Books in the Freezer discussion

BIPOC stands for Black, Indigenous, Person of Color. What book are you looking at for the challenge?

white is for witching

The Ballad of Black Tom because I loved The Changeling

The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor Lavalle

Dread nation, which I’ve owned pretty much since it came out and haven’t read.

Mine is Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia -- read it yesterday and loved it.

Jami wrote: "Dread nation, which I’ve owned pretty much since it came out and haven’t read."

Dread Nation is so fun! If you enjoy it the sequel, Deathless Divide, is also worth reading.

Finished Fledgling, a bittersweet accomplishment as this is the last Octavia Butler I had left to read. Highly recommended, like all her novels.

Cannot recommend Ring Shout by P. Djeli Clark enough - soooo good! It will definitely be one of my top reads of 2021!

Kasey wrote: "Cannot recommend Ring Shout by P. Djeli Clark enough - soooo good! It will definitely be one of my top reads of 2021!"

Oh that looks amazing. Adding to my wishlist.

I just finished The only good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones and it totally checks this box for me! A slow burn horror that touches on the racism American Indians face.

I just read Lakewood by Megan Giddings for the Ladies of Horror Fiction February (I'm behind lol) readalong.

Lakewood lost some steam in the second half, but it was still a great story idea that was engrossing and disturbing. I wanted to give up reading it, but I needed to find out the secret!
I noticed that Giddings often gave an introductory description of the non-Black characters that included their race, but the race of characters like her friends from home and attendees of her grandma's funeral was often not mentioned in their introductory description (if I remember correctly). I would figure it out later through context clues. I know white is often considered the baseline in novels, so it was good to see the perspective of someone for whom that isn't true and it is a good reminder for me that characters ought not to be presumed white.

Noemi wrote: "I just read Lakewood by Megan Giddings for the Ladies of Horror Fiction February (I'm behind lol) readalong.


I loved Lakewood! I read it earlier this year and the character descriptions stood out to me too -- I really liked seeing it flipped and how weird it felt for me as a white person to be the "other." I also noticed this recently in When No One is Watching by Alyssa Cole, which addresses similar themes but takes a more thriller approach vs. the quietly building literary horror in Lakewood.

Beloved by Toni Morrison.