Books shelved under “Black”

Amid the calumnious pushback in the United States against so-called “critical race theory” (it’s not) in schools remains the single truth: you don’t learn the true history of the US in school. The same goes for Canada, where we learn about the enslavement of African people in the US, but we don’t learn about slavery in Canada or our own history of anti-Black racism following abolition. So I do my best to read and learn,…

Most of my IRL friends don’t read the same genres as me. There’s overlap but not that much. I don’t mind this, though, because it means that when they recommend a book to me and say, “I think you will really like this,” as my bestie Rebecca did when she gave me Honey and Spice for my birthday last year, I receive an incredible gift. I love when people push me to read outside my…

White supremacy is a problem for all of us, not just Black people. But Black people are best positioned to critique it—and to defend the need for academic responses to it. As Florida and other US states decry “critical race theory” i schools, Our History Has Always Been Contraband: In Defense of Black Studies is just that. Colin Kaepernick, Robin D.G. Kelley, and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor have selected a treasure trove of historic essays that explicate…

Bodies are complicated. In addition to the indignity of merely having one, the way it constantly needs maintenance and has such a limited warranty, bodies are one of the primary ways we interact with our world. And our world is racist. It’s Always Been Ours: Rewriting the Story of Black Women’s Bodies is Jessica Wilson’s attempt to sort through how anti-Black racism permeates diet culture and eating-disorder treatment when it comes to Black women. I…

When it comes to queer fiction, especially queer YA, it is becoming trendy for reviewers—myself included—to say that we need to move beyond coming-out stories. We need stories about young queer people who are already openly, joyously queer. This is true. However, with Friday I’m in Love Camryn Garrett demonstrates why a coming-out story is still viable and valuable.

Mahalia Harris didn’t get a Sweet Sixteen—her mother couldn’t afford it. A year later, she…

It feels like I have had this Massey Lectures book forever, always next on the to-read list, always another nonfiction book slipping in and taking its place but finally, finally I’ve sat down and given Esi Edugyan the time she deserves here. Out of the Sun is a great example of what the Massey Lectures can be: give someone the platform to talk about whatever they want, basically, but in a way that is…

As someone who is childfree by choice but who has many friends who are parents, I think a lot about how this event in someone’s life affects our evolution as individuals. The Mothers approaches this with additional layers of considering race and class. I say “layers” because that’s how it feels like Brit Bennett tells this story: like a croissant, hundreds of thin layers folded over on each other, waiting for you to read them.

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This book was published when I was five years old, yet it remains timeless and in a way prescient. My second bell hooks book, I read this for the book club I’m a part of. Teaching to Transgress is quite a different vibe from All About Love. This one is more practical, more focused on work rather than personal life (though hooks, of course, blurs those lines). I value both books but in different…

Dyscalculia is finally getting the attention it deserves as the lesser-known sibling condition to dyslexia. I was intrigued by the title of Camonghne Felix’s book, its tantalizing promise to connect dyscalculia to Felix’s tribulations with romance. Dyscalculia: A Love Story of Epic Miscalculation does all of this, though with less focus on math skills than I hoped. Thank you to NetGalley and publisher One World for the eARC!

Felix experiences trauma at a young age…

Reading memoirs by people in their twenties makes me feel old (and I am only thirty-three!). Fortunately, Clarkisha Kent makes up for that because her writing is intense, rich, and thoughtful. Fat Off, Fat On: A Big Bitch Manifesto is a memoir, yes, but I also love that framing of manifesto as well: Kent is bringing forth a type of energy that she wants to see in this world. I received a review copy from…

Sometimes it’s nice to be late to a new series. I enjoyed Legendborn so much that I was very happy I borrowed its sequel, Bloodmarked, at the same time. Tracy Deonn bottles lightning again in this novel: it’s everything you might want a sequel to be. If Legendborn scratched my itch for nostalgic YA fiction but with better diversity and racial awareness, then Bloodmarked doubled down on the itch-scratching while truly establishing the Legendborn…

There was definitely a span of adolescent years during which I was obsessed with Arthuriana. I remember borrowing Malory’s Morte d'Arthur from my library multiple times despite being way too young to pick my way through the Middle English prose. I devoured all sorts of retellings and reimaginings, like Bernard Cornwell’s Warlord series. So when this series crossed my Twitter feed one day, I couldn’t not windmill-slam the “place hold” button on both Legendborn and…

This book was the November selection for the Rad Roopa Book Club in which I participate, but it was also one I just really wanted to read soonish (and I’ve purchased a copy as a birthday gift for a friend!). Robyn Maynard’s Policing Black Lives was an important book for me a few years ago. I haven’t read anything from Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, but her words here proved just as significant. Rehearsals for Living is…

Where do I start? Do I lament sheepishly how I’ve slept on bell hooks my entire adult life, and it is only now, at thirty-three, now that she has passed, that I’ve made time to read even one of her books? Do I confess that this was a revelation, that it was exactly the book I needed here and now? This review will be purely encomium, for that is what I feel about All About…

Sometimes being asexual (and in my case, aromantic) can feel very lonely, for reasons perhaps obvious but which I will elaborate on in a moment. In particular, it feels like we are usually an afterthought when it comes to research about queer people and sexuality. I know that’s not entirely the case, though, and am always looking to broaden my knowledge about those who study and write about asexuality. So of course I leaped at…

When I heard Janelle Monáe had a book coming out, of course I was going to read it! My public library even had a copy right away. The Memory Librarian is an anthology of science-fiction stories set in the world Monáe created for her Dirty Computer album and emotion picture. Jane 57821, the protagonist from those pieces, returns in one novelette (Nevermind). Other stories explore more corners of this world in which memories…

Personal essay collections are often hit-and-miss for me. So many elements must align: the writer’s voice and style, the topics of their essays, and what I take away from the book. Sometimes I Trip On How Happy We Could Be is a great example of an essay collection that I enjoyed reading a great deal, yet I’m not sure I emerged as transformed as I might expect. Which, honestly, is fine—not all reading has to…

The multiverse is a weird and wonderful concept. It’s actually several concepts stacked on top of one another wearing a trenchcoat. In One Verse Multi, Sander Santiago plays with some of those concepts to create a universe-hopping mystery involving polyamorous love interests, evil corporate aspirations, and dramatic confrontations. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I started this book, and I don’t think I could have predicted what I got. I wish I had…

Hair is so personal to ourselves, yet in many ways it is also political. Hairstyles can signal status—gender, affluence, class, or cultures. As Emma Dabiri explores in Don’t Touch My Hair, this is particularly true for Black women. This book goes far deeper than I expected given its length; Dabiri fuses her personal experience growing up Black in Ireland and the United States with meticulous research. The latter takes us from enslaved people in…

Back in a previous life when I was an English student in university, we learned about something called intertextuality, which loosely put is the relationship among various texts. All I can say is that I am glad I read at least one book by Audre Lorde before reading The Days of Afrekete, which from its title to its tropes is steeped in Lorde’s work. (A lot of other reviews are also comparing it…