The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois.  Honoree Fanonne Jeffers. 2021. Harper. 801 pages. [Source: Public library.] The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois is an early contender for my favorite read of 2022. It recounts the history of the Pinchard family through the juxtaposition of modern-day experiences of its protagonist, Ailey Garfield, and flashbacks to the lives of her ancestors as far back as Africa during the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Throughout the book, Jeffers pulls the reader forward and backward through centuries, giving snapshots of the family’s experiences in and around the rural town of Chicasetta, Georgia. Clocking in at just over 800 pages, Love Songs is a substantive read, not only in length but also in breadth. Jeffers addresses a wide range of topics related to slavery in the U.S., and by centering the small town she’s able to dig into topics like racism, segregation, and colorism. Jeffers’ approach obviously centers the enslavement of Black members of the Pinchard family, but in doing so, she also examines the complicated relationships that included indigenous people — the Creek who predated plantations — and the white families that established plantations. As the title alludes to, the scholarship of W.E.B. Du…

The Last Black Unicorn. Tiffany Haddish. 2017. 289 pages. [Source: Public library.] It’s rare that a book has me actually laughing out loud nearly the entire time I read it. Most comedic books are funny, but not that funny. Tiffany Haddish easily kept me in stitches throughout The Last Black Unicorn, perhaps more so because it was an audiobook narrated by Haddish herself. In her autobiography, Haddish covers it all — her unstable upbringing, abusive/manipulative relationships, and the stop-and-go evolution of her career. There are energizing highs, and heart wrenching lows. But what’s undeniable is Haddish’s ability to tell these stories with candor and humor. She states early on in the book that readers will either laugh or cry, and that she’d her best to have them do the second. Without question, she’s presented a book that strikes a fair balance of honesty without turning it into a sob story. In fact, I’d say that at times, the way she presents things is almost bordering on the ridiculous, yet she always brings it home. What stands out to me about this book is how transparent Haddish is about her various experiences. She’s upfront and detailed about her missteps, even those…

New Year, New Ci. Nicole Falls. 2021. 269 pages. [Source: Kindle Unlimited.] Usually when people say “new year, new me,” there’s a lot of personal agency at play. You know, someone wants a new job and they’ve started planning. Or they want to move and start shopping neighborhoods. Cienna doesn’t have that same fortune. Instead, her career and relationship implode unexpectedly, leaving her heading into the new year with more uncertainty than ever before. New Year, New Ci does have a heavy focus on Cienna’s dating life, but it’s very much about how she rebuilds not just her life, but herself. More aptly, though, it shines a light on how she sometimes gets in the way of her own success — something I think most folks can relate to on some level. She’s a great example of “once bitten, twice shy,” and while it’s easy to understand why she’s like that, it’s still disappointing to watch. So the idea of crafting a “new Ci” is critical to her moving forward with her great new life. The book is, of course, filled with drama between friends, family, coworkers, etc. Nicole Falls doesn’t disappoint when it comes to creating a story that…

Can I Mix You a Drink. T-PAIN, Maxwell Britten. 2021. Kingston Imperial. 144 pages. [Source: ARC provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.] Every time I pick up this book, I hear a familiar refrain in my head after reading the title, “… and theeen, I’ma take you home with meee.” (“Buy You a Drank“) I expected nothing less than clever quips and ridiculous stories from T-Pain. It goes without saying that he’s a talented musician, but I’ve always enjoyed his presence which comes across as him just being a really funny, relatable guy who’s here for a good time and wants to pull you in on the fun. The kind person you can’t be around for long before he says something to make you actually laugh out loud. Thus was my experience with Can I Mix You a Drink. From the introduction, in which he shares his own introduction to alcohol with a humorous, yet concerning anecdote, it’s clear this book will take you on a ride that’ll have you laughing all the way to your home bar set-up. Can I Mix You a Drink highlights 50 cocktails inspired by songs from T-Pain’s catalog….

Memorial Drive. Natasha Tretheway. 2020. Bloomsbury Publishing. 229 pages. [Source: public library.] Mother-daughter relationships are so often fraught. Mothers are often entrusted with raising healthy, whole adults and it seems daughters will find themselves raging against the strain of expectation and vicarious dreams. If they’re lucky, time will give them opportunity to reconcile the tension and benefit from an understanding of each other that comes with age. Unfortunately, that’s not the story of Memorial Drive, Natasha Trethewey’s memoir. Instead, Memorial Drive starts off with the hard truth that Natasha and her mother Gwendolyn did not have the benefit of time bringing them closer with a renewed relationship. It starts where it ends, with Gwendolyn’s murder at the hands of her ex-husband when Natasha was a 19-year-old freshman in college. The rest of the book follows as Trethewey, more than 30 years on, reflects on her childhood and adolescence, framed largely around the relationship between her and her mother. She recounts her earliest years with her black American mother and white Canadian father in the relative cocoon of familiarity in Mississippi. Later, when her parents separate, she ends up in Georgia, where the majority of her trauma unfolds during a period…