March - Women's History Month

 

To wrap up Women's History Month, I'm featuring some backlist reads.
We Are the Brennans is an easy, quick read, TV drama style. Sunday Brennan wakes up battered in an LA hospital from a drunk driving accident which she caused. She returns home to her family & ex fiancé in New York who she left 5 years ago without a word.
There's the troubled pub, the family business, fighting brothers, and a mystery man from Sunday's past. It's the type of story that would be great to listen to and see on screen.
(Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Best Fiction & Nominee for Best Debut Novel 2021.)
☘️

I enjoyed the interesting storyline, and learning about the historical time of Korean workers in Hawaii in The Picture Bride. Teenage brides were recruited for Korean men working in Hawaii from 1910-1924. The hopeful grooms, workers on sugarcane plantations, sent a pictures through a matchmaker. The picture brides wished to escape poverty and achieve prosperity & freedom in the distant land.
This new type of story was told well through the eyes of Willow. She details the arduous journey she & other brides took across the Pacific, and the disheartening realizations of starting a new life with an often deceptive stranger.
🖻

"Floss was not concerned about the people in front of her; Floss was concerned about her followers."

Taking place in 2016 and 2051, Followers predicts a scary dystopian future with a device that has even more invasive control over users. Millennials now have dementia from all that screen time. The new screenless & soundless device works on brainwaves.

"Your followers are your friends - your very special friends. The happier & brighter you act, the more special friends you'll get.."

The main characters weren't especially likable; I smh about the circumstances they put themselves in.
Sounds creepy & isolating, this potentially true future.
"They might have had all the followers, but they were never finished chasing."
🙅‍♂️🙅🙅‍♀️

In The Family Gathering, military man Dakota Jones takes some time to visit his siblings in small town Colorado before his next assignment. There's plenty going on here; romance, mental health, family dynamics, stalking and adoption.
I appreciate how feminism is inserted "Women really took a hit for all the same things that tended to make men look like studs" thinks Dakota. He also passes off the notion that women don't report crimes because they're afraid or just want to forget it happened. It's refreshing to see this masculine character with feminist qualities.
Although it's # 3 in Sullivan's Crossing series, I read it as a stand alone.
⛰️

Utterly disgusted. Highly offended. Deeply disgraceful. Words divorce attorneys use. Such is the language of divorce. However, The Language of Divorce isn't the downer you might expect. Hannah & Will suspect one another of cheating, it gets taken to social media, and their pending divorce becomes news. They agree to appear on a divorcing couples reality show on a beautiful secluded island. Told in multiple POVs, this novel is honest, relatable and complex. It's re-released under Their Last Chance.
👩‍❤️‍👨⚮

All books were won in giveaways.

Until next time, 

~Kara

Awesome audiobooks Black History Month

Audiobooks continue to be the ideal way for me to absorb books.

Besides being given the contemporary fiction genre, The Other Black Girl is also tagged as a thriller & mystery, creating more intrigue.
Nella Rogers, 26, is tired of being the only mid-level Black employee at Wagner Books in Manhattan. So she has high hopes when another Black editorial assistant, Hazel from Harlem is hired. But newbie Hazel quickly becomes the favourite, & Nella starts to receive threatening anonymous notes "LEAVE WAGNER. NOW." Nella questions Hazel's intentions & begins investigating the notes.
Debut author Dalila-Harris got the cringy competitive office dynamics down, & the dialogue was skillfully nuanced. I was impressed with Nella's ability to control her thoughts & feelings and not lose it on her boss & co-workers. She figured out how to navigate her isolating workplace filled with microaggressions.
I'm eager to watch the series!

What a joy it was to hear Antonio Michael Downing narrate his poignant memoir Saga Boy: My Life of Blackness and Becoming.
With poetic detail, Downing shares how he was sent from Trinidad to a small indigenous community in northern Ontario after his grandmother's passing. He takes us through his childhood trauma & isolation, detailing the racism,
family dysfunction & colonialism he dealt with. It was a treat hearing some of what I grew up with & from in-laws, the folklore (Soucouyant), the "granny" phrases (Who don't hear will feel!) & lovely snippets of hymns. Listen to this to hear his sing-song Trini voice! Saga Boy's search for home is a common quest. It's about resilience.
My Trinidad raised Mr. also listened to this, & we've been enjoying his music.

🤯Leila Mottley wrote Nightcrawling when she was just 17! This powerful story is inspired by true Oakland PD events in 2015.
It's all up to 17 year old Kiara. She must pay rent as her aspiring rapper older brother doesn't have a job, & a neighbour child is abandoned. She works the streets & is exploited by the corrupt police. With her expressive voice, she details her sex work, abandonment & social injustice. Quite a strong statement that she chose family over her own body. Narration by Joniece Abbott-Pratt, who also narrated TOBG,💯! 

I borrowed these audiobooks from the library (Overdrive). 

Until next time,

~Kara

L❤️ve People Use Things

Torontonians, can you believe this green January? 😮

Wow, did I ever select the right book in my TBR pile at the perfect time.
I started purging & donating excess clothing in 2020, and didn't buy clothes for 2 years. I moved on to decluttering all other household items as well, but came to a standstill last year.
What I needed was a push, a catalyst, & that sure came with L❤️ve People Use Things.

I realized what I was doing has a name, it's being a well organized hoarder, as author Joshua Fields Milburn explains.
You know, organizing, not getting rid of your stuff.
Keeping a well organized mess.
I thought of the fact that our society has storage facilities, container & closet stores for ALL OUR STUFF. Garages don't have cars, but store MORE THINGS. We alphabetise, colour code or label over flowing collections.
Fields Millburn & fellow Minimalist Ryan Nicodemus share their past experiences, & break up the book into thoughtful chapters with our relationships with stuff, truth, self, values, money, creativity & people. They give us useful questions we can ask ourselves at the end of each chapter.

Some gems that stayed with me:
💎Our memories aren't in our things.
💎The things we own end up owning us.
💎Consumption isn't the problem - thoughtless consumption is.
💎You can't buy a meaningful life - you can only live it.
💎Quality is greater than quantity.
💎Create consciously.
💎Contribute beyond myself.
💎Getting rid of the clutter is the 1st step.
💎 Instead of FOMO, consider the joy of missing out.
💎Minimalists don't focus on having less: they focus on making room for more.
💎More passion, creativity, experiences, contribution, content and freedom.

So now I'm tackling it again, making room for more.
It's a marathon, not a sprint.
I watched their documentary with my Mom, & listen to their podcasts. My Mr. listened to the audiobook.
As Fields Milburn said, the best time to simplify was a decade ago; the second best time is now.

❤️

I received L❤️ve People Use Things in a Goodreads giveaway, thanks!🙏🏼

Until next time, 

~Kara