Best African American Books
157 books |
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book data
374 ratings,
3.48
average rating, 65 reviews
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published
January 1st 2003
by Random House
details
Paperback
setting
isbn
096575488X
description
The mischievous shape-shifting spirit is back in this stunning companion to The Boggart. Emily Bolnik and her younger brother Jessup return to the cas…more
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| 50 Books A Year: Molly's Marathon - 2009 | 44 | 145 | Jan 09, 2010 05:26PM |
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 528)
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5 stars (60)
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4 stars (136)
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3 stars (118)
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2 stars (45)
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1 star (15)
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avg 3.48
editions: all | this edition
editions: all | this edition
Read in January, 2009
"Where my panties at?" is a great first line for a novel. Reading that line in someone else's review is what convinced me to read this.
So..Kind of like Faulkner's 'As I Lay Dying' except they aren't taking the body, they're getting the body. Different characters narrate alternate chapters, and almost of all of them are Beades, which is a family name and a chronic affliction ('Beade-ism').
Billy Beade;s mother died in Arizona and was buried with her 'treasure'. B...more
So..Kind of like Faulkner's 'As I Lay Dying' except they aren't taking the body, they're getting the body. Different characters narrate alternate chapters, and almost of all of them are Beades, which is a family name and a chronic affliction ('Beade-ism').
Billy Beade;s mother died in Arizona and was buried with her 'treasure'. B...more
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Read in February, 2007
Engrossing, well written tale of a black family populated with an eclectic group of characters(pregnant 16 yr. old, lapsed preacher & his one legged wife, lesbian pig farmer, mortician's son....). The pregnant 16 yr old is off to dig up her mother's body because rumour has it her Mom (willa mae) was borrowed with her diamond & they all need the $$.
The author is a professor @ CalArts in Valencia. I liked it-a very fast read!
The author is a professor @ CalArts in Valencia. I liked it-a very fast read!
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Read in September, 2003
I absolutely hated this book. The writing style was bizzarre and unreadable and the plot was no better. How this ever got published is beyond me. I would avoid this like the plague.
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Read in May, 2003
Playwright Suzan-Lori Parks's debut novel, Getting Mother's Body, has an affinity to William Faulkner's classic, As I Lay Dying, only this time, Parks has flipped the script in a couple of areas. First, instead of taking a body home to be buried, the characters are planning to exhume the remains of one "high-strung, party girl/singer", Willa Mae Beede; and secondly, the characters are African American, the setting is 1963 rural Texas, and the lead character is Billy Beede, a poor pregn...more
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5 comments
Read in September, 2009
recommended to Molly by:
Lori - loridjohnson.blogspot
I think I would have enjoyed this book more if I had not just read Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying" earlier this year. Because all I did while reading this was compare it to the classic that I enjoyed very much.
Faulkner's is about a very poor family's mother who dies and then gets carted all over creation in the best illustration of Murphy's Law you might ever read. There is quite a bit of humor mixed in with some pretty heavy commentary on society.
Parks' is about ...more
Faulkner's is about a very poor family's mother who dies and then gets carted all over creation in the best illustration of Murphy's Law you might ever read. There is quite a bit of humor mixed in with some pretty heavy commentary on society.
Parks' is about ...more
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2 comments
what a fun read it was, with great characters and an premise that cracked me up. Funny thing is that I kept seeing Billy Beede as trailer park white, when this is more like Faulkner with an African American re-write. I later found out that though this is the author's first novel, she wrote an award winning play, which explains why the dialog was so good that it begged to be read out loud.
From the Publisher
Billy Beede, the teenage daughter of the fast-running, no count -- ...more
From the Publisher
Billy Beede, the teenage daughter of the fast-running, no count -- ...more
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Read in April, 2008
I thought this would be a great book from the back cover...it received a really thrilling sounding review from Richard Russo and this author had won the Pulitzer for a drama she had written. I found it to be incredibly dull with characters that were all immensely unlikable. Set in a small Texas town in the 1960s, while some African Americans were traveling to D.C. to hear MLK forty years ago, others were apparently traveling around Texas to dig up the body of a mother buried with her jewels. ...more
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Getting Mother's Body along with ZZ Packer's Drinking Coffee Elsewhere are two of the freshest, most exciting works of African American fiction that I have come across in years. They're also two of the best books I've bought this year. Both books (Packer's is a collection of short stories) eschews the common girlfriends/black-men-are-no-good themes of most comtemporary black writers like McMillan and shy away from more cerebral themes like Morrison or Walker. Instead this is fiction, straight fo...more
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Read in May, 2004
The author was a Pulitzer finalist for a drama in 2000, "In the Blood". Billy Beade is 5 mohths pregnant and decides to go find (what they suspect) is buried treasure in her mother's coffin. A crazy cast of characters: the dead mother - Willa Mae; uncle Teddy, Aunt June (who has one leg), Laz (who loves Billy, Dill Smiles (Willa's ex-lesbian lover who lives as a man). Billy is a smart girl who finds love and happiness.
An easy light book that might make a good movie.
An easy light book that might make a good movie.
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I picked this up from the clearance table at B&N, thinking that it sounded like some sort of Flannery O'Connor kind of thing. I mean, this girl's about to go dig up her mother's body to find something (I can't remember what)! But it was just absolutely terrible. I finished it, but I hated it and couldn't wait to foist it upon my library as a donation.
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Read in January, 2003
Acclaimed playwright’s first novel is a slightly skewed, wacky story with real enough emotion about a poor Texan family and their quirks. The Mother in the title was a raucous-living blues singer who lived with a woman passing as a man for awhile. She’s buried in Arizona, supposedly with valuable jewelry, and her daughter—desperate for an abortion after being impregnated by a married man—wants to dig her up before a development project tears up the grave at her Aunt’s hotel. It’s a r...more
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Read in February, 2009
Story of a family in Texas in the early 60's who decides to go dig up a dead family member and retrieve the "treasure" buried with her. The neat thing about this book is that every single character takes turns narrating and it works well!
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Read in August, 2009
The author does a wonderful job of changing narrators throughout the story without it ever seeming awkward or forced. The story is both sad and humorous. The main protagonist is sympathetic without letting you feel too sorry for her. A good book.
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Read in December, 2009
It took me a while to get into this, but enjoyed it once I did. I like the style, pared down to the very basics without a lot of frilly, lyrical language. Each chapter is told from the first person perpsective of one of the characters, but what's interesting is how many interesting gaps there are in what you know given all the different inside perspectives you get. And a very interesting character in Dill.
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Read in November, 2008
Hilarious! More fiction with a taste of reality. The author addresses gender, race, teen pregnancy and homosexuality all in a family dynamic that is outside any idea of normal. And with humor too. Genius!
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Read in November, 2007
I love any book that starts out with the words: "Where my panties at?" This is very much like Faulkner's As I Lay Dying in the style as well as premise; however, Parks' novel is much more riveting.
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Read in April, 2009
It doesn't get me as excited for my commute as Harry Potter did, but then it's a completely different kind of book. It's good so far. I like it when the author reads for the audio.
a 3.5 really.
a 3.5 really.
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Read in July, 2009
I enjoyed this book. The characters were very funny. The story alternated between the characters different points of view. It was fun and quick to read.
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Read in May, 2009
This was a uniquely written novel. The dialect threw me sometimes; however, I enjoyed the story being told from a multitude of viewpoints.
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I did not really love actually reading this book, but it was one of the best book clubs we have had! We laughed until we almost cried!
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