Of the many personalities that inhabit my brain, today I'm angry at the one that started me reading this captivating fantasy, The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty. I've had this best-selling book reserved for a while, but I was intimidated by its length: 532 pages or 20 hours on audio. Finally, I succumbed, and I'm glad I did. A scrappy woman, Nahri, from the streets of Cairo, navigates a complex, hostile world. However, she's more than what she seems. Using her previously unknown magical ability, she accidentally summons a fierce Djinn, who takes her to a magical city of brass where she is hailed as a fabled healer. I'm hooked! About two-thirds of the way through the story, I wondered how Chakraborty could resolve all the story threads in the time she had left? The intricate plot is told from various points of view, each voicing its own problems and insights. Answer: she can't; it's part of a trilogy. I put the second book on hold, and it might become available in the next six to ten weeks.
I need a break from trilogies or switch to only reading uninteresting ones, making me not want to continue. Hmmm.
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I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy kept popping up in my recommendations. The title is provocative, but it didn't look like a trilogy, so I read it. It is a memoir by a child actor about her toxic, narcissistic mom. If you are triggered by abuse, this book is not for you. McCurdy showed that personal growth is not linear and takes time and support, especially in her struggle with eating disorders. McCurdy writes believably in the voice of her younger self. Depictions of her insights, moments where she sees things realistically, are earned and moving. McCurdy shares explicitly about her life. I could have been satisfied with fewer descriptions of destructive sex. However, McCurdy's memoir was ultimately hopeful. I wish better things for her.
👩👧👩☠️🤮
I read Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson in a day. One reason it's short, under two hundred pages; another reason is it's so stinking good, and lastly, it's about being a teen in the 1970s. I was a teen in the 70s, and the music she references, and the emotions it stirred felt familiar. In the present day, August returns to Brooklyn for her father's funeral and accidentally sees a former teenage friend on the subway. She's pulled back into her life growing up in Brooklyn with her four girlfriends. It was rough with White Flight, prostitutes, drug users, and poverty. There are many adjectives to describe Another Brooklyn: complex, dense, poetic, and tragic. August is fighting grief and loss with denial. She is caught between being sexually exploited and also having sexual desire. There is a lot packed into this verbally economical, powerful book.
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