How to Bang a Billionaire by Alexis Hall is like 50 Shades, if 50 Shades were Gay (do I have your attention now?) Actually set in the UK (no real American uses the word ‘clamber’) Main characters are both into BDSM (though this book doesn’t have much of it) Laugh out loud funny (intentional) Beautifully written (really) Profound (proof to come) Arden St. Ives is about to sit for his exams at Oxford (for Americans: he’s about to graduate from university, not just end the […]
There will be weirdness
“When something catches your attention just keep your attention on it, stick with it ’til the end, and somewhere along the line there’ll be weirdness.” Yes. There will be weirdness. In Helen Oyeyemi’s Boy, Snow, Bird, a woman named Boy marries into a family of African Americans passing as white. However, Boy doesn’t know this until she gives birth to her baby girl, Bird, who is recognizably (recognizably?) black. But that’s not the weird part. Here’s the thing, there’s no weird part to Boy, Snow, […]
There Are No Monsters Here
“From 2000 to 2004, five Black young men I grew up with died, all violently, in seemingly unrelated deaths. The first was my brother, Joshua…” Jesmyn Ward’s Men We Reaped is beautiful and heartbreaking in a way that only stories about family and home can be. This book made me weep in the prologue. I want to be clear: this was no mere tearing up. Sobs were heard. Ward’s words don’t require a book-long, slow build-up to a crescendo of emotion and tragedy. The tragedy […]
Work, Love, and Happiness
God I love this book. In fact, I may love Longbourn more than Pride and Prejudice. I know, Blasphemy! But Baker uses Austen words (“The butler… Mrs. Hill and the two housemaids…”) as a launching pad for the contemplation of no less than the meaning of life. In addition it’s an amazing love story too! Swoon! Also, I learned the word chilblain. Jo Baker sets Longbourn in its historical home explaining the drudgery of everyday life for the servants. The amount of work required to […]