THE PEACH REBELLION – Wendelin Van Draanen

“Each year, as the sweet smell of peaches filled the June air and ripened into summer, I found myself looking for Ginny Rose Gilley.”

*Spoiler to come.  I’m warning you!*

Wendelin Van Draanen’s The Peach Rebellion (Random House Children’s Books 2022) is a delightful middle grade novel set in California in 1947.  Ginny Rose Gilley is an “Okie” – or as she likes to call it, a survivor.  She remembers the farm the family had before it was taken by the bank.  She remembers the old shacks they called homes.  She remembers when her younger brothers died on her birthday.  And she remembers helping her father bury them in a ditch.  She also remembers summers spent on the Simmons peach orchard, playing with Peggy Simmons and picking peaches.  When her father finds himself a stable job, she finds herself back in town.  It’s been years, but Peggy hasn’t forgotten her.

Peggy lived for those summers with Ginny Rose.  Ginny Rose made the work seem less dull.  Without Ginny, she has continued to hustle, preparing the harvest and even manning a roadside stand to help the family business. Her best friend, Lisette, is the daughter of a banker.  Peggy would give anything to be able to pay her way into places like Lisette, to earn real money, instead she pays her way with peaches and quietly takes Lisette’s offered hand-me-downs. Peggy’s got her eyes set on Rodney St. Clair.  What she doesn’t know is that so does Lisette.

Peggy would love for her two friends to become friends, but Ginny Rose wants nothing to do with the daughter of a banker.  And Lisette doesn’t really want to be friends with an “Okie.”  But the summer of 1947 will see all three of their lives shaken up just a bit, and they realize what they can accomplish if they trust each other together.

SPOILER **************************SPOILER************************SPOILER**********

Beyond the surface level romance, the main plot of the novel is Ginny Rose trying to get the bodies of her brothers back so they can be buried at a church. Her mother’s depression is getting worse, and Ginny Rose thinks if she has somewhere to visit the boys, somewhere to call home, it might improve. She gets Peggy to help her try to find the unmarked grave and dig them up, and even Lisette agrees.  Some folks have called this morbid, but that doesn’t bother me.  The one issue I really have with it is how she suddenly decides this is what her mother needs, and when they get there, she sees they’re doing construction over where they were buried so they can’t back out.  I’d have preferred it if she went to try and find their grave or heard of the construction, and then decided to bring them home.

It’s a sweet and sticky novel of summertime and the forging of friendships that will last forever.

Read this novel.

JAMES – Percival Everett

“Folks be funny lak dat. Dey takes the lies dey want and throws away the truths dat scares ‘em.”

“With my pencil, I wrote myself into being. I wrote myself to here.”

Confession: I’ve never read Adventures of Huckleberry Finn OR Adventures Tom Sawyer.  (I was very dedicated in charting my path towards a Masters in English to avoid as much of the “dead white guy” canon as I could.)  That said, so much of Mark Twain is embedded in everything, particularly in other works even to this day, that I’m somewhat familiar with both Tom and Huck and their boyhood adventures in the South.   When I saw that Percival Everett was releasing a retelling of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, I was already sold.  You know I love those “the empire writes back” retellings.

Everett has one of the more unique voices and storytelling prowess of authors I’ve read in a long while, and while his novels are dark and weighty, they are full of wit and charm and a humor that perseveres.  James (Doubleday 2024), a retelling from the perspective of the slave Jim, did not disappoint.

Admittedly, it is very hard to review the novel because so much of what makes it work is experiencing the unexpected wrapped in the known, and I think readers would benefit from just jumping in and letting James’s story happen to them.  From a “writing back” standpoint, Everett does provide an ending that is less “white savior” and more resilient as it reclaims a narrative; there is something profoundly powerful in that clear deviation from Twain’s adventurous lads and the intentional act of James putting his words on paper.

If you’re a diehard Twain fan, you probably won’t like this novel.  I would, however, recommend that you give it a go.  And, of course, I will always recommend that you read Everett’s The Trees. 

Read this book.

JUST FOR THE SUMMER – Abby Jimenez

“The love stories sold us the wrong thing. The best kind of love doesn’t happen on moonlit walks and romantic vacations. It happens in between the folds of everyday life.”

I know I sound like a broken record, but Abby Jimenez is a bit special.   Surface level, one would be tempted to say it’s formulaic romance – she does know her tropes and she hits them hard.  But she has some pretty special ingredients that are unique to Jimenez.  It’s the humor.  The dogs. The hint of magic. But most of all, it’s the heart; every page has a beat.  Just for the Summer (Forever 2024) is certainly no exception.

Just for the Summer is in the Part of Your World and Yours Truly sphere, so of course I loved seeing some old friends (and not so much friends) cross the pages, but Emma and Justin’s story is very much a standalone.  Emma is traveling nurse who comes across a thread on Reddit about a guy who is cursed – every woman he dates  finds her forever after directly after they break up.  This is intriguing to Emma because she suffers from the same curse.  They decide to date each other in the hopes that the curses will cancel each other out when they inevitably part ways.

You know where this is going.  They’re going to fall in love.  That’s a given. 

What’s not a given is a woman with some pretty serious baggage, the best friend/sister who is devoted to keeping her rooted, the man who is thrust into becoming guardian over his younger siblings, the mother who broke when her husband died, the mother who was always broken.

Justin is pretty much perfect – he will move mountains for those he loves.  Quite the white knight on a trusty steed (or unicorn floaty!). Emma is lovely; she’ll do anything for you, but she puts up walls.  She is not my favorite of Jimenez’s women, but I respect that she puts in the work needed to confront her own demons.  Jimenez doesn’t shy away from mental health, and she never has sex or love the answer.  I love her for that.

Read this book.

NEVER LEAVE THE DOGS BEHIND – Brianna Madia

A little over two years ago, I wrote the following about Brianna Madia’s first novel, Nowhere for Very Long: “It tastes like sunbaked earth that leads to a hidden spring that no one knows about but you. It smells like flowers growing wild and untamed. It sounds like howling at the moon.”  I was hoping for more of the same with her sophomore attempt, Never Leave the Dogs Behind (HarperOne 2024). 

The publisher sent me an advanced copy, but that pesky stroke happened and my reading training wheels are on, so I’m just now getting to it.  It’s a slim volume and a quick read, but there are countless pages of the things left unsaid.  And there’s power in what isn’t said.  Strength in what Madia choose to leave out.

Never Leave the Dogs Behind is a beauty in the breakdown collection, a raw madness that tastes like blood, sharp against your tongue, and salt from sweat and tears.  It’s a collection of someone being torn down to the studs and figuring out how to rebuild, but more importantly how to see the stars from the wreckage.  It’s heartbeat, however, is the love letter to the pets that tether us and keep us putting one foot in front of the other.

Much like the first volume, Never Leave the Dogs Behind howls; however, before it howled with a reckless abandon.  Now, it’s a wounded animal as Madia splays her trauma.  It’s voyeuristic, but I take comfort in knowing she reclaimed her narrative.

 Much like Dags, I imagine Madia will always be wild.  I’ll keep an eye out, just past the Juniper trees, for them both. And hope for the stories that smell like just before rain. 

Read this book.

JOSEPHINE AGAINST THE SEA – Shakirah Bourne

Current installment of Tommi Reads the World – we’re in the Bs.

Country: Barbados
Title: Josephine Against the Sea
Author: Shakirah Bourne
Language: English
Translator: None
Publisher: Scholastic Press 2021

You never outgrow books (or you shouldn’t), so it’s no surprise that a middle grade book shows up in Tommi Reads the World.  And thank goodness, because Josephine Against the Sea is an absolute delight. 

The novel is about Josephine, an almost an eleven-year-old girl who is being raised by her fisherman father.  She loves cricket, even though she’s been forbidden from playing, and she’s convinced if she can get tickets to a national match, he’ll remember how much he loves it too. And, if she can make it on the school team, she’ll get tickets for the match.  But her dad doesn’t want her to play, and the coach doesn’t think girls can play – Josephine is going to prove them all wrong.  Then her daddy brings home a new girlfriend, and strange things start to happen.  Josephine begins to suspect Mariss is a benevolent and dangerous spirit – and she’s set her sights on Josephine’s daddy!  With her best friend Ahkai at her side, Josephine has a new mission: save her daddy from the water spirit.

Now y’all know how much I love Mami Wata and how the diaspora spread variations of her throughout the world.  So, you should not be surprised that I ate this Bajan one up.  Josephine is everything you could want in a heroine, and Ahkai, who is autistic, is the ideal sidekick.  (It’s perfect for fans of the Tristan Strong series.)

Read this book.

A LETTER TO THE LUMINOUS DEEP – Sylvie Cathrall

I’m going to start this review with a word of caution and a bit of grace.  When I was halfway through the novel, I suffered a stroke. I read some parts in the hospital and finally finished.  Perhaps that contributes to my overall feelings about Sylvie Cathrall’s A Letter to the Luminous Deep (4/23/24 Orbit); however, I did have some issues with the story pre-stroke.  Take from that what you will.

Let’s start with the good.  This cover is absolutely gorgeous.  The premise is whimsical and fantastical.  It’s Jane Austen but with more whimsy and underwater.  There are some adorable parts, particularly in the unfolding of the love story between E and Henerey.

Now to the parts that I found unappealing.   This is an epistolary novel, which can work fine, but in this case the voices are too similar. Additionally, I disliked the unfolding of events being told by E’s sister and Henerey’s brother and the correspondence between them.  The mirroring of the conversations was an unfortunate choice; especially when our cast of characters are nearly interchangeable.   The most unappealing thing, however, is that this is the first of a series. Hard pass.  It could have been done and done well in one novel.  I’ll die on that hill.

The novel is cute and somewhat intriguing, but I was largely disinterested.  The last quarter, however,  sparks a bit of interest.  I wish that interest had been sparked at the beginning, and that this was the novel of two scholars and their respective partners striking out to find their missing siblings and secret worlds.

All that said, I want to stress that this book just wasn’t for me.  This is a me issue more than it is a novel issue, so give the book a try if it tickles your fancy.  But you’ve been warned about it being part of an unfinished series.

Thanks to the publisher for the advanced copy.

AN EVENING IN GUANIMA: A TREASURY OF FOLKTALES FROM THE BAHAMAS – Patricia Glinton-Meicholas

“Once upon a time, a very good time, Monkey chew terbakker and spit white lime, Bullfrog jump from bank to bank while Mosquiter keep up the time.”

Current installment of Tommi Reads the World – we’re in the Bs.

Country: The Bahamas
Title: An Evening in Guanima: A Treasury of Folktales from The Bahamas
Author: Patricia Glinton-Meicholas
Language: English
Translator: None
Publisher: Guanima Press Ltd 1993

This collection of folktales from The Bahamas is an absolute delight.  As someone who enjoys folktales from throughout the world, I enjoyed seeing how stories travel through time and space.  There is a heavy influence from West Africa, the African diaspora and African Americans, the American South, as well as a notable Scottish influence.  Glinton-Meicholas discusses these varied influences in her introduction, which is a must read.  I was also reminded of Russian and Asian works while reading the brief collection.  “The Gaulin Wife” certainly has echoes of the Japanese folktale “The Crane Wife” as an example.

Like most folktales, the lessons are the same: don’t be greedy, listen to your elders, don’t be a glutton, watch out for tricksters, and a melon don’t grow on a pumpkin vine. 

It’s certainly worth a read.

THERE THERE – Tommy Orange

“We are the memories we don’t remember, which live in us, which we feel, which make us sing and dance and pray the way we do, feeling from memories that flare and bloom unexpectedly in our lives like blood through a blanket from a wound made by a bullet fired by a man shooting us in the back for our hair, for our heads, for a bounty, or just to get rid of us.”

“Stray bullets and consequences are landing on our unsuspecting bodies even now.”

Tommy Orange’s debut novel, There There (Penguin Random House 2018) is a brilliant and raw novel of interwoven stories, all leading to the Big Oakland Powwow.   You may remember the middle grade Ancestor Approved collection of intertribal stories with the powwow as the linking element; this is the much more adult version of that.  Soaked and blood, tears, and alcohol, it drips with generational trauma, past and present assaults.  It echoes with the screams of the dead, dying and lost.  It gets under your skin, in your ear – the thrum of a drum in your heart as the sound of gunshots leaves your head ringing.  You feel this novel.  You taste this novel.  You breathe this novel.

Dene is making a documentary of untold stories, continuing a project started by his now dead uncle.  He intends to record stories at the powwow. Jacquie Red Feather, recently sober, is headed back to Oakland to claim her three grandsons from her sister, Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield. Edwin, half-white, has just learned the indemnity of his father and starts an internship assisting with the powwow. Orvil Red Feather, one of Jacquie’s three grandsons, is planning to dance at the powwow – his longing for his heritage an unanswered cry within his family.  Blue was adopted by a prominent white couple as a baby; she’s head of the powwow committee. Octavio is a local drug dealer; Tony, Calvin and Charles work for him.  They intend to rob the powwow, which has advertised thousands of dollars in cash prizes.

The sections leading up to the powwow provide the strong and necessary character development that makes the powwow section, with its short bursts of stories, pierce the skin.  I’m not going to delve into what happens, but trust me when I say you should read this.  As for my favorite section,  it’s likely Opal’s as a child during the Occupation of Alcatraz Island – in particular, her conversation with her teddy bear.

Read this book.

JADED – Ela Lee

Ela Lee’s debut novel, Jaded, (Simon & Schuster 3/19/2024) is a sharp and raw depiction of the complete mind fuckery a sexual assault does on a person. Before getting into the review/reaction, I must stress that this novel is not for everyone, and it’s okay if you are not in the headspace to read it or if you have no desire to read it. It is okay.  If you are the victim of a sexual assault, I urge you to reach out for help.  You can speak with someone at National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800-656-HOPE (4673).

Jade is the biracial daughter of immigrants.  Jade is her “Starbucks name” because it’s easier than her actual name, which is Ceyda.  Korean and Turkish, Jade doesn’t quite feel like she “fits” anywhere, and she’s spent her life bending over backwards to be the “perfect” daughter, student, girlfriend, employee. Her hard work has paid off as she an associate at a prestigious law firm in London and she’s been in a steady relationship with a wealthy white man for seven years.  She is not only succeeding – she is thriving.  At least she is until a firm party where she is preyed upon by one of the partners – a man you can’t say no to, not if you want to keep your job.  He is hellbent on getting her pliably drunk. She is “saved” from these unwanted advanced by a colleague, who promises to get her home safely.  When she wakes up, her mind is fuzzy, her body is sore, there are bruises on her legs and arms, and she is bleeding such that she believes her period has started.  The assault comes back to her in flashes, and she begins to unravel. She starts having panic attacks, develops an eating disorder, avoids taxis,  has horrific nightmares, and continues to bleed from the vaginal trauma.  She feels unsafe in her home, at work, and even on the streets. Rumors circulate at work and eventually get back to her boyfriend that she had sex with a coworker.

Jade’s friends aren’t oblivious to her struggle; they just don’t know what’s wrong.  When she finally tells them, Adele tells her to report it and Eve tells her to just keep quiet and move on.  Eve, a true chameleon, has been molding, fitting, performing and using her body to advance her career for years – she takes the assaults, leers, comments, and gropes as just part of her job description, a necessary evil for advancement. Jade’s boyfriend is skeptical that she’s telling the truth and is, at times, angry, understanding, and dismissive. As Jade unravels, the reader sees just how toxic her relationship with him is, even before the rape – something it takes Jade a bit longer to realize. 

The novel also dances around the nervous condition of a biracial child of immigrants and the fractured relationship she has with her parents, and the disconnect she feels, in particular, with her Korean heritage and the unspoken generational trauma of her mother. Of note is the use of kintsugi. Jade knows how it’s become a “kitsch, insta-metaphor for embracing one’s setbacks or flaws.” But she also knows that her mother’s use of it stems from Japan having colonized her homeland and the need to make something that is broken functional.

Jaded does not flinch, does not sugar coat, does not bend. It’s a raw and biting portrayal that still sings with heart and hope.

The Sorrow of Belgium – Hugo Claus

“Times are bad, the radio says so, and the newspapers. No, things aren’t getting any better, far from it.”

Current installment of Tommi Reads the World – we’re in the Bs.

Country: Belgium
Title: The Sorrow of Belgium
Author: Hugo Claus
Language: DutchTranslator: Arnold J. Pomerans
Publisher: First published in Dutch as Het Verdriet van Belgie by De Bezige Bij in 1983, translation first published by Random House in 1990.

I hate to say it, but this well-renowned novel was 603 pages of a story I didn’t want to read – a story I forced myself to finish. While I think some things may have gotten lost in translation, especially as it relates to the use of the French versus Dutch language and the combination of the two, that’s not why this book was such a chore to read.  The novel is structured into two parts, with the first section having chapters and form and the latter morphing into a chaotic stream of events.  (The second half is actually when our protagonist Louis “writes” the first half.)  This annoyed some readers.  I wasn’t bothered by it, and I actually preferred the chaotic second half to the first.  For me, it was the story itself and its entirely unlikeable cast of characters that made this work such a slug.

The struggle for identity in Belgium, being torn between the French and the Flemish, during the second world war as seen from the eyes of an eleven-year-old boy sold me on getting this chunker as my Belgium selection.  Oh, how I wish I hadn’t.  I lost count of the number of sexual assaults in the novel – both on Louis and by Louis.  At the age of eleven, we know he’s been molested by a man who works for his father. We watch him molest two classmates (one he’s in love with) and a nun who has gone a bit senile. He forces himself on a female friend more than once, with the reader getting lengthy descriptions of what her “opening” looks like. (This particular part of the female anatomy is described quite frequently.) He is raped as a minor by his aunt, in great detail, and later by another much older woman. His issues with his mother are straight from Freud’s findings.  Add in some racism (including a scene where his mother cooks pork when her brother in law, a Jewish man, is in the home to ‘test’ just how ‘Jewish’ he is), suicide, suicidal ideation, a miscarriage, adultery, madness, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and physical abuse and you’ve got the sorrow of this novel.

I did not enjoy this book.