Kibkabe Araya's Blog, page 34
June 18, 2019
Book Review: “Piecing Me Together” by Renee Watson
Piecing Me Together by Renée Watson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
“Piecing Me Together” by Renee Watson is a relatable story of a black teen girl so focused on what she wants but doesn’t realize what she has can still get her to where she wants to be.
Jade is a high school junior/multimedia artist who attends a private school in Portland, nowhere near her impoverished neighborhood, so she makes a few bus transfers each way to get the best education. But she doesn’t have any friends at her school until she meets Sam, a white girl, who lives in a neighborhood near her. Now Jade’s mom can get off her back about making friends since she still is close with her childhood friend, Lee Lee, who attends the neighborhood school. Regardless of her socioeconomic status, Jade, gifted in Spanish, wants to go on a field trip to Costa Rica. But students have to be nominated, so when she gets called into the counselor’s office she thinks she’s got a nomination but instead she’s got into a mentoring program for black teen girls. Jade is not entirely sold on the opportunity but attends the program’s first meeting, only to be stood up by her mentor, Maxine. It turns out Maxine, a black 20-something professional who graduated from the school, can barely commit to the program with boyfriend drama. Jade picks up on this and takes their relationship with a grain of salt until they become closer the more they spend time together. As she visits museums in Portland, Jade is looking forward to hearing back on the Costa Rica opportunity, but she learns some opportunities won’t be given to her because of who she is but other opportunities will come her way because of that.
This story is a good read with smoothly showing Jade gain her voice when she feels it doesn’t matter because she’s black, poor, and obese. She sees how not speaking up affects her relationships with one example of Jade and Sam having a temporary falling-out because Jade feels she’s not being heard when she isn’t saying exactly how she feels. It also shows the trauma of a black girl being in a predominantly white school and how she becomes invisible despite her hard work. Jade sees there are other ways she can succeed, and once she sees that, the law of attraction will lead her to what she really wants.
‘Younger’ TV Review: Big Day
The sixth and final season of Younger started with Millennial Imprint boss Kelsey taking the helm as the youngest publisher in New York City from longtime editor Charles, who gave his career up for his perpetually age-lying girlfriend Liza. The episode returns to Kelsey taking over as CEO and how her struggle may be reflected in the books the company will publish.
Younger centers around 42-year-old Liza (Sutton Foster) lying about her age with subtracting almost 25 years off to make it in the publishing world when she had taken time off to raise her now-college-aged daughter. She works with Kelsey (Hilary Duff), an actual 28-year-old taking the publishing world by storm, especially in this season with taking over their storied publishing house.
After Liza gets emotional seeing a facility worker unscrewing Charles’ (Peter Hermann) name plaque from his office and placing one with Kelsey’s name, she and Kelsey learn from their chief financial officer that Page Six plans to expose why Charles abandoned the company. It says he left for a 28-year-old whom he was having an affair with (he’s in his 40s with an estranged wife), which they all knew could be interpreted as Kelsey, diminishing her meteoric rise to CEO. Liza yells to the entire office that she’s the one Charles is dating. This rubs her former boss Diana (Miriam Shor) the wrong way, as she doesn’t know Liza’s secret of her real age and sees her as an opportunity-stealing millennial. And with Kelsey now being the boss also doesn’t sit well with Diana.
Later in the day, Kelsey learns the company’s finances are in trouble with revenue slipping away every day. After that meeting, she meets with a potential author, surprisingly a black woman since the diversity in the cast reflects the real publishing industry, who pitches her book, The Glass Cliff. It focuses on boss women and how they’re set up not to win. She gives the example of women usually inheriting the CEO role of distressed companies. Kelsey gulps at the mention of this, knowing she’s living that life.
Other plots pop up in the episode with Diana threatening to quit but being lured out of the decision with a Dolly Parton 9 to 5 karaoke stint, Charles buying a bed for Liza and him now that they’re more official, and Josh (Nico Tortorella) finding out he’s going to be a father to the Irish woman he had green card marriage with. But the overarching theme focused on Kelsey and how rising to the top is not what it’s cracked up to be. This will even extend in their book decisions like with The Glass Cliff and next week’s episode preview showing Kelsey trying to explain to her CFO that her book pitch sucks.
Like other shows, Younger produced a novel, Marriage Vacation, and the book review is available.
June 15, 2019
Book Review: ‘With the Fire on High’ by Elizabeth Acevedo
With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
“With the Fire on High” by Elizabeth Acevedo touches on the struggle girls of color have when opportunities come their way because they live in a place where such opportunities never come or they feel they can’t handle those opportunities due to where they live and how they live.
Emoni Santiago is a 17-year-old high school senior with a passion to cook. She’s always cooking at home for ‘Buela and Emma aka Babygirl, the daughter she had at 14. A culinary experience class opens at her charter school and she gets a spot, but she realizes her usual rule-breaking in the kitchen at home won’t cut it in class. She tries to ignore the hiccups and wallows in the successes of the class since they have the opportunity to go to Spain at the end of the semester. It takes a fancy dinner at a restaurant to convince Emoni to take the class more seriously since it can lead her to a culinary career. Once she refocuses, she becomes the head of the donation drive for the Spain trip. And she also finds herself somewhat falling for Malachi – they like each other but Emoni wants to put Babygirl and school first, especially when she senses something off with ‘Buela, deals with a father going in and out of her life by flying to Puerto Rico, hands off Babygirl to her father Tyrone and his family, and sustains a relationship with her deceased mother’s sister.
As a teen mom, Emoni feels guilty about opportunities that would take her away from Babygirl because she knows not only she but also her family had to make sacrifices for her daughter because of her unplanned pregnancy. She wants to stay home and cook dishes her way because that keeps her close to ‘Buela and Babygirl, which almost derails her from continuing with the prized culinary class and going to Spain. There are chapters focusing on her time in Spain and she brings up the disbelief a girl from North Philly ended up in Seville. It also helps her find a way to attend college and stay close to home for her family. But the worrying about how the opportunities could mess up her current life when her current life may not be ideal but comfortable sticks with her as she tries to decide what’s next.
The theme of motherhood resonates in the novel with Emoni taking care of Babygirl while also wondering what her mother would’ve been like. Her mother died during childbirth and her father, Julio, gave her to his mother ‘Buela to raise. So while Emoni is working hard to be the best mother she can be on top of high school and college preparation, she questions why Julio is not around when he’s alive. And ‘Buela starts to be secretive over the stress of raising Julio then having to raise Emoni then helping raise Babygirl. Her mothering becomes endless in a way, and Emoni wishes she could change things to make it easier for her grandmother.
Overall, the book has remnants of an Americanized modern-day version of the classic “Like Water for Chocolate” with each part opening up to a recipe Emoni wants to conquer. Throughout the book, her cooking is heightened with ingredients she chooses for home and school to make her food pop. Then her family and class experience deeply-rooted emotions when she cooks and those emotions are even seen with the restaurateurs in Spain. Food is magic. Every other chapter being dedicated to what we already know about her past is annoying; it was already weaved into the story and additional details could’ve been weaved. The story stalled with those chapters and elongated it for no reason, but maybe for other readers that technique works. It’s a new perspective on YA lit with the teen mom lifestyle and school being a big part of the story like the author’s first novel, “Poet X.” The theme of a girl of color trying to figure out her dreams is still present in this novel and is elevated with the new perspective of culinary dreams.
Book Review: “With the Fire on High” by Elizabeth Acevedo
With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
“With the Fire on High” by Elizabeth Acevedo touches on the struggle girls of color have when opportunities come their way because they live in a place where such opportunities never come or they feel they can’t handle those opportunities due to where they live and how they live.
Emoni Santiago is a 17-year-old high school senior with a passion to cook. She’s always cooking at home for ‘Buela and Emma aka Babygirl, the daughter she had at 14. A culinary experience class opens at her charter school and she gets a spot, but she realizes her usual rule-breaking in the kitchen at home won’t cut it in class. She tries to ignore the hiccups and wallows in the successes of the class since they have the opportunity to go to Spain at the end of the semester. It takes a fancy dinner at a restaurant to convince Emoni to take the class more seriously since it can lead her to a culinary career. Once she refocuses, she becomes the head of the donation drive for the Spain trip. And she also finds herself somewhat falling for Malachi – they like each other but Emoni wants to put Babygirl and school first, especially when she senses something off with ‘Buela, deals with a father going in and out of her life by flying to Puerto Rico, hands off Babygirl to her father Tyrone and his family, and sustains a relationship with her deceased mother’s sister.
As a teen mom, Emoni feels guilty about opportunities that would take her away from Babygirl because she knows not only she but also her family had to make sacrifices for her daughter because of her unplanned pregnancy. She wants to stay home and cook dishes her way because that keeps her close to ‘Buela and Babygirl, which almost derails her from continuing with the prized culinary class and going to Spain. There are chapters focusing on her time in Spain and she brings up the disbelief a girl from North Philly ended up in Seville. It also helps her find a way to attend college and stay close to home for her family. But the worrying about how the opportunities could mess up her current life when her current life may not be ideal but comfortable sticks with her as she tries to decide what’s next.
The theme of motherhood resonates in the novel with Emoni taking care of Babygirl while also wondering what her mother would’ve been like. Her mother died during childbirth and her father, Julio, gave her to his mother ‘Buela to raise. So while Emoni is working hard to be the best mother she can be on top of high school and college preparation, she questions why Julio is not around when he’s alive. And ‘Buela starts to be secretive over the stress of raising Julio then having to raise Emoni then helping raise Babygirl. Her mothering becomes endless in a way, and Emoni wishes she could change things to make it easier for her grandmother.
Overall, the book has remnants of an Americanized modern-day version of the classic “Like Water for Chocolate” with each part opening up to a recipe Emoni wants to conquer. Throughout the book, her cooking is heightened with ingredients she chooses for home and school to make her food pop. Then her family and class experience deeply-rooted emotions when she cooks and those emotions are even seen with the restaurateurs in Spain. Food is magic. Every other chapter being dedicated to what we already know about her past is annoying; it was already weaved into the story and additional details could’ve been weaved. The story stalled with those chapters and elongated it for no reason, but maybe for other readers that technique works. It’s a new perspective on YA lit with the teen mom lifestyle and school being a big part of the story like the author’s first novel, “Poet X.” The theme of a girl of color trying to figure out her dreams is still present in this novel and is elevated with the new perspective of culinary dreams.
June 14, 2019
‘Queen Sugar’ TV Review: Pleasure is Black
Queen Sugar returned for its fourth season with Nova Bordelon (Rutina Wesley), the activist journalist of the sugarcane business family, preparing for the launch of her book and realizing her family might not be ready for it.
In the beginning of the episode, Nova is creating a video about Blessing and Blood, looking confident while vaguely describing her “American family.” But minutes later, she’s at a restaurant chugging wine and telling her agent that she’s nervous about the impact of her memoir because she failed to prepare her family for its contents, even though she’s learned the New York Times plans to review the book.
“They know it’s coming, but they don’t know what’s in it,” Nova says.
Back in Louisiana, in their summer attire with umbrellas, the family parades up to aunt Violet (Tina Lifford)‘s new restaurant, Vi’s Prized Pies & Diner, where Nova’s antisocial demeanor stands out.
“This is the last we’ll see her serve anybody,” a woman tells Prosper (Henry G. Sanders), who works with the sugarcane business, as they chat with Nova serving behind the counter. She goes on to add her sister saw a billboard in New York City advertising Nova’s book that’s being compared to the works of Roxane Gay and Ta-Nehisi Coates. “What’s the book about? Can we get a little preview? Or a taste?”
Violet’s new husband, Hollywood (Omar J. Dorsey), overhears the conversation. As Nova turns to the kitchen, Hollywood whispers his thoughts on the book to her.
“When do we get to read your book?” Hollywood asks. “You ain’t been shy about nothing you did. Something not right about that book.”
Nova hesitates.
Hollywood adds the family should’ve been prepared for what the memoir would entail because he has a feeling that family secrets have been spilled without permission.
Outside in the dining area, Violet expresses her dislike for her nephew Ralph Angel (Kofi Siriboe) passing his son Blue like “day-old bread” in his custody exchange between his ex Darla (Bianca Lawson), who recently revealed he’s not Blue’s father. 1990s teen R&B sensation Tevin Campbell made his high-profile appearance singing at the festive opening as a Bordelon cousin.
Guiltily, Nova ambushes Charley (Dawn-Lyen Gardner) at work the next day while her sister, dressed impeccably in a taupe pantsuit ready to head to women’s conference panel, is confused by the surprise. Nova hands her sister a copy of the manuscript and later visits her brother Ralph Angel to leave a copy as she wipes a tear away.
At the conference, Charley is getting revved up during her inspirational speech while receiving a leadership award until a reporter bombards her with questions in the crowd. The reporter claims she received an advanced copy of Nova’s manuscript and it read Charley had secretly paid off one of her basketball player ex-husband’s mistresses, which happened two seasons ago. Once Charley gets home, she pops the cork on a bottle of wine and chugs as much as she can before laying her eyes on the manuscript.
In the morning, she calls Ralph Angel to warn him to not look at the manuscript until she talks to him. On the car ride to talk to her brother, Charley calls her lawyer to send her sister a cease-and-desist over the book.
Meanwhile, Hollywood picks up the manuscript on Violet’s desk and reads the first page to see it disparages Violet calling her a self-proclaimed “strong black woman” but saying how she lived her life doesn’t show that evidence.
Elsewhere, Ralph Angel, intrigued by Charley’s warning to not look at the manuscript, decides to look at the manuscript. He reads the paragraph about how he has a “fragile ego” as it criticizes his drama with Darla for never questioning Blue’s paternity when she is a recovering drug addict.
Nova visits her father’s mausoleum at the cemetery, laying a fresh bouquet of flowers.
“I’m afraid, Daddy, that everybody will not understand what I’m doing, but I’m offering up my work to see that, to be better,” she cries on the ground. “Because I grew up with too many secrets. You did, too. And it’s time for us to be as free as you wanted us to be. Please give me the strength to see this through.”
The episode ends with a telling preview for the rest of the season with the memoir tearing the family apart while the audience waits to see what these secrets are. It’s interesting to see a TV series based on a book have a storyline where a personal story could be destructive to a family. The impact of memoirs doesn’t seem to be brought up in the book world as authors most likely don’t touch on the subject with their families or generally say their families are supportive. Queen Sugar, with the vision brought to the forefront by main producers Ava DuVernay and Oprah Winfrey, will be a standout this season on examining the impact of a published book on a family.
“This is the last time I want to look at you,” Violet says to Nova in the preview.
June 10, 2019
Celeb bookwomen announce their June book club picks
Here’s a quick roundup of the celebrity-helmed book clubs and their June books:
Actress and producer Reese Witherspoon chooses The Cactus by Sarah Haywood for Hello Sunshine.
“Susan, our main character, navigates a love triangle, family drama, and being pregnant for the first time at 45. Hope y’all love Susan as much as I do!,” Reese said in the announcement.
Sarah also wrote an exclusive essay for Hello Sunshine about the themes resonating through her novel.
NBC correspondent and former first daughter Jenna Bush Hager chooses Searching for Sylvie Lee by Jean Kwok for Today Show Book Club.
“It’s a mystery,” Jenna said in the announcement. “Sylvie Lee is the main character and she’s a golden child. She disappears. The story unfolds as her family copes and discovers all the secrets surrounding her life.” She added the team unveiled the book club pick later than usual because the book was released on June 4.
Belletrist, the book blog administered by actress Emma Roberts and producer Karah Preiss, also chose Searching for Sylvie Lee for June with its branded digestible interview with the author.
Actress Emma Roberts’ Our Shared Shelf on Goodreads is still reading Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, a book the bimonthly book club chose in May. The book also is a National Book Award Finalist and now available in paperback.
“Min Jin Lee is unabashedly a feminist and her resilient female characters propel this riveting story,” the book club wrote in its announcement. “Lee has written a moving, historical saga that is also a timeless masterpiece; almost 500 pages long, and we didn’t want it to end. This brilliant, eye-opening novel is about outsiders, minorities, the disenfranchised and yet somehow embraces us all.”
Indie rock pop band Florence + The Machine is reading three books for its Between Two Books club: Read and Riot by artist, activist, and Pussy Riot founder Nadya Tolokonnikova; My Mother Was a Freedom Fighter by Aja Monet; and The Terrible by Yrsa Daley-Ward.
“The title of Yrsa Daley-Ward’s book, ‘The Terrible,’ can mean different things to each reader. It can be a feeling you can’t quite word. It can describe depression. It can refer to the things you fear,” the book club tweeted June 6.
Side note: Florence + The Machine’s 2011 album Ceremonials is a wonderfully lyrical and musical album for a writing session.
June 9, 2019
Busy Philipps says memoir prepared her for sharing story on TV at Aerie REALtreat event
Actress-author Busy Philipps shared how her 2018 published memoir inspired her to share a personal story on TV at the Aerie REALtreat conference in downtown Los Angeles Saturday afternoon.
Arriving from an earlier event with BookSparks in conversation with Taylor Jenkins Reid and Abdi Nazemian in Hollywood, the This Will Only Hurt a Little memoirist spoke to about 150 attendees at a fireside chat at Rolling Greens Nursery in the Arts District with Work Party author and Create & Cultivate CEO Jaclyn Johnson about how her recently canceled late night talk show was another vehicle to share her abortion story. Though she told the story in her book, Busy said she hadn’t shared it publicly until last month in response to the Georgia abortion bill.
“It’s all crazy, but writing about it in my book prepared me for when the extreme abortion bans happened,” she said. “First of all, the Georgia ban was passed the Monday after I had found out that my show was canceled. We didn’t tell people for five weeks, so I knew my show was canceled, and that’s when the Georgia ban was passed through their Senate, but the governor hadn’t signed it in yet.
“So my initial feeling was that I wanted to do it that day. However, my husband and I talked about it, and he said, ‘I don’t want E! to think you’re going on television to talk about your abortion in some way because they canceled your show’… I just didn’t want any of the message to be convoluted.”
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed the Living Infants Fairness and Equality (LIFE) Act, also known as the “heartbeat bill” on May 7. That same day, Busy aired her story on Busy Tonight, in which she said she didn’t let the network know about her decision to share her story because she felt it would lessen the potency or stop the story from being told. She said the show submitted a full script, which she wrote, while she personally placed it in the teleprompter, so the weight of the impact would be all on her. Her last show aired May 16.
Last Tuesday, she was a guest speaker at the “Threats to Reproductive Rights in America” House Judiciary Committee hearing.
“The timing of things with being able to go testify at the House Judiciary Committee; I wouldn’t have been able to do if my show on E! that 40 people watched was still on,” Busy quipped.
Busy is an #AerieREAL role model. Aerie is the intimate apparel lifestyle offshoot of American Eagle Outfitters. In partnership with Create & Cultivate (disclosure: I’m an insider), the event focused on tapping into women’s power for entrepreneurial success.
Regardless of getting an abortion at 15 years old, Busy said she’s felt the emotional toll on making the decision.
“It’s something I had never spoken about publicly, but I held a great deal of shame about for many many years,” she said. “When I wrote my memoir, I knew I wanted to talk about it. But I knew that it would be difficult for my family. I felt very strongly in sharing the whole story.”
She said her talk show was a creative vehicle for storytelling expression and hopes it can be revived via another outlet.
“It speaks to the other thing which was why I wanted even to do a late night talk show in the first place,” she said. “We know that diversity and representation in the media of all kinds makes a difference in our media and having a female voice in late night television is important, especially when our country is dealing with lots of different issues that affect women.”
Poet Cleo Wade talks setting intentions at Aerie REALtreat event
Best-selling poet Cleo Wade emphasized the power of setting intentions and navigating one’s way to success in today’s world at the Aerie REALtreat conference in downtown Los Angeles Saturday morning.
The Heart Talk: Poetic Wisdom for a Better Life author is also an #AerieREAL role model as she pumped up the audience at Rolling Greens Nursery in the Arts District then joined a panel with fellow ambassadors Olympic gymnast and Fierce: How Competing for Myself Changed Everything author Aly Raisman and body-positive model Iskra. Aerie is the intimate apparel lifestyle offshoot of American Eagle Outfitters.
Using advice from her book, Cleo said one of her intentions is to exude kindness when she’s most stressed.
“Another one I have is: Can I be patient? Can I not make rushing everyone else’s problem?” she said. “I’m sure you’re all familiar when you’re the one running late, but then all of sudden it’s the Uber driver’s problem if they’re not going fast enough. And then you’re like, ‘I have to be there in 10 minutes,’ if like you needing to be there in 10 minutes has to do with whether or not it’s 20 minutes away or not, and that is somehow their fault.”
Several of the estimated 100 women in attendance in Cleo’s speaking session went up to the decorated stage to share their intentions. Cleo said she requested Aerie put notebooks and pens in the giveaway bags to do the five-minute, intention-writing exercise.
“For me, intentions are a space where we can say I know I have these default settings as the person I am, but what does it look like for me to carve out the person I know I can be,” Cleo said. “That’s what we really do when we set intentions for ourselves.”
In partnership with Create & Cultivate (disclosure: I’m an insider), the event focused on tapping into women’s power for entrepreneurial success, so Cleo brought up the theme of making connections.
“If you’re someone who doesn’t like to be the first to walk up to someone to say like, ‘Your hair looks really amazing today’ or ‘I love your scarf,’ or ‘Hi, my name is Cleo,’ then maybe your intention for today is ‘I’m going to be the first to say hello,'” she said. “If you came here today, like so many of you I’m sure did, it’s such a beautiful and safe space to create fellowship and participate in sisterhood and make new friends then maybe your intention today is, ‘I am going to be open enough to allow connection to take place between me and another sister I walk or sit next to today.'”
She then had the attendees hug the woman sitting next to them with an introduction. The session ended with her reading a poem from her book while sitting on the edge of the stage.
Joining Aly and Iskra in the next panel, Cleo discussed how many use the internet to connect and grow a brand but recommended to be cautious of what works or won’t work for you.
“Before you endorse anything, there are people who are working with you, for you, not for how many people follow you or how many people’s eyeballs are on what you see or do,” she said. “And you do that by getting to know brands or people before you work with them, so that they are there for your voice, they are there for your story, they are there for the way that you have built your community rather than anyone reducing you to a number or anyone reducing you to an algorithm.”
And with so many connections, the act of gluing the connections can become stressful to the point where slowing down may be the best option.
“I think in that space it’s always OK if you allow yourself to not be Superwoman. I always say with the women who work with me, it’s like I don’t want to be Superwoman because she’s not real,” Cleo said. “That has to be OK because that’s the truth. So when it comes to whether having the answer or that one piece of advice—if I don’t have that, I don’t put pressure on myself to have that.”
Aly later said as the main takeaway she wanted to share with audience was partly inspired by Cleo’s book, and that’s to be “authentically you.”
“Know your value and what you want in your life,” she said. “If you are willing to, I would recommend when you leave here, or when you feel like it, to really take time and really get to know what you want and who you want to be with… I think it’s about really knowing your value and really getting to know what makes you happy.”
Cleo co-signed actively surrounding ourselves with people who support us with recalling a moment she shared with her brother in their mother’s kitchen one day in Louisiana. After realizing it would’ve been a good anecdote in her book, she said her mother was cooking food in a pan when she and her brother mentioned “haters.”
“She looks up from the pan and says, ‘Haters? What are haters? I have no idea who hates me. I don’t hang out with those people.’ I always think of that as some of the best advice I’ve ever gotten because you’re like, ‘Exactly!'” Cleo said. “Sometimes, I don’t think we realize we’re moving in this world looking for people to criticize us because we don’t believe in our own power and we don’t believe in our own place in the world. We actually look around whether it’s on the internet or in social spaces for people who might reject us or tell us we’re not enough.”
The panel ended with Aly having the audience engage in a 10-minute meditation rather than the originally scheduled fitness workout.
June 6, 2019
Book Review: “The Farm” by Joanne Ramos
The Farm by Joanne Ramos
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
“The Farm” by Joanne Ramos is a suspenseful novel around surrogates impregnated by embryos belonging to the uber-rich confined to a farm in upstate New York. But the main character feels she’s being deceived by the farm’s staff and comes to the conclusion her presence there may mean something more sinister.
Jane is a young mother who’s living in a dormitory in New York mostly with other Filipina women, including her cousin Ate. They both take care of 6-month-old Amalia to the best of their abilities with their surroundings. But Ate is a well-known baby nurse constantly recommended for her newborn sleeping method. She’s able to connect Jane with a job with a family, but Jane ruins that opportunity with her motherly instincts. So Ate suggests Jane should be a surrogate mother at this resort called Golden Oaks, where she will receive a bonus for delivering a healthy baby for a very rich family. Jane leaves Amalia in Ate’s care as she embarks to the resort for 9 months. At Golden Oaks, ambitious Mae is running the resort as it’s still in its trial run with the investment of an aging Chinese billionaire, so she’s gentle with Jane, which makes Jane question if she’s carrying the billionaire’s baby. But Mae’s forced kindness is part of the system, Jane learns from her newfound friends, Lisa, who’s in her third surrogate pregnancy at Golden Oaks, and Reagan, also a first-timer who comes from money but wants her own independence for her art career. As Jane confides in her new friends, she finds herself getting in trouble and risking her future paycheck. She tries to lay low until she senses something is wrong with Amalia. Then she is desperate to leave the premises and see her daughter.
This novel does an excellent job with mild suspense as in it plays on motherly instincts and how they can be tested and what a mother would do if she gets a read on a situation.
It also shows the plight of many immigrant women who find work in baby nursing, cleaning, and other jobs as servants of rich families. This story focuses on the Filipina community in New York. Jane arrived in the U.S. when she was a teenager only to live with her mother in California who let relationships with men run her life. When Jane later leaves her husband Billy with Amalia in tow, the only person she can rely on is her older cousin, Ate aka Evelyn, who despite experiencing success in the Manhattan baby circuit still lives in a dormitory with other Filipinas struggling to find steady work since she sends her money to her four grown children in the Philippines, including a disabled son.
Class is another issue. While Jane and Ate work for rich families, Reagan comes from a rich family. Yet she doesn’t know what she truly wants with all the opportunities she has received. She seems to be spiteful about her friend, Macy, who’s black and considered at the top of her game in investment banking though she had a rough upbringing. They both went to Duke, but Macy is in another stratosphere compared to Reagan. As Mae runs Golden Oaks, she’s constantly feeling pity for Jane because of her circumstances as a low-income single mother yet knows she has the power to hold things over Jane’s head with the paycheck for the baby.
The book appears long, but the story is engaging with the situations inside the farm and outside the farm along with backstories of the characters, so this piece of literary fiction is well-conceived.
June 5, 2019
“Avengers” star Evangeline Lilly talks about how reading led to new children’s book
Evangeline Lilly, known for her bookish acting role in the Lord of the Rings franchise and currently as The Wasp in Avengers: Endgame, advertised her new children’s book Tuesday on Good Morning America. Though bombarded with questions about her acting gigs, Evangeline got candid about her necessity to write and how she came to love reading.
“My passion—the thing that I do, when nobody asks me to do it, no one pays me to do it—is writing,” Evangeline told GMA correspondent Lara Spencer. “I’ve done it since I was yea high and will do it for the rest of my life. So it’s very exciting to be starting a career or hopefully a career—knock wood—in that space.”
Her book series, The Squickerwonkers, which is illustrated by Johnny Fraser Allen, saw its first book released in 2014. The second and third book, The Demise of Selma the Spoiled and prequel The Pre-Show, was released last week with the book tour happening now.
On GMA, Evangeline said she was inspired by Edward Gorey, whom she said wrote “really dark and highly sophisticated” books with up to six words on each page and “lots of pictures.” She said this was helpful since she was a slow reader.
“I felt like he was telling me, ‘I know just because you’re a slow reader, and not a strong reader, doesn’t mean you’re stupid. You’re smart and you can get it. So these books are in the spirit of Edward Gorey.”
For the premise of the series, she said a voice rang inside her head at 14 during the height of her love for Dr. Seuss books. She impersonated the voice in a Scottish accent to the audience, and with the roll of her tongue, she said she named it Squickerwonker.
