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Prada & Prejudice by Mandy Hubbard

May 23, 2018 by

Source: Purchased
Paperback, 286 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

Prada & Prejudice by Mandy Hubbard mixes a modern day teenage story of geeky Callie Montgomery with a loosely based historical fiction of Pride & Prejudice involving England’s peerage. In the time travel piece of the story, readers will have to suspend disbelief, forego an explanation, and go with the flow. But for summer reading, this book as the romance, comedy, and social angst readers look for.

“Sometimes I feel more alone when I’m surrounded by my classmates than I do when I’m actually by myself.” (pg. 3)

Callie finds herself in England on a school trip, but in her efforts to impress the popular girls in her class so they invite her out and she doesn’t have to spend another day and night alone in her room — chaperones say they must travel in pairs — her clumsiness pegs her as an outsider. But an epiphany strikes and she heads out to the shops where she buys red Prada heels to fit in. She’s sure the heels will have her invited to the club with the popular girls. Only trouble is she trips and knocks her head on the sidewalk before waking up in 1815.

“I have to pull it together. I can’t just lose it like that, throwing my shoes like I’m in a shot-put competition.” (pg. 53)

Hubbard’s teen protagonist is a believable girl who has issues fitting in, but placing her in 1815 makes her stand out even more, especially when she has little control over her responses to social norms of the time. This makes for some hilarious scenes, but it also could make readers notice the things out of place in 1815 a little bit more. If you’re a stickler for historic detail, this book will drive you crazy. However, if you’re just looking for a fun read, this is definitely that.

There are scenes when Callie commits several faux pas and she would be in hot water for sure, but it’s a good thing the duke she’s falling for is sweet on her. The end also wraps up quickly and in a very predictable and cinematic way. Prada & Prejudice by Mandy Hubbard is a fun and quick read for those looking for a cute fish out of water story.

RATING: Tercet

About the Author:

Mandy Hubbard is the author of PRADA & PREJUDICE, YOU WISH, and FOOL ME TWICE, as well as BUT I LOVE HIM (written under the psuedonym Amanda Grace). She lives in Enumclaw Washington, with her husband and daughter.

Filed Under: challenges, fiction, historical fiction, New Authors Challenge, purchased, Read in 2018, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Gaithersburg Book Festival 2018

May 22, 2018 by

Like every year, I plan out my time at the Gaithersburg Book Festival. I try to get in a good mix of poets, fiction writers, and children’s authors, as well as some time blocked out for eating and the children’s village of activities.

Unlike previous years, I was not moderating or volunteering, which was disappointing to me but with how hectic my daughter’s schedule has been I just had to cut something out this year. That will change for 2019.

Even as I made plans, life has a way of running us off track, which is exactly what happened this year. I missed all of the poetry and children’s authors I planned to introduce my daughter to. As my daughter was the one in rare form on Saturday, making everything difficult, including getting dressed and eating breakfast. Kids are a struggle.

It was a battle for the ages, and I set the plans aside and just let her be for more than half the day. I was in no mood for battles; I wanted fun and books.

Thankfully, as the rain burned off and the sun emerged, my daughter was in a better mood, and I didn’t have to miss Alma Katsu, author of The Hunger. Her Thrills and Chills panel with Julia Fine, author of What Should Be Wild, was all it was billed to be with a how-to on cutting up bodies, talk of Stephen King endorsements, female desire and myth rewriting and, of course, cannibalism.

Both books incorporate elements of horror and the supernatural, and both deal with some dark issues. I was thrilled to see a debut author paired with an author of four books because it often helps an audience see different perspectives on the writing and publishing processes. Fine says her book defies traditional genre descriptions, which Katsu saw as familiar given her Taker series was also a mesh of various genres. I’m looking forward to finishing The Hunger and reading What Should Be Wild.

Here’s a bit of a sidenote, my daughter was with me when I first met Alma Katsu, here’s a side by side look at the difference seven years makes:

 

 

 

 

Books and Stories by Alma Katsu:

I’d love to hear about what books and authors you discovered at the festival or a festival near you! Please share in the comments.

Filed Under: announcements Tagged With: , , , ,

Mailbox Monday #480

May 21, 2018 by

Mailbox Monday has become a tradition in the blogging world, and many of us thank Marcia of The Printed Page for creating it.

It now has it’s own blog where book bloggers can link up their own mailbox posts and share which books they bought or which they received for review from publishers, authors, and more.

Leslie, Martha, and I also will share our picks from everyone’s links in the new feature Books that Caught Our Eye. We hope you’ll join us.

Here’s what I received this week:

Pemberley: Fitzwilliam Stays at Rosings by Margaret Lynette Sharp, Kindle freebie.

His stay at Rosings has brought Fitzwilliam Darcy, Jr, a measure of both delight and anguish as he realises that not only has he become even more attached to the charming daughter of Mr Collins – Miss Emily – but also that his rival, John King, is planning a serious step in order to secure his own future with the beautiful maiden. Where do Emily’s affections really lie?

This is yet another absorbing tale in the ‘Longbourn’ series of Jane Austen fan fiction pieces by prolific Australian author Margaret Lynette Sharp

Lies That Bind Us by Andrew Hart, Kindle freebie.

Jan needs this. She’s flying to Crete to reunite with friends she met there five years ago and relive an idyllic vacation. Basking in the warmth of the sun, the azure sea, and the aura of antiquity, she can once again pretend—for a little while—that she belongs. Her ex-boyfriend Marcus will be among them, but even he doesn’t know the secrets she keeps hidden behind a veil of lies. None of them really know her, and that’s only part of the problem.

Then again, how well does she know them?

When Jan awakens in utter darkness, chained to a wall, a manacle around her wrist, her echoing screams only give her a sense of how small her cell is. As she desperately tries to reconstruct what happened and determine who is holding her prisoner, dread covers despair like a hand clamped over her mouth. Because, like the Minotaur in the labyrinth in Greek myth, her captor will be coming back for her, and all the lies will catch up to her…

Incandescent by Georgina Young-Ellis, 99 cent deal.

The Elliots are Hollywood Royalty – a family of actors going back three generations. Annie Elliot has been cast to play Elizabeth Bennet in a new movie adaptation of Pride and Prejudice that takes place during the Belle Epoque, circa 1910, with a multi-racial cast. But who will her Mr. Darcy be?

Prada & Prejudice by Mandy Hubbard, a library sale find.

To impress the popular girls on a high school trip to London, klutzy Callie buys real Prada heels. But trying them on, she trips, conks her head, and wakes up in the year 1815!

There Callie meets Emily, who takes her in, mistaking her for a long-lost friend. As she spends time with Emily’s family, Callie warms to them, particularly to Emily’s cousin Alex, a hottie and a duke, if a tad arrogant.

But can Callie save Emily from a dire engagement, and win Alex’s heart, before her time in the past is up?

More Cabot than Ibbotson, Prada and Prejudice is a high-concept romantic comedy about finding friendship and love in the past in order to have happiness in the present.

What did you receive?

*** The Gaithersburg Book Festival was over the weekend, so you’ll have to wait until next week to see what goodies I picked up. ***

Filed Under: mailbox monday, meme Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

The Minor Territories by Danielle Sellers

May 15, 2018 by

Source: Purchased
Paperback, 85 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

The Minor Territories by Danielle Sellers explores the uninhabited emotional landscapes scarred by loss and trauma. Many of us live our lives as best we can even if the past haunts us, but those memory ghosts are not the places where we live in the now and they are not the places we choose to remember. These are the places that shape us into who we are, determine our strength, and force us to reassess our own outlooks and life paths.

From "A Photo of the Euphrates" (pg. 16)

Since then, his tongue has changed
the river's story. He's killed strangers
on its shore. I imagine him lying
on the dusty floor of a marble palace
at sundown, breathing red air,
waiting for the comfort night gives.
"When Asked to Say Something Nice About My Ex-Husband" (pg. 59)

I recall his chest, how sometimes he tolerated
my head on it, strong as a door
skimming the surface of a dark ocean.

In a deeply personal collection in which she shares words from her own daughter about her absent father, Sellers explores the pain deeply, attentively until a hope emerges, whether in the comfort of the night air in a war zone or the smell of yeast while baking bread and waiting. Her images are vivid and juxtapose the emotional ups and downs of being in love with a soldier and finding them changed after war. Mourning the loss of the person they used to be and yet loving them still. Moving forward in life without them because you must to emotionally survive. Sellers’ poems are love letters filled with heartbreak, love, and so much more — forgiveness.

The Minor Territories by Danielle Sellers is a story told through poems and like all stories leaves a powerful impression in the sand, but it is one that cannot be erased by the tides of time, only partially worn down.

RATING: Cinquain

Other Reviews:

About the Poet:

Danielle Sellers is from Key West, FL. She has an MA from The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University and an MFA from the University of Mississippi where she held the John Grisham Poetry Fellowship. Her poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Subtropics, Smartish Pace, The Cimarron Review, Poet Lore, and elsewhere. Her first book, Bone Key Elegies, was published by Main Street Rag. She teaches Literature and Creative Writing at Trinity Valley School in Fort Worth, Texas.

Filed Under: challenges, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, purchased, Read in 2018, reviews Tagged With: , , ,

Mailbox Monday #479

May 14, 2018 by

Mailbox Monday, created by Marcia at To Be Continued, formerly The Printed Page, has a permanent home at its own blog. To check out what everyone has received over the last week, visit the blog and check out the links. Leave yours too.

Also, each week, Leslie, Martha, and I will share the Books that Caught Our Eye from everyone’s weekly links.

Here’s what we received:

The Minor Territories by Danielle Sellers, which I purchased.

In Danielle Sellers’ The Minor Territories, a past has never really passed, it follows you from state to state and across continents; its memories are as fresh as the revelations of old love letters, those missives so full of missing. Every poem feels so rich with intimate potential, from the unspoken truths between two people to the most fragile details of a shared life—a spider’s silky filaments, peach tree saplings, butter coppering in a pan. This book manages to hold with an open hand all the loves I want and fear to lose—the ones who knew me, the one who knows me, the one who grew from the past into the brightest now.
—Traci Brimhal, author of Saudade

The Minor Territories, the second collection from Danielle Sellers, powerfully affirms the practice of keen and patient seeing. Time and again in these poems, life deals pain, but the poet pays attention until pain gives way to curiosity and curiosity to gratitude. Winter strips the willows, yes, but “through their bare branches / a church spire. Were it spring, I would have not seen it.” A little girl waits all day on a porch for her long-lost father. “He never returns,” but she does glimpse “three monarchs / and a praying mantis.” In one poem, the speaker says of her lover, “I wanted him / to see me. Really see me.” While the pain of going unseen racks the world of this book, Sellers takes care to see whatever has been missed, to really see it. To borrow a phrase from Yeats, everything here has been steeped in the heart.
—Greg Brownderville, author of A Horse with Holes in It

Danielle Sellers’ The Minor Territories is intellectually lush and emotionally resonant. Sellers is a born storyteller, and this book, in the end, is a succession of love stories that reveal, over its course, a deep, surprising, and complicated love between the speaker and the world she makes and remakes for herself. These poems are necessary, dynamic, heartbreaking, redemptive, and smart. They bring you in, hold you close, and tell the truth.
—Carrie Fountain, author of Burn Lake

What did you receive?

Filed Under: mailbox monday, meme Tagged With: , ,

Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right by Arlie Russel Hochschild (audio)

May 10, 2018 by

Source: Purchased
Audiobook, 11+ hours
I am an Amazon Affiliate

Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right by Arlie Russel Hochschild, narrated by Suzanne Toren, was our book club selection for February, but I missed this meeting as well. Hochschild focuses on communities in rural Louisiana to learn more about the Right and how they come to hold somewhat contrary beliefs about the government and what it should do and how it is not helping them. Her main focus was on environmental pollution, which helped her keep the study narrower, though I’m sure more issues affect the decisions of voters identifying with the Tea Party and the conservative Right.

Many of these conservative right leaning citizens of the United States seem to be motivated by taxes, faith, and honor, she says, as well as their own personal wishes. Part of the paradox is that while some see the need for regulations to say protect the environment and themselves from toxic pollutants, they also distrust the government. Additionally, these locally rooted people view Washington, D.C., as too far away, and many believe the federal government has taken away their local identities.

Hochschild also postulates that much of the issue stems from the loss of the Confederate South’s honor and the imposition of the North’s values on the South after the Civil War and during the Civil Rights Movement. Now the Tea Party has tapped into the need for honor with those who, even though poor and struggling, identify with the rich “plantation” owners and want an end to government handouts for those they see as “cutting in line.” Many of those line cutters are strangers and the government helps them but not you, and then you are viewed as “backward,” many of these Louisianans say. In many ways, her study suggests that the Rich are seceding from the Poor, even though many of the people she talked to are not wealthy at all.

In the election process, President Donald Trump become a totem that unifies the Right and provides them with a focus on their own improvement and lifting them up from their own emotional quagmire. The hats, signs, and branding push them together in an uplifting way, while pushing out the “other,” who the groups see as “line cutters.” The rallies also freed the Right from “feeling rules” that these people saw as imposed on them by the liberal North.

Rather than consider themselves as victims, they often take pride in their struggles, no matter how emotional draining it is. They tend to view their world optimistically — they look forward — and often trust the free market to do the right thing, even though research shows companies tend not to protect workers, the environment, or other aspects of society. Telling in the book is how Blue states benefit from the lax regulations of Red states, enabling them to reap the benefits of products produced without having the waste/pollution in their own backyard.

Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right by Arlie Russel Hochschild, narrated by Suzanne Toren, may offer a depressing view of the Right and their own paradoxes, but the book offers a sense of hope that the “empathy” wall can be overcome through conversation and practical cooperation. Although there were some repetitive pieces in this book and judgment peppered throughout, readers will find it informative as to why President Trump spoke to these people who felt like strangers in America, even though they were born here. As the media and political pundits and speakers push for division, the best medicine for democracy is cooperation and compromise — the middle ground.

RATING: Quatrain

About the Author:

Arlie Russell Hochschild is one of the most influential sociologists of her generation. She is the author of nine books, including The Second Shift, The Time Bind, The Managed Heart, The Outsourced Self, and Strangers in Their Own Land (The New Press). Three of her books have been named as New York Times Notable Books of the Year and her work appears in sixteen languages. The winner of the Ulysses Medal as well as Guggenheim and Mellon grants, she lives in Berkeley, California.

Filed Under: audiobooks, challenges, New Authors Challenge, nonfiction, purchased, Read in 2018, reviews Tagged With: , , , , ,

Mailbox Monday #478

May 7, 2018 by

Mailbox Monday, created by Marcia at To Be Continued, formerly The Printed Page, has a permanent home at its own blog. To check out what everyone has received over the last week, visit the blog and check out the links. Leave yours too.

Also, each week, Leslie, Martha, and I will share the Books that Caught Our Eye from everyone’s weekly links.

Here’s what we received:

Silver Girl by Leslie Pietrzyk, which I won in an Instagram contest from Curtis Brown Ltd.

A nameless young woman starts her freshman year of college with one goal in mind: survival.

Newly transplanted to the big city of Chicago, she is one of the rare few to leave her small working-class town in Iowa, let alone for a prestigious university. She is not driven by academic ambition, nor is she a social butterfly. Her true gift is an ability to understand the needs of others and to reflect back the version of themselves they wish to see, rendering herself invisible.

Deftly, she conceals her deeply troubled past – especially from her charismatic yuppie-in-the-making best friend and roommate. For a while she assimilates, living a new life not in any way her own. But the mask she wears cannot hide her secrets forever, and at some point she will be truly seen, possibly for the first time in her life.

Set in the early ’80s, against the backdrop of a city terrorized by the Tylenol Killer, a local psychopath rumored to be stuffing cyanide into drugstore meds, Silver Girl is a deftly psychological account of the nuances of sisterhood. Contrasting obsession and longing, need versus desire, Leslie Pietrzyk delves into the ways class and trauma are often enmeshed to dictate one’s sense of self and how a single relationship can sometimes lead to redemption.

What did you receive?

Filed Under: mailbox monday, meme Tagged With: ,

Drift by Alan King

May 4, 2018 by

Source: Purchased
Paperback, 102 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

Drift by Alan King, who read at the 4th DiVerse Gaithersburg Poetry Reading, has a musicality that is distinctly urban and young male, but it transcends these characteristics in the interplay of images he uses to describe not only lovers, but also friendships and hardships. Some of his lines will have you squaring up for a boxing match, while others will have your mouth watering.

from "Translation" (pg. 56)

That evening, when you climbed
on the back of my mountain bike, I might
have been rickshawing a dignitary the way
the hummingbird in my chest fluttered
with your arms around my waist;

King has the distinct ability to put readers in the moment with him, whether his narrators are teenagers unsure of romance or college students unable to stay away from trouble. Some of my favorite poems in this collection are in the voice of Pinky and the Brain on how they’ve become who they are and why they act the way that they do — you even get a little insight into why they are still friends, despite their differences.

Another of my favorites includes an insider’s look at AWP in which a young writer sees the idols of his book spines acting like fools. Some of these poems are very tongue-in-cheek, including a pep talk a poet receives during the month-long write a poem a day challenge. But many of them tackle serious issues adolescents face, particularly young black males.

Drift by Alan King is musical, funny, and serious. It asks questions about identity and fitting it, particularly what it means to be a “brother.” But it’s also about growing up in an unforgiving urban landscape.

RATING: Quatrain

About the Poet:

Alan King is an author, poet, journalist and videographer, who lives with his wife and daughter in Bowie, MD. He writes about art and domestic issues on this blog.

He’s a communications specialist for a national nonprofit and a senior editor at Words Beats & Life‘s global hip hop journal.

As a staff writer for the Baltimore Afro-American Newspaper, King often out-scooped the Baltimore Sun when covering housing and the Baltimore City Council. His three-part series on East Baltimore’s redevelopment and the displaced residents brought together stakeholders (community leaders, elected officials and developers) to work out a plan that gave vulnerable residents a role in helping to build up the city’s blighted neighborhoods.

He’s a graduate of the Stonecoast MFA Low-Residency Program at the University of Southern Maine. His poems and short stories appear in various literary journals, magazines and are featured on public radio. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

Filed Under: challenges, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, purchased, Read in 2018, reviews Tagged With: , , , ,

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls (audio)

May 3, 2018 by

Source: Audible
Audiobook, 10+ hours
I am an Amazon Affiliate

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, narrated by the author, was our April book club selection. This memoir will have you wondering where child services was for most of Jeannette’s life. Her parents, Rex and Rose Mary Walls, had three other children and were often negligent in their parenting, and even dangerous — placing their kids directly in dangerous situations or failing to prevent them from being in such places. The family moved a lot in the early days until her mother inherited some money that would have allowed them to live comfortably if budgeted well, but as her parents were very bohemian, practicality was outside their comfort zone.

Each child in this family was forced to find their own way to cope and survive, and some did so better than others. In many cases, the children went their separate ways, but there were times when they defended on another from their parents and from those willing to abuse them. Clinging to one another was an option, but eventually, West Virginia’s harsh landscape and judgment on outsiders forced the older children to seek their fortunes in New York City.

Walls has some tales to tell and many of them sound like they couldn’t possibly be true — did she really cook hotdogs by herself at age 3? While I wonder about the recollection of some events, I see that her point is not the chronology but the need for her to survive on her own most of the time, even though she had both parents at home. The kids acted more like adults on some occasions and when the kids called them out for it, they were punished because they were expected to respect their elders no matter what.

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls at is core is a story of hope and survival. Walls should be commended for her bravery in speaking about her childhood, especially after hiding it for so long as she climbed the ladder in the world of journalism. Well written and engaging, this is a memoir that will have you regretting anytime you fought with your less bohemian parents.

RATING: Quatrain

What the Book Club Thought:

Everyone finished the book and thought the writing was very fluid. They were appalled by how the Walls’ children were treated by their parents and how the mother and father neglected their responsibilities on so many levels. There were moments in the book where some members wanted more information, particularly about the youngest child, but agreed that maybe Jeannette did not have memories of her youngest sister’s plight beyond what she wrote. This book was well discussed and raised a lot of issue as to whether the parents had an over-arching philosophy for how they lived their lives or whether it was merely selfishness. Very good discussion book.

About the Author:

Jeannette Walls is a writer and journalist. Born in Phoenix, Arizona, she graduated with honors from Barnard College, the women’s college affiliated with Columbia University. She published a bestselling memoir, The Glass Castle, in 2005.

Filed Under: challenges, memoir, New Authors Challenge, nonfiction, Publishers/Publicists, purchased, Read in 2018, reviews, Simon & Schuster Tagged With: , , ,

Owl Diaries: Eva and the Lost Pony (Book 8) by Rebecca Elliott

May 2, 2018 by

Source: Purchased
Paperback,
I am an Amazon Affiliate

Owl Diaries: Eva and the Lost Pony (Book #8) by Rebecca Elliott offers lessons in what bravery is and how to be a good community member, but it also offers lessons in how we have a responsibility to listen to our elders and inform them when we’re not coming straight home. Kids need these lessons, especially as they age because they want more independence, but they often don’t realize that independence also comes with responsibility.

In this book, Eva and her friends are preparing to take the Owl Oath to be the keepers of the forest. The kids make projects to demonstrate what the oath means to them, and Eva wants to become a Storm Soldier and help the animals in the forest prepare for an oncoming storm. She creates a series of posters for the animals and tacks them up all around, but the storm comes faster than she expects.

What happens to Eva and the forest animals, and how does she meet the lost pony? Readers will love this adventure that’s full of adventure and some scary moments.

Owl Diaries: Eva and the Lost Pony (Book #8) by Rebecca Elliott is a fantastic edition to the series, and Elliott’s characters are evolving. Kids will love Eva and her friends, as well as their forest adventures. Parents will love the lessons these little owls learn about growing up and being part of a larger community.

RATING: Cinquain

About the Author:

A school project from when Rebecca was 6 reads, ‘when I grow up I want to be an artist and a writer’. After a brief detour from this career plan involving a degree in philosophy and a dull office job she fulfilled her plan in 2001 when she became a full time children’s book illustrator and has since written and illustrated hundreds of picture books published worldwide including the award-winning Just Because, Zoo Girl, Naked Trevor, Mr Super Poopy Pants, Missing Jack and the very popular Owl Diaries series.

She lives in Suffolk in the United Kingdom with her husband, a history teacher and children, all professional monkeys.

Filed Under: children's fiction, Publishers/Publicists, purchased, Read in 2018, reviews, Scholastic Tagged With: ,

And Only to Deceive by Tasha Alexander (audio)

May 1, 2018 by

Source: Purchased
Audible, 10+ hours
I am an Amazon Affiliate

And Only to Deceive by Tasha Alexander, which was our book club selection for March, is narrated by Kate Reading and is the first in a series of Lady Emily mystery novels set in Victorian England. Lady Emily is a woman ahead of her time, interested in being free to do as she pleases without the constraints placed on her by society. Her marriage to Philip, the Viscount Ashton, comes quickly as she locks horns with her mother, who like Mrs. Bennet in Pride & Prejudice is eager to marry of her daughter to a man of great fortune.

Following her husbands fatal trip to Africa on safari, Lady Emily finds herself engrossed in his journals, learning more about her husband than she did during their short courtship and marriage. She’s fallen in love with him, as she never expected she would, but what she discovers could render his reputation and hers asunder. She embarks on an unconventional journey to uncover the truth, even if it means her husband is less honorable than she believed.

Alexander’s historical fiction is delightful with its colorful characters, red herrings, and societal constraints. Lady Emily has more wealth than other women would at this time, and her antics are a little less shocking in Victorian society than they otherwise would be, though her mother would disagree with me. The allusions to Mrs. Bennet are strong, but not quite as funny as the Mrs. Bennet in Austen’s novel. Lady Emily’s mother is a bit more grating on the nerves, but probably because she is only seen from Lady Emily’s point of view.

And Only to Deceive by Tasha Alexander is engaging, and I’d be interested to see what happens to Lady Emily in the second book and whether she warms up to marriage again later in her life. Living a life of independence, however, is something she’s not likely to let go of without some serious incentive.

Book Club:

Unfortunately, I missed the meeting for this book, as I had not finished it in time and have found myself extraordinarily busy with work, moving, and adjusting to home life changes.

RATING: Quatrain

About the Author:

The daughter of two philosophy professors, Tasha Alexander grew up surrounded by books. She was convinced from an early age that she was born in the wrong century and spent much of her childhood under the dining room table pretending it was a covered wagon. Even there, she was never without a book in hand and loved reading and history more than anything. Alexander studied English Literature and Medieval History at the University of Notre Dame. Writing is a natural offshoot of reading, and my first novel, And Only to Deceive, was published in 2005. She’s the author of the long-running Lady Emily Series as well as the novel Elizabeth: The Golden Age.

Filed Under: audiobooks, challenges, fiction, Harper Collins, historical fiction, New Authors Challenge, Publishers/Publicists, purchased, Read in 2018, reviews Tagged With: , , , ,

Almost Invisible by Kateema Lee

April 30, 2018 by

Source: Purchased
Paperback, 44 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

Almost Invisible by Kateema Lee, who read at the fourth DiVerse Gaithersburg Poetry Reading, is a short collection that explores the nature of family and how oftentimes as children we can feel like we’re on the periphery of others’ lives. Even as the narrator in these poems laments the life and relationships that she did not have with her father and sister, for example, it is clear she still views them as positively as she can.

From "Taraxacum" (pg. 19)

the passenger window of a police car
three little girls innocently giggling,
talking to someone who's vowed to be impartial,
to defend, nothing menacing in that scene,

I felt afraid. At that moment I remembered
being nine or ten, learning that to some
I was cute for a brown girl and to others
I was no more than a weed needing to be pulled,"

Through juxtaposition of innocent scenes, she clings to the good, but the darker memories of hate and racism creep in. The narrator also strives to remember relatives as they would like to have been remembered if war had not harmed their psyches — a war in Vietnam and a war with drugs.

“Elegy for My Sister” is a poem that will evoke deep sadness. The narrator’s sister, an artist who captured faces in charcoal beautifully, realistically, is dies long before she ages. “But somewhere deep in the District/my sister haunts hallways and vacant lots,/never taking flight,” the narrator laments after watching red birds fly. A moment she wishes her sister could have. She also speaks of a father who was proud of her as the new beginning he almost made. The narrator is “almost” invisible in her own life with these larger than life relatives, but she also is a reluctant pessimist.

Almost Invisible by Kateema Lee is a daring and deeply emotional collection of poems that lament what was, wishes for a better beginning, and has made peace with how it has arrived. Lee has a strong voice that echoes throughout the shadows of the District.

RATING: Quatrain

About the Poet:

Kateema Lee is a Washington D.C. native. She earned her M.F.A in Creative Writing at the University of Maryland at College Park. She’s a Cave Canem Graduate Fellow, and she’s a Callaloo Workshop participant. Her work has appeared in anthologies, print, and online literary journals, including African American Review, Gargoyle, Word Riot, and Cave Canem Anthology XIII. When she’s not writing, she teaches English and Women’s Studies courses at Montgomery College.

Filed Under: challenges, Events, national poetry month, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, purchased, Read in 2018, reviews Tagged With: , , , , ,