April 2022, a concept
I went with podcasts over audiobooks this month
I’m very tired from the month of April. A lot of people in my life had weird, big months. I didn’t necessarily have a weird, big month in that my life is the same as it was before April started however I did just co-organize a huge event and fundraiser all in the hopes of raising $215,000 for abortion access. That’s a crazy number. I don’t know how I read at all this month other than I haven’t returned to my Harry Potter games and being on social media in my free time is exhausting to think about, after running so much social media for so many other organizations and businesses. What do you people do on your phones when you’re bored? Sound off in the comments. (Just kidding, unless you do want to share!)
Short intro! Here’s what I read this month.
[Books I Read]
These Ghosts are Family by Maisy Card (2021) | Quick summary: Multigenerational journey about a Jamaican family and their little ancestral secrets.
Y’all know how much I enjoy a multigenerational epic and even more so when it’s all tangled up in a big family secret. When a man, quite unhappy with his life, has the opportunity to essentially fake his own death, it sets off decades of family strife and consequences. Card is a fun writer who can effortlessly take you from colonial Jamaica to present-day Harlem in a few pages. Rich characters, a bit of mystery, and lots of feelings is about all I’m looking for in a novel. A real bonus is the cover of this lovely book, which stands out in a sea of whatever book covers have been the last few years. [literary fiction, novel, family-and-relationship-focused, written by a Jamaican-American author, medium-ish read]
Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom by Derecka Purnell (2021) | Quick summary: All about the realities of what police abolition means and can look like.
This is an incredibly rich text — the kind you can’t really get all you need to get in one reading. Purnell has seen and studied and created and been a part of many movements in the past decade that have led us from twitter hashtags to Black Lives Matter to “defund the police” becoming a catchphrase. This incredibly nuanced conversation means an indescribable amount to me and I am thrilled we’re in a place where we can finally have it. I don’t claim to be a police abolitionist (ahem, yet) but I do feel great relief in having read work like Purnell’s essay collection.
“Abolition, I have learned, is a bigger idea than firing cops and closing prisons; it includes eliminating the reasons people think they need cops and prisons in the first place.”
It gives me words to feelings I’ve had my entire life; ones I suspect I may have been born with. I quite dislike the quick acronyms that provide such easy advocacy for people who don’t quite know how to back it up. ACAB doesn’t mean anything and neither does “defund the police” at this moment in time, particularly when the folks who spout those things out don’t often have to knowledge or explanation to back it up.
A short answer is this: What if the solution is not one alternative, but many?
What does mean something is the ideas that abolitionists have had for centuries. Like most things, this isn’t new, from police violence and terrorism to people who know the only way to true freedom is to abolish the system. We just have to breathe, ask questions, and learn. I’d highly encourage y’all to read this book and if you don’t have the capacity, this is a good entry point into her work.
[nonfiction, essays, politics, law enforcement studies, written by a Black American lawyer, organizer, and author, longer read]
The Night They Vanished by Vanessa Savage (2022) | Quick summary: A little thriller about the dark web and hometown secrets.
I am very happy to offer a brief review of Savage’s latest thriller! Shoutout to Grand Central Publishing for sending me a copy to be featured here in Completely Booked, especially as I tend not to go for thrillers without a little encouragement. There are lots of twists and turns in this story about someone haunted by their past and I found it to be very fun and believable. When Hanna realizes her family is being threatened on someone’s “dark tourism” website, it unleashes a whole slew of secrets and important revelations. The thing I liked most about The Night They Vanished is the commentary on true crime and how so much of it dishonors and disrespects the families of the folks involved in those stories. “And was it worth it? Wallowing in the misery of all the victims’ families, parading their pain all over the internet — was it worth it?” The Night They Vanished is out this Tuesday, May 3rd! Buy it at Grand Central, your local bookstore, or anywhere but Amazon!
[fiction, dark thriller, written by a white Welsh author, medium read that goes quick]
Nobody but Us by Laure Van Rensburg (2022) | Quick summary: A romantic trip between two lovers is not at all what it seems…
This suspense novel has serious You vibes. There’s a mysterious, familiar scent. Dad stuff. The concept of what a “good guy” looks like. There’s being turned on by knowledge of pretentious and cliched literal classics. There’s the all-too-familiar trope of “student and teacher.” At first glance, I thought Nobody but Us was 50 Shades-esque. I thought it’d be interesting sex, scandal, some kind of heavy taboo. But there are more twists than that. It’s not what it seems and ends up being more of a commentary on those teacher-student relationships than another example of it. Van Rensburg is a passionate writer and this story, though fleeting, is at least a refreshing take on the trope. Very glad that Grand Central Publishing asked me to review this for my newsletter! It’s out now. Check it out at your local bookstore, library, or direct from Grand Publishing.
[fiction, dark thriller, written by a white French author, medium read that goes quick]
[Books I Heard]
Carefree Black Girls: A Celebration of Black Women in Pop Culture by Zeba Blay (2021) | Quick summary: Like the title indicates, a celebration of Black women in pop culture tied into Blay’s personal experiences.
The range of Black women in pop culture that Blay manages to dissect in this book is impressive. We get Cardi B, we get Josephine Baker, we get Blay herself. I really appreciated how Blay paid respect to Black women who have had such influence over our culture while not blindly praising them. Everyone can be problematic. The conversation is about more than that. Also, everything Blay says about the memeification of Breonna Taylor is accurate and extremely cringey to listen to two years later.
[nonfiction, cultural studies, written by a Ghanian-American culture and film critic, shorter listen, read by the author]
[What I Recommend]
If you have ever said “defund the police” or ACAB and/or want to learn more about that pesky question, “without police, who would we call for _____”: Becoming Abolitionists by Derecka Purnell
More next month! Or if you pay for the alternate version of this newsletter, “You Paid for This,” see ya soon.
