Black Love Matters. Jessica P. Pryde, ed. 2022. Berkley. 285 pages. [Source: Public Library.] As a proud lover of all things Black romance, I had to get my hands on this anthology which features essays from some of the most visible names in the field of Black romance publishing and scholarship. With this book, Pryde has brought together long-established names as well as those who are on their rise to consider the ways that Black Love Matters. The result is a book filled with contributors representing all facets of Black life and love, sharing their insights on the genre and what it means for them or critically examining the space that Black love occupies in literature. One of the greatest take aways here is that Black Love Matters gives space to ask the question — why do we need to center Black love? If romance is one of the best-selling segments of the publishing industry, why are Black stories still lacking in representation? In responding to this topic, the authors share their own experiences as creators, consumers, and scholars of Black romance. What I love about this book is that its chapters reflect the complexity of Black writing; there are…

Paperback Crush. Gabrielle Moss. 2021. Quirk Books. 257 pages. [Source: Public library.] Be still, my heart. As a child of the ’80s, I longed for few things more than the day the Scholastic book flyer was distributed at school or a Saturday spent at the mall with my friends, roaming through Sam Goody & Waldenbooks while figuring out when we’d get our Cinnabon and Orange Julius fix. My world has always been consumed by books, but nothing brings on nostalgia like remembering the thousands of hours I spent devouring teen fiction. Series like The Baby-Sitters Club, Sweet Valley High, and, of course, R.L. Stine’s Fear Street had a chokehold not just on me, but countless teen readers and Paperback Crush is a retrospective of the genre with attention paid to heavy hitters and lesser-known books. With Paperback Crush, Moss revisits some of the most seminal teen fiction of the 1980s and ’90s with remarkable depth. While it’s not a scholarly read, it’s clear Moss conducted extensive research on the history of teen fiction and its content’s evolution over time. There are readers who would argue that this era of teen fiction is a “golden era” of sorts, without considering what…

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…

Come as You Are. Emily Nagoski. 2015. Simon & Schuster. 416 pages. [Source: Personal copy.] Pardon me while I pick up a few extra copies of this for my exes and one for my next. All jokes aside, Come as You Are is a thought-provoking, reflection-inducing read that’s just as eye-opening as it is affirming. It starts by acknowledging the shame that many women may carry due to their perceptions of their body, sexuality, and relationships, most of which are byproducts of a society that does not and has never prioritized womens’ sexual autonomy. The result is a text that always centers womens’ health and wellness and seeks to normalize differences among them. Topics range from the biological similarities of male and female reproductive organs, the importance of context’s impact on sex, the wide range of sexual responses, and how women can use an individualized approach to move toward a sexual life that is healthy and gratifying. One of the most important points of this book is reiterated frequently – women are different. Their bodies and different — and normal. How they view sex is different — and normal. Their sexuality is different — and normal. By starting with baseline,…

Talking to Strangers. Malcolm Gladwell. 2019. Little, Brown and Company. 401 pages. [Source: Public library.] I picked up Talking to Strangers with little in the way of expectations. I had a long drive, and wanted to listen to something I could concentrate on enough to stay awake. I got so much more than that with this book. Talking to Strangers asks two central questions — why don’t we know when people are lying to us and why don’t we believe people are telling the truth? The big picture example for this book is the traffic stop of Sandra Bland in 2015. Gladwell asks what went wrong in this encounter, and then uses a host of case studies to illustrate how people make sense of the words, actions, and intentions of strangers, often highlighting the missteps and misinterpretations thad led to disastrous outcomes. The book is both informative and entertaining in presenting various communication and behavioral theories. Gladwell shows skill in presenting both well and lesser-known situations with nuance that feels more like a conversation and less like sitting in a lecture hall. He presented the case studies with an appropriate level of succinctness while being sure to cover information that…