connection to the one who abandoned us no matter what that asks of us. of how we want to fit so badly that we will abandon our own selves, our own identity. turn against our very family members, for the sake of acceptance from others. the pain of those left behind, of trying to make sense of what it means to face the choices of those they love
in a way, i think it’s so much easier for us to demonize extremists as individuals or maybe even as a group, without extending that same demonization to the circumstances that create it in the first place. we have marked some extremism as okay (u.s. government i’m looking at you 👀), and because of that, we turn our cheeks to the harm they cause. but then someone brown and Muslim displays extremist ideology and suddenly… the government gets to scrub their hands clean and say “look at these bad people shame shame” meanwhile the blood seeps through anyway
The Summer of Bitter and Sweet by Jen Ferguson
emotional
hopeful
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.5
this is everything i love in a young adult novel - from the representation through the Indigenous characters and ace/demi sexuality exploration, along with the interweaved discussions of racism and mental health 👌🏼
it has a little bit of mystery, a heartwarming love story (coming from the person who doesn’t like romance), and some heavy tragedy. recommend this to the teens in your life and maybe pick it up yourself to the soothe the inner teen inside of you
Content Warnings
Graphic: Stalking
City of Laughter by Temim Fruchter
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
2.5
“she kept her lips tight because she had grown into someone who often wanted to scream but had never learned how.”
for me, this novel fell really flat. i was so intrigued by the concept of it - a queer story with Jewish folklore and complicated family dynamics written by a Jewish author who supports a free Palestine, count me in - but it didn’t work for me. the story is very disjointed and confusing. the first 100 pages utilized the voice of the main character, but suddenly we started switching POVs and timelines in a way that i couldn’t follow 🥴