This is a well-written short memoir about the author’s family, body, and experiences as a black boy and man in America. Kiese Laymon is an English professor from Mississippi, and this memoir starts when he was 11 and continues through his 40s, though of course covering so many years in 241 pages means we skip over a lot. The memoir is addressed to his mother, who is one of those mothers people are especially driven to write memoirs about: brilliant, loving, and abusive. He also writes a lot about his body issues, going from obesity to what looks like anorexia and an exercise obsession, and then back.

So there’s a lot packed into this book, and it’s highly readable although often “heavy” material. The sections about how Laymon saw black college students being harshly disciplined for minor infractions while white students got off with a slap on the wrist for much more serious crimes (or in one case, even pawned off their own culpability on unknown but totally scary people of color) was particularly hard-hitting to me. There’s a lot in the book that’s very raw, though told in an artful way by an author skilled at rhetoric. Much of it won’t be surprising to anyone who’s read much about race in America, but the author’s perspective makes a lot of sense.

It isn’t my favorite book of the year, perhaps because it isn’t written “for” me—Laymon writes about wanting to write for black people, which makes sense. Sometimes I found it a little confusing. At times in small ways: like many memoirists, Laymon leans heavily on brand names, which can be confusing if you don’t share the author’s pop-cultural background. And also in larger ways: the author seems to imply that his mother sexually abused him, but never explicitly says so even while he writes a lot about the need for radical honesty within his family, which tends to bury everything. In the end I wasn’t sure whether he was being cagey or I was reading in something that wasn’t there.

At any rate, this is a good book and well worth reading for anyone looking to read about race in America, or just looking for a good memoir.

'Scarlet Odyssey', a debut novel by C. T. Rwizi, scheduled for publication on 1st July, is an epic fantasy that twists the classic quest trope into something new and exciting. C. T Rwizi, who comes from Zimbabwe originally is another exciting writer adding to the growing body of African Science Fiction (think 'Rosewater' and 'Binti').

'Scarlet Odyssey' is an epic fantasy with world-building on a huge scale, spectacular new magic systems, warlords who use black magic that feeds off human sacrifice and complex political and tribal systems that are under covert attack from external forces who are fomenting division and violence.

C. T. Rwizi manages to keep all this spinning and still have a story that is mostly character-driven and which is fast-paced enough that the 559 pages flew by and left me wanting more.

The plot folds five main storylines together, each focused on a character who have in common only that they face challenges that require them to reshape themselves, often in painful ways. The paths of these fives stories spiral in towards one another as the plot unfolds.

The dominant story is about Salo who comes from a tribe where men are fierce warriors and women become magic-wielding mystics. As a chief's son, he should be a warrior but he has failed to pass the necessary tests of courage. He is also secretly practising magic and, when the tribe is in danger, risks becoming an outcast by going through a ritual to become a mystic. Salo is then immediately sent on a quest to the Kingdom of the Yontai, the political centre of their region, that provides the frame for the rest of the novel.

Then we get the story of Ilapara, a young woman from Salo's tribe who has left their land to pursue a career as a mercenary in the neighbouring, warlord-ridden Umadiland. Being a mercenary is not what she hoped it might be and she sometimes finds herself doing things she does not think are right so when she meets Salo in Umadiland she accepts a post as his 'muscle' for the rest of his journey.

The third story tells of The Maidservant a powerful mystic who is a lieutenant (known as Disciples) to the most powerful Warlord in Umadiland and who pursues and attacks Silo on his quest. The Maidservant's story is told in the current timeline, intercut with scenes that show why and how she came into her power and the heavy price she paid for it.

In the Kingdom of the Yontai, we follow the story of Isa Andaiye Saire, a young princess in the ruling clan who is about to have her life torn apart and find herself with responsibilities that she has not been trained for.

The external attempt to destabilise the tribes is being driven by the fifth character, a mysterious woman known as The Enchantress. We only get parts of her backstory but her view on the world is very different from any of the other characters.

Although 'Scarlet Odyssey' takes place on an alien world with two suns and seems to be in the far future, it has a distinctly African feel to it that distinguishes it from all those kinda-sorta Medieval Europe only with magic fantasy books that I've seen so many of. It's not just that all the clothes and names and some of the tribal systems and symbols are African, it's in the mindset that accepts that pain is inevitable, that we all fail, and the world is often cruel and or indifferent. All of the characters in the five main storylines carry scars and all are trying to force transformations that are likely to require sacrifice.

At one point Salo and The Maidservant clash and in the process learn a great deal about one another. In a more Anglo book, one of them would be good and the other would be evil. In this book, they both discover that they have done terrible things in their past, unforgivable things, to get them the power they now have. I liked that, instead of discussing guilt, or shame or atonement, Salo says that the only freedom they have is to choose a different future.

I also liked what happened when Salo is confronted with the reality of slavery. Ilapara, who has grown used to having the stench of slavery in her nostrils, initially thinks Salo's response is dangerous, naive and ultimately futile. All of which is probably true. Yet Ilapara recognises that Salo has brought more change in a day than she has seen in years.

I don't know how many books there will be in this series but I hope they keep coming at a pace. By the end of the book, all five characters are in the Kingdom of the Yontai and the stage is set for major change. I'm engaged with the characters. I can't see a simple way forward. I know there are many things I don't yet understand about this world. So I need the next book as soon as possible, please.

This book is terrible. It hurts like a bitch in a very quiet, understated way, it does not have the grace of tying the themes in any of the expected or more hopeful ways, and does so in a excellently written way. "Beat me while I love you" much?... Feels like a meta-theme.

There are: parallels between the government and Kambili's father's tyranny, between her aunt dithering on leaving the country while urging her mother to leave her father, the friend's questions on what is to be done if the strong leave, the children as reasons for leaving, where to go as the mother asks.

There are: commentaries about privilege, and the amount of issues it conceals, about the difference between public and private image, about having for others to see but not enjoying, about compassion not being something deserved, or related to station.

There are: questions about internalized colonization, the way religion opens paths for oppression and culture erosion (I raged so hard at the baptism and confirmation names thing), how a nation's identity gets eaten.

The motto of a university being "to restore dignity", like dignity has been lost, and higher education is what "gives" it... I have so many issues with the pretentiousness of that motto even while I think education does empower a people.

There is frankly a lot, and it left me so sad.

The first tenth is a mastery of the ominous. There is no overt violence, but the atmosphere itself is violently oppressive, and you can feel how the silence was bred into this girl. There is a moment where Jaja talks about another girl that saw her father murdered just starting to talk after 4 months, and he says she'll never heal from that, and it stayed with me that none of this characters ever will. The mother drank the love sips and was grateful that there was no second wife. Jaja paid heartily for his inner guilt. Kambili still yearns for her father's approval in her dreams, and that's how terrible and binding this twisted mockery of love is. They still do not talk. But maybe they have some hope of laughter.

I'm not touching that other priest with a ten foot pole because she's freaking 15.

Wow. "The Color Purple" definitely holds up. I loved the movie when I saw it as a kid and I read the book for the first time in college. At the time I remember being shocked that it was a book. My professor at the time called Stephen Speilberg a coward for not depicting Shug and Ms. Celie's relationship on the screen the way the book did. I didn't get it at the time, but definitely did at the end of the book.

Walker does a great job of showing us Celie and her growing awareness of her own sexuality and how her acceptance or I guess her being forced to be subservient to Mr. drove a lot of things she said and did. When we get to Celie growing into her own and realizing that she doesn't have to stay in a life that she never wanted, it was glorious. Walker goes back and forth between Celie writing to "God" and then her sister Nettie. And then we get to read Nettie's letters to Celie. 

Walker does a wonderful job of showing how black women were not only ground down by the patriarchal and racist society in America, but how they were ground down by other black women and men. 

We get to see a lot of women portrayed in this book besides Shug, Ms. Celie, and Nettie. I loved the story-line following Squeak (Mary Agnes) as well as Sophia.

I also shook my head at how Walker showed the hypocrisy of those white people who are racist to your face, and those who consider themselves allies (like the young girl that Sophie raised) . Walker showing that many black men and black women in this book knew about their white relatives, i.e. many of them were sons and daughters of men who raped their mothers, grandmothers, aunts, and sisters. And we get the aftermath of a rape and the understanding that Ms. Celie was raped repeatedly as a child and that was something that everyone knew and just accepted. 

This book is exceptional and it definitely speaks to me. 

I checked this book out for an assignment last year but ended up not using it. I'm really glad I came back and read it. 

I love the Dillons. Their illustrations are always so beautiful. There was no reaching for words for less used letters like you so often see in alphabet books. I really liked the inclusion of the map to see where each people comes from and the brief insight to their traditions. I wish there were more information on both the people and their traditions but then it would be a different book.