Kibkabe Araya's Blog, page 5

Book Review: ‘Surviving Home’ by Katerina Canyon

*Given a copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review* Surviving Home by Katerina Canyon is a collection of poems examining the author’s South Los Angeles upbringing in the 1980s and looking for comfort in the harsh memories from then. Each poem tells a story about realizing the beauty in a situation although it’s difficult to find the beauty amid the obstacles of growing up in the area formerly known as South Central. In the poem “I Say You Can’t Go Home Again,” for example, she shares her experience of being unhoused as a child and her family living in a dispossessed home of a convicted drug dealer. A bright spot is witnessing the collection of roses by a female who may be her mother. She steals varieties of roses from their unknowing neighbors as a “rose petal shoplifter.” But they as a family look for the hidden drugs on the five-acre property; stealing is a source of comfort, whether it’s stealing roses or drugs. “Life Map” describes the geography of where events take place from home to school, but also include where her father bought crack cocaine and where her mother was treated for cancer. Traveling off […]

‘Luckiest Girl Alive’ Film Makes Character’s Traumas Leap Off the Page

⚠️ Spoilers ahead! Read the book and/or watch the film on Netflix. ⚠️ Trigger warning! The story and the post below have graphic references to topics such as sexual abuse, self-harm, violence, and eating disorders. Jessica Knoll’s chilling debut novel rocked the best-sellers lists in 2015. Another women’s fiction book about a magazine editor who wants to take on New York City in designer duds, but this version has a twist. Well, several twists that give the borderline unlikeable character a reason for her behavior. At the time, many readers hated Ani FaNelli, the main character of Luckiest Girl Alive heart-wrenchingly played by Mila Kunis as an adult and Chiara Aurelia as a teenager. Every thought of imperfection runs through Ani’s mind. She is thin because she heads to the gym to ensure every morsel of food is negligible from her dieting and occasional binge eating. She likes BDSM sex; the torture turns her on. She is obsessed with Gucci belts, Rolex watches, and the generational wealth of an engagement ring from her blue-blooded fiancé with a lofty Manhattan business career. She has everything, yet she’s unhappy about everything. In the film, her thoughts are narrated aloud by Mila. The first […]

Cuffing Season Is Writing Season

SHE LIT: Cuffing Season Is Writing Season 🔏 It’s getting colder, and that means writers are cozying up to writing their next book. Plus, the latest books to read under the blankets. Celebrate National Hispanic and Latinx Heritage Month by reading works from these authors 📚 As the weather gets colder, writers start to cuff themselves to their own book projects “Cuffing season” is in the Merriam-Webster dictionary describing how single people find a partner and attach themselves to that partner to stay warm during the colder months. Well, writers are doing the same thing, except cuffing themselves to new writing projects. I recently completed the Black Creatives Revisions Workshop with We Need Diverse Books, the nonprofit organization working alongside the publishing industry to diversify the industry on the publisher level and the creator level. The summer-long workshop included monthly discussions with successful traditionally published authors and literary agents of color and meetings with Black editors to help us hone our manuscripts. For the workshop, I had put forth my most promising project: a social justice, historical fiction, young adult novel. I came up with the idea for the book in February 2020, and when that weekend in mid-March that […]

Celeste Ng Says Latest Novel Incorporates Rise in Anti-Asian Hate, Book Banning

Little Fires Everywhere novelist Celeste Ng wrote her third novel during the COVID-19 pandemic as anti-Asian hate violence flared up. What was happening in the world affected her writing, she told the co-anchors on CBS Mornings this week. “That became a really big part of it, especially after the outbreak of COVID started and we started seeing a huge rise in anti-Asian hate,” she said in the interview with Jericka Duncan, Nate Burleson, and Tony Dokoupil about her new book, Our Missing Hearts, which is out now from Penguin Random House‘s Penguin Press. The story centers on a 12-year-old boy who embarks on a journey to find his mother, a Chinese American poet whose writings have been banned over claims of being unpatriotic and being outside “American culture.” In this dystopian novel, writers of color, especially those of Asian descent, and their works are disappearing. “Growing up as a Chinese American—I’m from Cleveland—I think I’ve known my whole life that I’m seen as other by other people and the way other people see me is not the way I know myself to be inside,” said Celeste, whose 2014 debut novel Everything I Never Told You made her a rising literary star. […]

Tamera Mowry-Housley Describes How Making Friends Is Like Drinking Wine

Sister, Sister star Tamera Mowry-Housley is promoting her new memoir that resonates on the vein of Gabrielle Union‘s memoirs with incorporating the significance of drinking wine and learning lessons. In her first TV stop on the book tour, Tamera spoke to Jericka Duncan, Nate Burleson, and Tony Dokoupil on CBS Mornings Tuesday about You Should Sit Down for This: A Memoir About Life, Wine, + Cookies. She told the co-anchors she hopes readers will understand her words of wisdom, or what she calls “Tameraisms.” “The one thing that I want people to take away is that I didn’t live this perfect life,” she said in the interview. “They usually see me, and they’re like, ‘Tamera, you’re always so happy. You always look very joyful.’ And the thing is I choose to be happy. My circumstances do not define me.” Tamera was 15, along with her identical twin sister Tia Mowry, when they became breakout stars on the WB sitcom Sister, Sister. After that early success, Tamera and Tia starred in movies together as adults like Seventeen Again with their young brother Tahj Mowry, and Twitches, a Black Halloween Disney classic that spawned a sequel. The sisters also filmed a popular […]

‘Carrie Soto Is Back’ and the Problem of White Authors Creating Main Characters of Color

Coming off the heels of the historic US Open where we saw tennis legend Serena Williams bid goodbye to the sport, Penguin Random House and its Ballantine Books imprint was in the throes of promoting Taylor Jenkins Reid’s new novel, Carrie Soto Is Back. The publisher even had a pop-up at Wimbledon over the summer. The novel focuses on a retired tennis champion who sees her record about to be broken by a younger player, so she feels she must come back to defend her record. Book influencers expressed concern about these characters being women of color trying to defeat each other. Many of these influencers say it’s problematic that a White author pit a Latina title character against an Asian character. “Carrie Soto Is Back is a story of a Latina tennis player written by a White woman, which we’ve been here before many times,” Tomes and Textiles book influencer Carmen Alvarez said in a reel published on Instagram and TikTok to her combined nearly 60,000 followers. “You’d be surprised to find out that Taylor Jenkins Reid’s Carrie Soto Is Back has more untranslated Spanish than any book I ever read, even by Latinx authors.” White authors who center […]

Congresswoman Cori Bush, Ibram X. Kendi Discuss Empowerment Factor in Banned Books Movement

Missouri Rep. Cori Bush and anti-racism intellectual Dr. Ibram X. Kendi discussed the magnitude of banned books in Washington, D.C., for one of the busiest Banned Books Week observances in recent years. Holding their conversation at the Anacostia location of the Busboys and Poets bookstore on Thursday, the congresswoman and the author of anti-racist thought focused on the history of banned books, particularly for Black Americans. The event was hosted by The Emancipator, a vertical of The Boston Globe focused on racial justice and equity founded by Ibram. Earliest censorship in this country began with beating and killing enslaved people for learning to read or being suspected of knowing how to read, they said. That legacy continues with readers now seeing books that share accurate histories and personal narratives of experiences with race and gender being banned, they added. Banned Books Week is held every year in mid-September, but over the last few years, book bans have been making headlines over more school districts and local libraries removing books, primarily targeted to kids, due to complaints from parents and other adults. Many of these books contain themes surrounding race, gender, and sexual orientation. Almost half of distinct titles banned are […]

Book Review: ‘Most Likely’ by Sarah Watson

Most Likely by Sarah Watson follows a group of four friends who lean on each other to make sure they excel in their senior year of high school as one of them is destined to become president of the United States. The story starts in 2049 the morning of the inauguration for the president-elect, except her identity is not revealed. We see her bemoaning the decision to take her husband’s surname, Diffenderfer. Her advisers had told her it would be the traditional thing she can do to please the masses. Then we’re teleported back to 2019 Cleveland, Ohio, where a Logan Diffenderfer rounds the corner of William McKinley High School track that leads us to a group that’s been focused on sisterhood since pre-kindergarten without the traveling pants: Ava, CJ, Jordan, and Martha, their names listed alphabetically for fairness.  Ava Morgan wants to be an artist with her eye on the Rhode Island School of Design, better known as RISD, but her workaholic lawyer mother keeps begging her to choose a more stable career path and a more well-rounded institution. But with the argument over what she wants to do with her life and her life morphing into adulthood, she […]

Book-to-Screen Colorblind Casting Gets Complaints

SHE LIT: Book-to-Screen Colorblind Casting Gets Complaints 📺 The cast of the “Lord of the Rings” TV series says it won’t ignore racist comments toward actors. Plus, a famous poet retires from a longtime gig. View this email in your browser Racist backlash follows book-to-TV series over actors of color existing in fantasy land The long-awaited Lord of the Rings TV series debuted on Amazon Prime Video last week, but the casting choices became the news. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power cast shared a message Wednesday on social media saying it stands in solidarity “against the relentless racism, threats, harassment, and abuse some of our castmates of color are being subjected to on a daily basis.” The statement went on to say that the world author J.R.R. Tolkien created is by definition multicultural, multiracial, multiethnic in having characters “defeat the forces of evil.” “Our world has never been all white, fantasy has never been all white, Middle-earth is not all white. BIPOC belong in Middle-earth and they are here to stay,” the statement continues. The show introduces us to various stars, but Sophia Nomvete, who plays the first Black female dwarf; Nazanin Boniadi, who plays a […]

Book Review: ‘The Black Girls Left Standing’ by Juliana Goodman

The Black Girls Left Standing by Juliana Goodman leans on the grittiness to tell the story of a Black girl living in the Chicago projects searching for why her unarmed sister was killed outside the home of a police officer.  Sixteen-year-old Beau Willet is trying to overcome the disbelief of attending her older sister Katia’s funeral. She wears a memorial sweatshirt in honor of her 22-year-old sister, who was killed by a single gunshot wound to the face fired by an off-duty police officer outside of his home in the middle of the night. Katia was accused of planning to rob the home, but Beau doesn’t accept that narrative. She depends on her friend Deja to help her figure out what happened to Katia, who was with her boyfriend Jordan at the time of the killing. Except Jordan has been missing since Katia’s death, and he is the only person who could clear Katia’s name.  I should be crying, too, but I can’t for some reason. It’s like my ducts are all blocked up and the tears are dripping down my insides instead of my cheeks. Katia, why didn’t you just stay home with me instead?  Beau knows the police […]