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Hello Beautiful
Hello Beautiful
Ann Napolitano | 2023 | Contemporary, Fiction & Poetry
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Between finishing reading Hello Beautiful and writing this review, this book has exploded. Oprah has taken it under her wing and shown it as the wonderful piece of work that it is to her followers. So, it has already been read by a lot of people - and rightly so. I loved it. Books about families and family relationships, whether they’re a difficult or loving relationship, are one of my most favourite things.

There are most certainly echoes of Little Women, but if you’ve never read it, it won’t make much difference to your enjoyment. You might want to try Little Women at some point though!

William Waters grows up in a very dysfunctional family, and is drawn into the Padavano family when he marries Julia - it’s a family he comes to love.

With themes of mental illness, family loyalties, love in all of its forms and loss, it’s a big read for only around 400 pages. The story just sped by, and I was bereft when I turned the last page.

I loved the world of William Waters and the Padavano sisters.

Highly recommended.
  
    Shooter Assist

    Shooter Assist

    Sports and Education

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    This app was created by a US Army Soldier who served on his company's Sniper team in Afghanistan as...

    Obscura Camera

    Obscura Camera

    Photo & Video and Entertainment

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    There's always a better camera than the one you have with you. And that's Obscura. Designed with...

We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy
We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy
Ta-Nehisi Coates | 2017 | Essays, History & Politics
9
9.5 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
An honest look at the Obama years
The simplest way to describe "We Were Eight Years in Power" is as a selection of Ta-Nehisi Coates' most influential pieces from The Atlantic, organised chronologically. The book is actually far more than that, establishing Coates as the pre-eminent black public intellectual of his generation.

Coates is one of the first to show up to discuss all three contemporary themes: the man, the community, national identity. He critiques respectability politics. He writes about mass incarceration. He writes about Michelle Obama and Chicago's South Side. He writes about how Barack Obama was exceptional, in many senses, and about the paradoxical limits of the first black president's power to address race and racism. He writes about the qualitative difference between white economic prospects and black economic prospects, thanks to discriminatory policies promulgated by the government even during progressive times, and about how, in his view, reparations would be the only way to redress the problem.

An air of resignation begins to bleed into Coates' writing even before his last essay, coming into the final years of the Obama administration. It is an eloquent eulogy to the struggles that African Americans are facing and increasingly fearing today.
  
CI
Calling Invisible Women
Jeanne Ray | 2012
8
6.0 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
So I have to imagine that all of us have felt invisible at some point in our lives. I know that I have. It seems like no matter what you do, say, or wear you just aren't there. That is what this book is about, in a sense. The big difference is that Clover really does disappear one day. It starts off as being just a few minutes & eventually she is just gone...physically. The killer is that her husband & children don't even notice!
Clover eventually finds a group of women who are all in the same predicament...the Invisible Women as they call themselves. Through this group Clover learns that she is not by herself in this. She also starts to realize that she's given up her power & she finally works at getting it back.
The women finally manage to organize & rally against the evil, overly wealthy, giant, uncaring drug company whose drugs when taken in combination caused these women to disappear in the first place.
This book was a quick, easy read. Ray has an easy, conversational writing style & the characters were easy to relate to. The story was touching & made you think without being overly preachy. I enjoyed it!
  
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ClareR (6037 KP) rated Hold in Books

May 9, 2018  
Hold
Hold
Michael Donkor | 2018 | Fiction & Poetry
9
9.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
A coming of age story
A coming of age story, set between Ghana and London, this is the story of Belinda, a housegirl, who moves to London to help the daughter of her employers friends. Amma (the friends daughter) has become withdrawn and is struggling with something in her life - not her studies though, she's a straight A student. She won't talk to her parents about it, and to begin with, it doesn't look as though she'll talk to Belinda either. Their friendship builds over a period of weeks and months. In this time, Belinda goes back to school in order to gain some qualifications. She seems to feel guilty of having left her fellow housegirl, who she refers to as sister (even though the 12 year old Mary is not her sister by blood, they have bonded over being in the same circumstances of separation from their families at young ages).
This novel explores African attitudes towards sexuality, family and responsibility. It's funny at times, but also incredibly moving. I really enjoyed it. We can see the contrast between life in a Ghanaian city and village, and the difference again between those places and London. A fascinating novel.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my copy of this fantastic book.
  
Uglies (Uglies, #1)
Uglies (Uglies, #1)
Scott Westerfeld | 2005 | Science Fiction/Fantasy, Young Adult (YA)
8
7.6 (39 Ratings)
Book Rating
The style of writing reminded me a bit of the Twilight saga, fast-paced, with lots of teenager-style lingo mixed in. I loved all the the little details that created the world of "post-Rusties," such as the groups of people - Uglies; New, Middle, and Late Pretties; Special Circumstances; Smokies and New Smokies - as well as the shortened version of names - Tally, Ellie, Sol, Croy, Shay, Peris, Astrix, etc. The way that our world is portrayed in comparison to the world in the book is also interesting in various details such as telling the difference between roller coasters and railroads, Tally's reactions to eating meat and making clothing from animal skins, David still referring to his parents as "Mom" and "Dad", and Tally finding David's name odd. The reader sees the negative aspect of the way we presently live, as well as the positive and negative aspects to living in the extreme opposite of "Rusty". It seems that neither extreme is the answer, but rather finding the "happy medium," which is rarely ever easy. This post-apocalyptic world fits right in with works such as 1984, Anthem, and Brave New World. I look forward to continuing the series with the next book, Pretties.