Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge discussion

Who's planning books to read for Black History Month in February?!


I've got a long list of books I put on hold, books I own, and books I plan to read ... as always, I KNOW I won't get to all of these. I'm front-loading the male authors so that the female authors I chose can merge into Women's History Month in March.


(I'll add my list later ...)

Concrete Rose just happens to be next on my audiobook queue.

Milena wrote: "Concrete Rose just happens to be next on my audiobook queue."


Angie Thomas just tweeted a photo of the cover page of her original manuscript that eventually became The Hate U Give, and the working title for it was ... Concrete Roses. And she said she had completely forgotten that!!!

I have been doing a lot of traveling for doctor's appointments, so I requested The Water Dancer on audio. (now I probably won't have to travel!)

My list of possible BHM reading - I know there's no way I'm getting to all of these:

general fiction:
The Street by Ann Petry- I've got this on hold at the library, this would be my "book from a BLM reading list"
Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas- I've got this on hold at the library, this would be my "dark academia" book
The Black Kids by Christina Hammonds Reed - I've got this on hold, purely because I can't stop looking at that cover. I don't even really know if I want to read it, I just want to keep looking at the cover.
If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin
Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry - my daughter read this for school last year, so I have her copy

romance:
How to Catch a Queen by Alyssa Cole - I've got this on hold at the library, no Challenge category
The Boyfriend Project by Farrah Rochon - I've got this on hold at the library, no Challenge category

SFF:
Rosewater by Tade Thompson - I've got this on hold at the library, this would be my "afrofuturist" book
The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps & A Taste of Honey by Kai Ashante Wilson - both of these were free giveaways from Tor and now I just need to make time to read them
Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi - another Tor freebie! this is my backup "afrofuturist" choice if the first one doesn't work out.

graphic novel:
Making Our Way Home: The Great Migration and the Black American Dream by Blair Imani - I've got this on hold at the library

mystery:
Wife of the Gods by Kwei Quartey - I've got this on hold at the library, it's pencilled in for the "Favorite Things" category in AtY (white dresses)
When No One is Watching by Alyssa Cole - I've got this on hold at the library, but it's a really long hold time!
Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke - I've got this audiobook borrowed.
Cinnamon Kiss by Walter Mosley - I've got this audiobook borrowed. I keep telling myself I'm done with Mosley, he's too sexist, but then ... I keep coming back. Sexist or not, I really like Easy, and I like listening to his mysteries on audio.
The Big Gold Dream by Chester Himes

general non-fiction:
Just Us: An American Conversation by Claudia Rankine - I've got this on hold at the library
Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower by Brittney Cooper - this audiobook hold actually came in early, but I currently have THREE other audiobooks borrowed, so I sent it back to be delivered in a few weeks.
The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race ed by Jesmyn Ward

poetry:
Electric Arches by Eve L. Ewing
Voyage of the Sable Venus and Other Poems by Robin Coste Lewis
Lighthead by Terrance Hayes - I have this one borrowed already, I'll start it this weekend

I had been planning to start the month with Concrete Rose but I ended up needing it a bit early; just finished it yesterday! Looooooooved it.

Plans include:
How Long 'til Black Future Month?
Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot ✔️
Legendborn ✔️
An Extraordinary Union
The Black God's Drums
War Girls
Ring Shout

I have a bunch more as backups, but between audio and print/ebooks, this feels like a good start for the month.

Also read:
Letter from the Birmingham Jail ✔️
Between the World and Me ✔️

I am also reading Aya: Life in Yop City right now, but I actually hope to be done by February.

I'll be focused on these, most of which I already have from the library, but some which I may or may not get in time:

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
Aftershocks
Happiness, Like Water
Kintu
Party of Two
Parable of the Sower
Parable of the Talents
How to Be an Antiracist

I'm reading War Girls and then probably the sequel Rebel Sisters. Not sure on the sequel, since it just came out in October, and my library is pretty behind on physical new releases.

Also planning Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America if I can get it. I'm not sure how long the wait time is for it.

I’m starting with Deacon King Kong by James McBride. I definitely want to read James Baldwin. Any suggestions?

Sherri wrote: "I’m starting with Deacon King Kong by James McBride. I definitely want to read James Baldwin. Any suggestions?"

The Fire Next Time is a great place to start!

Lauren wrote: "Sherri wrote: "I’m starting with Deacon King Kong by James McBride. I definitely want to read James Baldwin. Any suggestions?"

The Fire Next Time is a great place to start!"

I agree! I rarely re-read but this one keeps calling to me.

Thursdays are hard for me. I wake up at midnight to go to work, so I just woke up from an accidental three hour nap. Time to gather the list!

EGAD and yet YAY! I wonder where the mood reading will take me.


Have:
Fiction, all sorts
Memorial
How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House
Crosshairs
The Office of Historical Corrections: A Novella and Stories
Luster
Intimations
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies
Girl, Woman, Other
Deacon King Kong
Salvage the Bones
We Cast a Shadow
Homegoing
Transcendent Kingdom
Return to the Enchanted Island
Rosewater
Xenogenesis trilogy by Octavia E. Butler
Mycroft and Sherlock: The Empty Birdcage - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Invisible Man
Their Eyes Were Watching God
The Awkward Black Man
Skin Folk
The Night Masquerade
Washington Black
Arrows of Rain
Saving Ruby King

Poetry
New-Generation African Poets: A Chapbook Box Set

Non-fiction
African Europeans: An Untold History
Ida B. the Queen: The Extraordinary Life and Legacy of Ida B. Wells
Just as I Am: A Memoir - Cicely Tyson
Aftershocks
Saga Boy: My Life of Blackness and Becoming
The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X
The Dragons, the Giant, the Women: A Memoir
Chasing Space: An Astronaut's Story of Grit, Grace, and Second Chances
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
Wandering in Strange Lands: A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots
The Yellow House
Officer Clemmons
Willie: The Game-Changing Story of the NHL's First Black Player
Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You
Stolen Justice: The Struggle for African American Voting Rights (Scholastic Focus): The Struggle for African American Voting Rights
Pen Pal: Prison Letters from a Free Spirit on Slow Death Row

YA
Concrete Rose
One of the Good Ones
Chlorine Sky
Your Corner Dark
A Song Below Water
The Black Kids
This Is My America
You Should See Me in a Crown
An Unkindness of Ghosts
Dread Nation
Dear Martin
March: Book Three

Middle Grade
When Stars Are Scattered
Before the Ever After
Class Act
King and the Dragonflies
Something to Say
Martin Rising: Requiem For a King
Shuri: A Black Panther Novel
Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky
Ghost Boys
The Parker Inheritance
Blended
A Good Kind of Trouble
The Only Black Girls in Town


Soon:
Ikenga - Nnedi Okorafor middle grade!
Honey Girl
Surviving the White Gaze: A Memoir
Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 - Ibram X. Kendi
The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation
Black Magic: What Black Leaders Learned from Trauma and Triumph


Don't Have:
Remote Control
everything by P. Djèlí Clark
Mrs Death Misses Death
The Girl with the Louding Voice
The Shadow King
Nervous Conditions
Out of Darkness, Shining Light
The Hairdresser of Harare
The Old Drift
Queenie

I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying: Essays
Survival Math: Notes on an All-American Family

Pet
Punching the Air

Root Magic
The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963: 25th Anniversary Edition

R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul

I also just placed a hold on Day of Tears.

And while neither of these are written by POC, I highly recommend The Lynching: The Epic Courtroom Battle That Brought Down the Klan and On the Laps of Gods: The Red Summer of 1919 and the Struggle for Justice That Remade a Nation both are about important times in African American history. I didn't really know anything about either of them until I read the books last year. The Lynching is a black and white cover, if you need one for that!

I know I won't read all these- I hope to ge 4 or 5- but here are the possibilities:

This one is really long, but : A book with a black-and-white cover A Promised Land by Barack Obama

A book on a Black Lives Matter reading list So You Want to Talk About Race- I know I'll read this one because it's also for a book club

A book about do-overs or fresh starts Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett I'll move this one up because I didn't see last month's challenge

A book that has fewer than 1,000 reviews on Amazon or Goodreads Trouble the Saints by Alaya Dawn Johnson

A book that published in 2021 The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna

An Afrofuturist book The Galaxy Game by Karen Lord

A dark academia book We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry

A book that discusses body positivity Death of Vivek Oji by Awaeke Emezi

A magical realism book Conjure Women by Afia Atakora

A book everyone seems to have read but you Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi

I've got SO many on my TBR but just recently put them into an "order" lol and am definitely prioritizing Black voices for February, and here's my list (goal is to read all 5):

Binti: The Complete Trilogy (all 3 of them, less than 400 pages!) - Afrofuturist book

Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches - Audre Lorde is an Aquarius!

How to Be an Antiracist - Book on a subject I'm passionate about

Well, That Escalated Quickly: Memoirs and Mistakes of an Accidental Activist - Book by a blogger, vlogger, etc.

Zami: A New Spelling of My Name - Book that starts with Z!

Just noticing now that most of them are non-fiction, but if anyone wants some suggestions:

Dread Nation and Deathless Divide are zombie historical YA fiction aka the best (I'm using Deathless Divide as my Takes place mostly outdoors because a big portion of the book is them traveling.

Daughters of Jubilation - a YA magical realist book

The Changeling - an adult magical realist book

The Castle Cross the Magnet Carter - not sure where it might fit in the challenge but one of my all time favorite novels so I've gotta rep

Also fun fact about me, I'm a playwright and know a LOT of great plays, so if anyone's looking for some great Black authored plays for their Different format prompt, may I suggest the following:

Our Lady of Kibeho

Sugar in Our Wounds

Pipeline

Behind the Sheet

School Girls; or, the African Mean Girls Play

Forever

Intimate Apparel

Binti - #2 Afrofuturist
Sing, Unburied, Sing - #28 magical realism

We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy - #12 seen on someone's bookshelf (Trevor Noah)
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America - #20 Black Lives Matter reading list
A Promised Land - #15 black and white cover [if my library hold comes in this month]
Concrete Rose - no idea if it fits a prompt [if my library hold comes in this month]

Teri wrote: "Binti - #2 Afrofuturist
Sing, Unburied, Sing - #28 magical realism

We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy - #12 seen on someone's bookshe..."

Teri, I am using Concrete Rose for do-over or fresh start. It could also fit three generations.

I started the month last night with Martin Luther King Jr's Letter from the Birmingham Jail.

It's available to read free online here: https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles...

I am in the middle of listening to Bluebird, Bluebird and it is an absolutely perfect choice for Black History Month for those of you who like mystery novels.

I am LOVING JD Jackson's narration, too, and it's some kind of crime that he doesn't read more audiobooks! (I first heard him as part of the full cast reading Broken Monsters.) I immediately looked him up on Overdrive, and I found only one other book I'm interested in. He reads the sequel, Heaven, My Home, too, but my library doesn't have that one ... yet.

I started with Nnedi Okorafor's middle grade debut Ikenga. Boy is it dark! Excellent narrator.

Got hold of the ebook of Ring Shout, which I'm excited to finish -- I started this last year and it had to be returned before I was done.

I know an anthology isn't one of the prompts this year, but I picked up A Phoenix First Must Burn for Read Harder's prompt of a SFF anthology edited by a person of color. My librarian was amazed it was available, and I can see why. It's been great so far. It's YA (my library had it in the teen section, which is why I was asking the librarian about it), so the stories are mostly about teens. I looked up the author for one of the stories I especially liked, and it's Justina Ireland, the author of Dread Nation, which I immediately put on hold. (Her short story was nothing like Dread Nation - it's about fat-shaming sorcerers and dragons.)

Melissa wrote: "I know an anthology isn't one of the prompts this year, but I picked up A Phoenix First Must Burn for Read Harder's prompt of a SFF anthology edited by a person of color. My librari..."

That looks really neat. Thanks for adding to my tbr.

I am excited for this month! Though my reading list will definitely take me past the end of February. :-)

Currently reading:
The Deep
A Princess in Theory
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America

To read:
The Stone Sky
So You Want to Talk About Race
Black Panther, Vol. 2: A Nation Under Our Feet, Book 2
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
Men We Reaped
Party of Two
A Duke by Default (because I'm loving my current Alyssa Cole book so much I'm sure I'll read the whole series)
Nervous Conditions

I am currently reading Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston and loving it. It is my first time reading it

Amy wrote: "I am currently reading Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston and loving it. It is my first time reading it"


That is one of the few books I've re-read! It's wonderful, and it holds up. The audiobook read by Ruby Dee is fantastic, too.

I just read Felix Ever After. Very good book.

Nadine wrote: "My list of possible BHM reading - I know there's no way I'm getting to all of these:

general fiction:
The Street by Ann Petry- I've got this on hold at the library, t..."

I could not help but laugh when I saw your listing!! :) So ambitious!

I will be continuing to read/working to finish the following books:
The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Excellent writing! It really flows.

How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi. Really want to finish this one!

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi. Excellent so far! I love Reynolds' humor!

Learning Race, Learning Place: Shaping Racial Identities and Ideas in African American Childhoods by Erin N. Winkler

White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo

The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois. I believe I learned more valuable US history in the first chapter than in my whole life thus far!

I just remembered that one of the Reading Women challenge prompts is "a Poetry Collection by a Black Woman". Citizen: An American Lyric is on my TBR, so I'll probably add that to my list for the month as well.

Traci wrote: "I just remembered that one of the Reading Women challenge prompts is "a Poetry Collection by a Black Woman". Citizen: An American Lyric is on my TBR, so I'll probably add that to my..."

I loved Citizen! It was gorgeous and moving and I read it in just a few days (really, you could read it all in one sitting if you have the time). It's a perfect melding of essay and verse.

I made sure to borrow her new book, Just Us: An American Conversation from the library to read this month.

Hi guys! I got some recommendations in here and I'm planning to read The Fire Next Time and The Hate U Give

Very excited to read them!

My midway update:

I read:
Bluebird, Bluebird - I loved it! I recommend it! Great for BHM & great for fans of mystery novels in which the mystery takes a back seat to the character interaction.

Cinnamon Kiss - meh. It was an entertaining audiobook, and it also touched on issues of racism in 60s LA, so it was worthwhile, but I can't say I loved it.

Xeni - nope, I hated this. The author and protagonist are both Black, but it wasn't a huge part of the plot, so it wasn't even a good choice for BHM. Title started with X though, so I filled that difficult category!!! ;-)



I'm currently reading:
Lighthead - mannnn these poems are making me work too hard. I'm not loving this, but I think I'll be glad I read it, if that makes sense.

Catherine House - this is fantastic! I've got one chapter left, I'll finish it tonight. FIVE STARS!

Rosewater - this is suuuuuper slow. It COULD become great, or it could be a flop, hard to say. Plot is intriguing. The author's name is Thompson and my family name is Thompson, so I feel compelled to finish this no matter what, Thompson Solidarity! I was able to borrow the audiobook edition, maybe that will help it move along for me. I've already got the audio sped up to 1.25x, and I never do that.



I have so many other books borrowed from the library and they all look so good but I feel like I need to finish my current books first!

Nadine wrote: "My midway update:

I read:
Bluebird, Bluebird - I loved it! I recommend it! Great for BHM & great for fans of mystery novels in which the mystery takes a back seat to the character ..."

I got a jolt of anxiety (work anxiety, not book anxiety) when you said "midway", but it's okay, it's only the 10th!

Glad to see you're loving Catherine House, I'm debating that one for the dark academia prompt.

I've read several things so far and will update a bit later but I do want to give a shout out to Mr. Loverman by Bernardine Evaristo. The audiobook was excellent. I find it easier to listen to dialects than read them so this was a win for me. If you can't fit it in this month, it would also be perfect in June.

Traci wrote: "Nadine wrote: "My midway update:

I read:
Bluebird, Bluebird - I loved it! I recommend it! Great for BHM & great for fans of mystery novels in which the mystery takes a back seat to..."


Yeah I didn't want to say "halfway" so I went with "midway" but I realize now I could have just used "partway" - oops! sorry for the jolt!!

I’m currently reading “The Vanishing Half” by Britt Bennett. The novel being largely about colorism and the discrimination from that, which happens within BIPOC communities.

RECAP!

It's not been a great mental health month for me, so I kept reaching for books that are mostly about things other than violence and slavery. Then I decided to try to keep that going for the month. I did pretty well! It was nice. I read two books about hockey for BHM! Take that, stereotypes!

Finished:
Ikenga

Mr. Loverman - Fave

Class Act

American Spy

How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House

A Dead Djinn in Cairo - Fave

The Haunting of Tram Car 015

Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky

Honey Girl

Willie: The Game-Changing Story of the NHL's First Black Player

African Europeans: An Untold History

You Should See Me in a Crown

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies


Mycroft and Sherlock

Mycroft and Sherlock: The Empty Birdcage

Check, Please!, Book 2: Sticks & Scones - Fave

poshpenny wrote: "RECAP!

It's not been a great mental health month for me, so I kept reaching for books that are mostly about things other than violence and slavery. Then I decided to try to keep that going for the..."



How did you like Honey Girl? I'm LOVING that cover, but reviews indicate that it doesn't have much of a plot, and it's full of "poetic" language, which makes me think it's not for me.

End-of-month wrap-up!

I read:
Bluebird, Bluebird - I loved it! I recommend it! Great for BHM & great for fans of mystery novels in which the mystery takes a back seat to the character interaction.

Cinnamon Kiss - meh. It was an entertaining audiobook, and it also touched on issues of racism in 60s LA, so it was worthwhile, but I can't say I loved it.

Xeni - nope, I hated this. The author and protagonist are both Black, but it wasn't a huge part of the plot, so it wasn't even a good choice for BHM. Title started with X though, so I filled that difficult category!!! ;-)

Lighthead poems by Terrance Hayes- mannnn these poems made me work too hard. I'm not loving this, but I think I'll be glad I read it, if that makes sense.

Voyage of the Sable Venus and Other Poems poems by Robin Coste Lewis - another book of poetry that I did not love- I'm not having good luck so far in 2021 with the poetry books I'm selecting.

Catherine House - this was fantastic! My "dark academia" book, and it fit perfectly.

Rosewater - this was suuuuuper slow, with very little plot. This was my "afrofuturist" book. I won't be reading the rest of the series.

Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower by Brittney Cooper - this was good, and certainly appropriate for BHM, but it kind of suffered from "I've read this before"

A Blade So Black by L.L. McKinney (I'll finish this today) - a Black Alice in Wonderland! Sounds awesome, right? Sadly, the execution did not do it for me. I'm not reading the rest of this series.

and a picture book:
I Am Every Good Thing - this has great art, and nice affirmations (that probably resonate more with adults than with kids), but I was surprised and super disappointed that it's all about Black BOYS. Black girls don't get any of the love??


and I'm still reading:
The Black Kids - this is just so solidly YA that I'm having a hard time staying interested. It's all about how her former best friend and she have drifted apart, her older sister is being weird, and she likes this boy and he likes her but he's dating someone else. It's supposed to be set in the 90s, during the Rodney King trial, but it feels very contemporary, there's nothing particularly "90s" about this book. I'm going to try to finish it!

When No One is Watching - this is billed as a suspense/thriller, and I was really curious to see how a romance author did while switching gears for a new genre. But basically it's the same book she always writes, it's romantic suspense. I guess her marketing dept thought it would be interesting to act like this isn't a romance? idk. I'm halfway through, and it JUST got pretty creepy last night. A lot of it is over-the-top and in-your-face. You know ... the Big Bad Corporation is ludicrously big and ludicrously evil ... the new white neighbors are hitting all the racism stereotypes ... I guess Cole had Some Things to Say about annoying White Beckies and White Karens, and some info to share about the history of Brooklyn and the evils of gentrification, and so she fit it all into a book. It's good, but I wish the characters were more complex, less stereotypical.

Black History Month Recap:

5 stars
Aftershocks by Nadia Owusu
Felon: Poems by Reginald Dwayne Betts
Punching the Air by Ibi Zoboi
Intimations by Zadie Smith
You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson

4 stars
Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam
Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments by Saidiya Hartman
Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas
The Rib King by Ladee Hubbard
Mouths Don't Speak by Katia D. Ulysse
The Kindest Lie by Nancy Johnson
No Heaven for Good Boys by Keisha Bush

No rating (it's complicated)
Ain't I a Woman by bell hooks

BHM recap:

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Letter from the Birmingham Jail
Just as I Am: A Memoir
Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot
Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow
The Fire Next Time
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 1/2
Legendborn

⭐⭐⭐⭐
Ring Shout
War Girls

⭐⭐⭐ 1/2
Between the World and Me
The Black God's Drums
A Song Below Water
The Deep

⭐⭐⭐
Cyborg, Volume 1: The Imitation Of Life

DNF
Crown of Thunder
Beloved

Nadine wrote: "How did you like Honey Girl? I'm LOVING that cover, but reviews indicate that it doesn't have much of a plot, and it's full of "poetic" language, which makes me think it's not for me"

Sorry, I was going to add notes but was so tired all I could think of was "it was good" for everything, so I just hit post.

Plot: She is exceedingly goal oriented because of her dad, so when her PhD doesn't result in her sliding into her expected employment, because microaggressions, she hits that patch in life where she has to figure out what that means and what's next. Hence the "lack of plot" I guess. She's not doing the next thing because her plan didn't work out and she's dealing with that. Basically a post-grad-life crisis. That's the book.

Poetic language: Her wife has a radio show and yeah, this is the bit they are talking about. It's in there but not all the time. I'm not sure how low your tolerance is. If you throw the book after one flowery paragraph, don't even think about it.

It's basically about belonging and family. I liked it, it's good, but it's not on my faves shelf. I gave it 4 stars.

Nadine wrote: "The author and protagonist are both Black, but it wasn't a huge part of the plot, so it wasn't even a good choice for BHM. "

haha I went the entire other way this year and looked for books that didn't focus primarily on that. Three of my Black authored books had white protagonists! I know I read the other kinds of books throughout the year anyway, so I regret nothing.

Looking at the list, I liked almost all of them. My favorites were probably Leaving Atlanta and You Should See Me in a Crown. I found myself withering a bit in there - I ended up reading more short stories/essays when I kind of needed books novels. I also did a read-a-thon where I crammed too much in and was getting overwhelmed. Even though I read some light-hearted books (because I needed it and sought them out), it felt like a lot of weight in these books and it might have been better for me to spread them out more. Though, how much of that is state of being with pandemic is a good question.

What I read:
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
Party of Two by Jasmine Guillory
Kintu by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
You Should See Me in a Crown
Aftershocks by Nadia Owusu
Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
Meaty by Samantha Irby
Leaving Atlanta by Tayari Jones
Take a Hint, Dani Brown
Happiness, Like Water by Chinelo Okparanta
Dear Martin by Nic Stone
Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson
In West Mills by De'Shawn Charles Winslow
Notes from a Young Black Chef: A Memoir
The Worst Best Man by Mia Sosa
How to Love a Jamaican by Alexia Arthurs


Didn't finish:
Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler

My BHM wrap-up:

Sing, Unburied, Sing - too many ghosts, would have really liked otherwise

Binti: The Complete Trilogy - loved this

Bluebird, Bluebird - pretty good

We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy - not quite finished. I needed February to be a regular sized month.

I Am Every Good Thing - children's book that I adored

Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters - children's book that is very good

Antiracist Baby - children/parent book that was okay

I spaced out my books so it looks like I read as much as the rest of you. Did it work? :D

Teri wrote: "My BHM wrap-up:

Sing, Unburied, Sing - too many ghosts, would have really liked otherwise..."


I felt the same way about that book. Fantastic writing! but did there have to be ghosts??


I spaced out my books so it looks like I read as much as the rest of you. Did it work? :D

LOL!! if you don't count the two poetry books I read, you and I both read seven books, so ... I think you're fine!

I finished:
Heads of the Colored People by Narissa Thompson Spires- a format I don't usually read, short stories. Four stars.
So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oulo Three stars.
How to Catch a Queen- a book about do-overs. Four stars.
Trouble the Saints by Alaya Dawn Johnson, a book with fewer than 1000 reads on Goodreads Three stars, but I'd still recommend it.
I'm finishing Queen of the Conquered by Kacen Callender for a book whose title starts with Q, X or Z.

I also read Galaxy Game, which I was going to use for the Afro-futurism prompt, but I bounced off it so fast that I can't count it.

For Black History month I read the following two books that I didn't count toward the challenge: Legendborn by Tracy Deonn, and Conjure Women by Afia Atakora.