Kwame Mbalia – TRISTAN STRONG PUNCHES A HOLE IN THE SKY

The books that have written themselves on my skin and in my heart are far too many to name in this space. The point is books matter. Stories matter.


When I read about Kwame Mbalia’s TRISTAN STRONG PUNCHES A HOLE IN THE SKY, my pulse quickened because I was excited. When I read the book’s dedication “For the stories untold and the children who will tell them,” I knew I was holding magic in its purest form in that royal purple hardback.

All across this planet is a tradition of storytelling. There are shared experiences and similar characters, and the stories create a unique tapestry of vibrancy and life that define us. But we all carry a Story Box, a way to honor our ancestors and remember. And this is one hell of a required reading of a story box. These are the stories we have to remember. These are the stories we tried to destroy.


I knew about Anansi, the Weaver. But I didn’t know about High John or John Henry. I wasn’t familiar with Br’er Fox or Br’er Rabbit (even though Disney attempted to destroy them). I’d heard of Gum Baby and Mwatiya, but I didn’t know that the People could fly.


Mbalia’s young adult novel about a “nerdy black boy from Chicago” is a masterpiece of storytelling, tradition, and history. Oral traditions kept the stories alive when the people were enslaved. The African gods blended and merged as history (and men) took the people who could fly, put them in chains, and made it a crime to teach them to read and write. Mbalia breathes life into these characters as any good storyteller would. And Tristan Strong, the most unlikely of heroes, a 7th grader who carries the guilt of the death of his best friend like sap on his chucks holding him back, he’s the hero we need and may have my favorite origin story.


TRISTAN STRONG PUNCHES A HOLE IN THE SKY, packed full of adventure with a fast pacing that holds you close, is also a book about the importance of storytelling, the importance of history, the importance of our ancestors. There are so many passages in the book that resonated with me but the one I found the most powerful was when Tristan was talking to High John.


“His voice was crashing ocean waves and shaking earth. Old trees and Mississippi suns. Auction houses and Congo Landings. I didn’t recognize any of the images and yet I knew them all.”


We can’t erase history. And we shouldn’t – not if we’re to learn, to grow, to live. I encourage you to read outside your Story Box.


The stories matter. Long live the storytellers. All of them.

CRAZY RICH ASIANS

Kevin Kwan’s CRAZY RICH ASIANS is one hell of a delicious romp, and I’m kicking myself for not going on this ride sooner.  I simply could not put it down.  (Rainy weekend + fuzzy socks!)
The novel opens in London, 1986.  Our hero, Nicholas Young is 8 and behaving himself beautifully at the Calthorpe where the general manager is but a few hours away from having to eat his racist ignorance for dinner.  (Felicity Leong’s husband buys her the hotel and Ormsby finds himself without a job.) And that is the dear reader’s introduction to this filthy rich extended family.
The novel is centered around Nicholas and Rachel Chu (who is not quite an American Born Chinese, but close enough).  They’ve been dating for two years, and Nicholas has invited her to join him at the wedding of his oldest and dearest friend.  Nick leaves out a few minor details.  Like how it’s the most talked about wedding in Asia.  That it’s going to be a media circus.  That everyone who is anyone will be there.  Oh, and our hero just happens to be from one of the wealthiest families in Singapore and with Colin wed, the most eligible bachelor.   The Youngs are Rich with the big “R.” So wealthy no one talks about it.  So wealthy that Rachel’s rich friend who lives in Singapore doesn’t even know him.  So wealthy that his family will never approve of a modest economics professor from California.
The novel flits in and out of the social circle Rachel has been thrust into.  As expected, she’s a fish out of water and seen as nothing more than a gold digger.  Nick’s mother hires a private investigator to find out exactly who this woman is while at the same time orchestrating multiple attempts to sabotage her son’s love interest.  I cut my teeth on soap operas and Erica Kane has NOTHING on Eleanor Young.  
CRAZY RICH ASIANS is delicious and decadent, and if you’re like me and haven’t taken the ride yet, forget Netflix & Chill for a weekend and pick up Kwan’s first novel.  (It’s the first of a trilogy.  I can’t speak for CHINA RICH GIRLFRIEND and RICH PEOPLE PROBLEMS, but this first attempt is a pure joy of book fun.)

CALEB’S CROSSING – Geraldine Brooks

I don’t know who Juliette is, but she left her autographed copy of CALEB’S CROSSING by Pulitzer Prize winning author Geraldine Brooks to be purchased at a used book sale.  ($5 a box – any sized box!!)  I’ve heard of Geraldine Brooks, but only through her husband, Tony Horwitz, who wrote CONFEDERATES IN THE ATTIC.  (He won a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for those wondering.) Until I picked up CALEB’S CROSSING, I’d never so much as glanced twice at any of her works.  
Published in 2011, CALEB’S CROSSING was inspired by the true story of Caleb Cheeshahteaumauk, a Wampanoag who converted to Christianity and was the first Native American to graduate from Harvard.
The title concerns the “crossing” between cultures – from Wampanoag to White – a full assimilation, while also referencing the crossing between life and death.  Make no mistake, this is Bethia’s story.  As such, the title is a bit misleading; BETHIA IS SORRY would have been a better a choice because this novel is a very lengthy apology for her involvement in the life and death of Caleb. 

Bethia met the young man when she was 12.  She gave him the name Caleb, a strong Biblical name.  He named her Storm Eyes, but no one knew but the two of them.  The world, however, knew him as Caleb.  (It reminded me of a scene in CHILDREN OF THE DUST, when Rachel “renames” the “savage boy” Corby White.  A scene, mind you, that played out in history time and time again.)
Caleb eventually converts and leaves his people to study under Bethia’s father.  He is a quick study and he, along with Joel, are the prized jewels to showcase how the “heathens can be saved.”  Joel is murdered just before graduation from Harvard, but Caleb graduates.  By this time, he is but the shell of Cheeshahteaumauk.  He is thin, pale, and his once glorious hair is dull.  His eyes are lifeless.
He’s crossed, but the crossing has killed him.
In desperation, Bethia goes to his uncle, Tequamuck, a powerful pawaaw, for help.
“My nephew is sick?  You think this comes as news to me? My nephew has been sick – indeed, he has been marked for death – from the day he commenced to walk with you, Storm Eyes.”
Tequamuck helps Bethia, and she takes his words to Caleb, the words of his death song.
“All that is true and certain.  But what I do not know is this: which home welcomed him, at the end.”
The novel left me unsettled, as well it should.  It is well-written (though rushed and breathless at times), historically accurate, and engaging.  But it is Bethia’s story – one of privilege and guilt.

MISS PEREGRINE’S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN – Ransom Riggs

I’ve gone on a bit of a YA kick when it comes to reading, but I’m not mad about it.  There are a lot of great things happening in YA lit land these days, and I’m here for it.

I was gifted the book that is the subject of today’s review because the gifter thought I’d enjoy how the book was setup.  He was right. 

Plot-wise, Ransom Riggs’s MISS PEREGRINE’S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN isn’t something that new or shiny (ordinary boy finds out he isn’t so ordinary after all and is whisked off to a land of magic, intrigue, a pretty woman and the monsters he has to save them from); however, the use of vintage photographs to weave the story together made it  both new and shiny.  These vintage photographs are the heart of this tale so it’s no wonder even Tim Burton couldn’t make the movie a success.  (Some books aren’t made for the screen.  They just aren’t.)

Jacob is moody and annoying teenager.  He’s an outcast with a questionable choice in friends, and parents he neither respects or admires.  His ship’s course has already been mapped as he is heir to a chain of pharmacies in Florida.  His mother comes from money; his father comes from peculiar.

He’s outgrown the myths and legends his paternal grandfather had filled his head with as a child.  The island  where everyone is safe and the sun is always shining, the children with magical abilities, the monsters with tentacles in their mouths…  they were all tall tales exaggerated by an old man who had been sent to a remote island  as  a  Jewish child during the war, an old man who had fought the Nazi monsters.  (I thought the story might take a LIFE OF PI, “May’s Lion” slant and I almost wish it had.)

But when tragedy strikes, Jacob is plunged into a reality that his grandfather wasn’t filling his head with lies and fairy tales.  His grandfather was a peculiar – one with a unique gift.  Jacob has that gift as well.

 MISS PEREGRINE’S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN is a little Series of Unfortunate Events meets American Horror Story: Freak Show meets X-Men First Class.  It’s quirky, odd, creepy, and a bit fantastical.  Will I finish the series?  Probably not.  Much like some books shouldn’t be movies, some books shouldn’t be forced into a series.  If you’re writing a series, that first book better grab me and hold on tight with characters I can commit to – otherwise, my TBR pile to too big for me to bother.

THE KEY TO EXTRAORDINARY – Natalie Lloyd

 Before I get into the review of another Battle of the Books selections, I want to ask you to please donate to my niece’s elementary school. It’s a rural public school in North Carolina and many students have little support at home and are not encouraged to read. This Battle of the Books competition excites these children and nourishes a love of reading that will, hopefully, last a lifetime. If you’d like to donate, please click here. 

THE KEY TO EXTRAORDINARY by Natalie Lloyd is something quite magical and special and so is its heroine, Emma Pearl Casey.  This story grabbed my hand and my heart like a friend you never want to say goodbye to.

Emma and her older brother Topher have been touched by heartbreak and loss, and how Lloyd handles the darkness of their sadness is nothing short of magic.  She gives it a name, the Big Empty, and it breaks my heart.  She never knew her father and her mother has died by the start of the story.  She lives with Granny Blue and gives tours to the famously haunted cemetery.  Her family owns Boneyard Cafe and much like the rest of Blackbird Hollow, they are struggling.

But Blackbird Hollow is magic.  And so are the women in Emma’s family.  Their lives are documented in a the Book of Days.

“Since before the Revolutionary War, every woman in our family has dreamed of a field of blue flowers.  We’ve kept a record of it since Ingrid Noble.  And in that field, they always see… a clue.  A clue to their extraordinary destiny.”

“We call the women in our family the Wildflowers.  Because no matter the circumstance, and no matter where the wind carried them, they bloomed, bold and bright.”

But what is Emma’s destiny?  She feels the dream is coming just as sure as she feels the ghosts on the breeze.  When the dream finally comes, Emma is confused.  What could the key mean?

And then she realizes her destiny – she is to find the Conductor’s treasure and save her family and cafe.

The Conductor’s treasure is a legend dating back to before the Civil War, and many people within Blackbird Hollow have sought it out.  But only Emma had the dream.  She knows it is her destiny.

What happens next is the most magical and beautiful of treasure hunts as Emma and her BFF Cody Belle and new friend Earl Chance set out to find the key that will unlock the treasure that will save the town.  Emma does find the key and she does unlock a past full of treasures and love, and it the most unexpected and perfect of endings.

And the flowers… oh how I wish these flowers were real.  Keeping Susans.  Telling Vines.  Healing Blues.

I’ve been removed from children’s books for a bit, but this did have some HOLES vibes.  There is so much in this short children’s book to unpack, so I will leave you with Emma’s entry in the Book of Days.

She believed in magical things: buried treasure, skeleton keys, and Telling Vines.  She loved.

SMELLS LIKE DOG – Suzanne Selfors

Don’t listen to anyone who tells you that you are “too old” for a book. We can’t outgrow books. It’s impossible. I’m a bookdragon; you can trust me.

 My sister recently sent me the list books for the 2019-2020 Elementary Battle of the Books competition. As my niece will be reading the books, my sister was hoping maybe I could snag some of the books at my favorite used book stores. My first trip out scored four. And of course I’m going to read them before I deliver them to her. Why? Because they’re books!

 Before I get into the review of the first one, I want to ask you to please donate to my niece’s elementary school. It’s a rural public school in North Carolina and many students have little support at home and are not encouraged to read. This Battle of the Books competition excites these children and nourishes a love of reading that will, hopefully, last a lifetime. If you’d like to donate, please click here.  

I’ve never read Suzanne Selfors before, so I had no idea what I was missing.  What an absolute treat SMELLS LIKE DOG was.  It is witty, endearing, sharply written.  It was giving me serious FROM THE MIXED-UP FILES OF MRS. BASIL E. FRANKWEILER vibes with a hint of Carl Hiaasen (HOOT, FLUSH, SCAT, CHOMP – you get the idea.)  It was a splendid combination that left me smiling.

Selfors opens her book with a letter to her readers that makes it very clear that the story is about a dog and that dog does NOT die.  I(‘m of the opinion that every book with a dog should start in a similar fashion!)

Homer Pudding lives on a goat farm with his older sister, Gwendolyn, who wants to be a taxidermist when she grows up and practices on road kill, a young brother Pip that everyone calls Squeak, a mother who loves him to bits, and a father who doesn’t quite understand him.  Homer’s hero is his father’s brother, Uncle Drake the treasure hunter.  Homer wants to be just like his beloved uncle and his head  (and bookcase!) is full of dreams of treasures and maps and lore.

Then they read in the Sunday paper that Uncle Drake has been eaten by a tortoise.  A representative from a law firm in The City brings the family a letter.  There is also a letter just for Homer.  A letter and an old smelly hound.  Uncle Drake left his most treasured possession to Homer.  But what to make of the smelly basset hound with no sense of smell?  What purpose can he possibly serve?

But there is a gold coin on the dog’s collar and Homer has a clear taste for adventure that will take him far beyond his family’s goat farm and border collies.  With Dog at his side, Homer sets out on his first grand adventure with more questions than answers.  One thing becomes clear, however; Dog is perhaps the greatest treasure in the world.  Dog and family are forever.

And do not ever let any one tell you that you are too old for a children’s book. Pish-Posh, I say.  The problem with “adults” is that they’ve stopped reading.

SHADOW AND BONE – Leigh Bardugo

I’d never judge a book by its cover, but I would be remiss if I didn’t start this post by mentioning how absolutely gorgeous this cover is.  The colors.  The stag.  It’s simply stunning.


As for the book itself, SHADOW AND BONE is a delight, and a quick and easy read.  It’s the first book I’ve read by Leigh Bardugo and the first of the Shadow and Bone Trilogy, which is set in Grishaverse.  Bardugo uses this fantastical setting in the Six of Crows Duology and THE LANGUAGE OF THORNS.  One of my issues with fantasy is the world building element.  For me, it has to be done at a snappy pace with more and more details being fleshed out as the story progresses.  Bardugo did an okay job with pacing in this novel as she built a world and never lost the story in the process.  It does lag a bit in the middle, but that’s not world building so much as a slow burn of a plot, which I don’t mind.  I just hope the series doesn’t fall on its face like several other trilogies I’ve committed myself to over the past few years.  (I’m looking at you Divergent and Hunger Games.)

Alina is an orphan as is her closest friend, Malyen.  They grow up together.  They rely on each other.  They trust each other.  They save each other.  They love each other.  They are both surprised when they realize they are in love with each other.  (Because the reader couldn’t see that coming from a mile away.  Sigh.  Girls are so much more than the men in their lives.  Can we get more Genya?)

They grow up in a world where magic exists and is praised.  Children are tested early to determine if they have any magical skills.  Alina and Mal are tested at the orphanage, which is how the novel opens.  The novel promptly flashes forward and they are serving as soldiers in the King’s Army, having apparently no skillset in the Small Science.

Alina is a junior cartographer.  Mal is a phenomenal tracker. 

“ ‘You’ve never been lost in your life,’ I scoffed.  I was the mapmaker, but Mal could find true north blindfolded and standing on his head.”

The novel is quick to action, with the soldiers crossing the Shadow Fold – a terrifying darkness with monsters swooping from the skies.  There is an attack.  Alina watches in horror as her friend and fellow cartographer, Alexei, is carried off by the winged beasts.  Mal comes to her rescue and is attacked.  In that moment, Alina’s life changes.  Fear pushes light out of her being.  Fear brings her magic to the surface.  And nothing will ever be the same.

Alina is Sun Summoner.  A rare talent the Darkling has been waiting for.  But why?  Does he want her for good or for evil? 

The Darkling is the future.  He is magic and mystery and beauty.  He is riches and wealth and promises.  He will always want her.  Mal is her past.  He is safe and sure and sound.  He is love and faith and hope.  He will always find her.

But Alina… what does she want?  Is she a soldier? A follower?  A leader?  The Saint and Savior they hope she is?  Is she going to be who she wants to be?  Not what the Darkling wants or what Mal wants?  Can she stand on her own?

It’s not a poorly done YA fantasy, but it is very tropey and does play fast and loose with Russian culture.

But that cover… oh man, is she a beaut.


Verity – Colleen Hoover

I have never read a Colleen Hoover novel until now.  I follow her on social media because she is a freakin’ riot and because I have a slight friend crush combined with a wee touch of jealousy.  I know of her books, and her break your heart only to put it back again love stories.  I nearly pulled the trigger on Without Merit, but I didn’t.  I read a sample of All Your Perfects, but I didn’t feel compelled to complete the novel.  Then came Verity, a novel that brought Hoover back to her self-publishing roots and came with a disclaimer that it was NOT a typical Hoover novel – it was a romantic thriller.  Color me intrigued.  I read the sample and downloaded the novel the same night. 

1   1) I loathe e-readers.  I don’t use them.
     2)  I read Verityon my phone in one sitting.
This review will be kept short because thrillers can be easily spoiled in reviews, and I don’t wish to anger the masses.
Verity is a fast-paced, Gone-Girl-esque read.  Struggling author Lowen Ashleigh is hired to complete the remaining books in Verity Crawford’s bestselling series.  Verity writes thrillers from the point of view of the villain.  (Ding. Ding. Ding.)  She’s been injured in a car accident, but her publisher has been less than honest about the extent of her injuries.  They need someone to finish the series because Verity will never write again, and her fans must not know.  Due to a chance (and rather bloody) meeting with Verity’s husband Jeremy, a ready bond is formed between the two.  He convinces her to take the gig, and he ensures she is properly compensated for her efforts.  Lowen needs the money.  She can’t say no.
Lowen expects to quickly go through Verity’s notes, hoping for material that will make finishing the already planned series a breeze.  What she finds is a memoir of sorts, one that she can’t imagine Verity ever wanted anyone to read.  What is contained in that manuscript could destroy the fragile bond that remained between Jeremy and his wife, and Lowen, quickly falling under his spell, is oh so tempted.
Told from Lowen’s POV with snippets of Verity’s writings woven in, this thriller is about obsession, trust and truth (and headboard biting sex).  The reader quickly realizes that all is not right at the Crawford home, and all is not right in Lowen’s head.  As for Verity, her name is telling enough.  The novel shows us to what lengths we go for our own truths and fixations.
The lesson?  Writers are unreliable narrators.  Always.
As for me, I like dark and twisty Hoover.

EDUCATED – Tara Westover

Our minds do the most magical of things with our memories.  We suppress, we embrace, we mold truth into something more tenable, we exaggerate, we deify, we villainize.  Memory is a tricky thing, and we are not to be trusted.
So how do we find the truth in our memories?  How do we distinguish between actual events as they occurred and the reality we’ve created?  Or do we bother?
Memory is a tricky thing.  We all know that.  And if it is how I remember it, even if it’s not as it happened, isn’t that “true” enough?
I recently read a memoir that left me pondering the flaws in memories and questioning the reliability of a narrator.  And after the A Million Little Pieces fiasco, questioning the reliability of a non-fiction author left me quite uncomfortable.  That uncomfortableness made for an uneasy reading.  Twain said that truth is stranger than fiction, but I’ve never read a memoir in which I distrusted the narrator.  Until now.
Tara Westover’s debut novel Educated was published earlier this year and was promptly lauded with praise.  Every book club forced it upon their members.  Every list of 2018 ‘must reads’ proudly listed it, including President Obama’s.  Its cover was EVERYWHERE.  (Allow me a brief tangent to discuss the cover.  I know.  I know. I know.  Don’t judge a book by the cover.  But this was published by Random House – it had an entire TEAM of people to get it right, yet the cover did not fit the memoir.  Yes, the memoir is titled Educated.  But the type of educated Ms. Westover becomes throughout the course of regurgitating her memories isn’t the pencil on paper kind of educated.  I can’t help but wonder if the cover designer was even given a plot summary of the work.)
Boiled down to its roots of a young woman escaping her fundamentalist Mormon family and finding a home and a family in an education, the memoir is heartbreakingly beautiful.  But there are parts that are hard to swallow as complete truth.  Tara wasn’t kept from the “outside” world – she took dance classes, she starred in the small town’s musical, she went on dates (unchaperoned!) with boys to the movies, she wore makeup, had access to the internet, etc.  She didn’t grow up 1800s Laura Ingalls Wilder, despite certain aspects of the memoir that would beg you to believe otherwise. 

Her early childhood memories, told with such certainty, are unreliable as the memories of a child retold through the lenses of an adult.  Memory is funny.  She’s retelling a story she was told, not one she remembers.  Of that I am certain. 

As she recounts stories of  her teenage years, memories that would rest like scars on the skin, I still held her at arm’s length.  She didn’t sound honest.  It didn’t read true.  I was so unsettled by the feeling of not being able to trust the narrator of a memoir that I did my own research upon completing the novel.
The Preston Citizen has archives online.  There are many articles concerning the Westover family. For an off-the-grid family, Val and LaRee and their brood show up quite a bit in the newspaper.  Reading the archives shows a much-loved family of Clifton.  Not only does the paper cover some of the Worm Creek Opera House plays (where Tara and her siblings act and serve as stage managers and stage hands) there is also a brief snippet regarding “Shawn’s” fall – it’s a brief statement that seems to make light of the seriousness of his injuries.  (Shawn is Travis Westover.  Audrey is Valaree.  Why Tara changed those two names, I have no idea.  It’s not like it’s hard to figure out.)  You can also read about her father’s run for mayor, her mother’s BOOMING essential oil business, Richard’s mission trip to California, Lucas’s mission to Australia, Tara’s first place victory in a fine arts competition in 2003 and 2002, the duet she sang with her brother, birth announcements, wedding announcements, and so on.  A brief glance at the archives puts me further at odds with the memoir.
The Westover family is also on social media.  There is a picture of Val from Christmas 2009.  I could not see what Tara describes as scarring that makes people look twice.  “Then I would look at him, too, and notice how the skin on his chin was taut and plastic; how his lips lacked natural roundness; how his cheeks sucked inward an angle that was almost skeletal.  His right hand, which he often raised to point at some feature or other, was knotted and twisted…”  There is indeed some scarring, but not as Tara seems to remember.  The picture was taken in 2009.  The description provided by Tara was from 2010 when her parents visited her at Harvard.
The interview with Val and LaRee’s attorney is also telling.  He calls the book “libelous” but continues to say he has not been retained to bring suit.
I know social media lies.  I know that there is plenty that goes on behind closed doors that people would never believe.  I don’t doubt that Tara had a difficult upbringing, based in large part to her parent’s religious beliefs.  I don’t even question that Tara suffered verbal and physical abuse at the hands of her brother or that her family gaslighted her about it.  But I am unsettled because I could drain pasta in this colander of a memoir. 

I said before that memory is tricky – we create, mold, reimagine, and misremember as we see fit.  We do it for a number of reasons.  Self-preservation.  Love.  Justification.  Attention.  To sell books. 

CHILDREN OF BLOOD AND BONE – Tomi Adeyemi

I teach you to be warriors in the garden so you will never be gardeners in the war.” Tomi Adeyemi, Children of Blood and Bone
You’ve read Harry Potter, right? Or at least seen the movies? Do you remember when they began training to fight? Dumbledore’s Army, they called themselves. Led by Harry, Ron, and Hermione, students learned how to defend themselves against the dark arts. They learned how to fight. A war was coming, and they all knew it. Which side of right would they stand on? Which side of justice would they claim as theirs?
Rowling wasn’t the first to train children to fight the injustices of the world, be they real or fictional, and she won’t be the last – child warriors are at the very core of Dystopian literature. This has all been done before. Stanley Kubrick once said: “Everything has already been done. Every story has already been told. Every scene has been shot. It’s our job to do it one better.”
Enter Tomi Adeyemi and THE CHILDREN OF BLOOD AND BONE.
It is quite the remarkable novel, but it is not without its flaws. The love story, half-assed and out of place, was an insult. This was not, nor should it have been, a struggle of the heart. This novel would have been stronger without that pesky Romeo & Juliet story line. Trust me. Inan’s conflict should never have been with Zelie. It was always with himself, sweet Amari, and his father. Always. That story is written on their skin, in their blood.
But that grimace-worthy love aspect was but a hiccup in an otherwise remarkable debut novel. I don’t want to spoil this novel, because this is the type of novel you wish you could read for the first time over and over again. I want you to devour it. Inhale it.
It’s time to put Harry Potter aside and join the magi uprising. This is what we’ve been waiting for.