Tag: Book Report

Black Culture Month Part 1

Posted on by Warren Dalton

I love Black culture. I love BLACK CULTURE!!! Sorry I just had to say it again because I really do and I love being able to say this. I wanna scream it from the top of my lungs but, that is probably still frowned upon in most places.

Black History Month 2021 has been, without me realizing it, me going out of my way to absorb content by Black content creators. And it’s been a like a warm hug. I’ve read books, watched television, listened to podcasts and music… It really has been a beautiful month. I want to make a few recommendations if you want to live out the rest of BHM as I did. I hope you are enjoying, learning, and consuming a lot this month.

A Love/Hate Thing by Whitney D Grandison was a wonderful surprise. I wasn’t really in the mood for a Highschool romance when I picked it up but, as it got going I couldn’t put it down. Every chance the book could’ve gone with cliches and made characters props or dimensional they didn’t. Things took place over time so you could get neck-deep into the group’s struggles.

The book let me make judgments about the characters only to point the finger at me for making those snap judgments. A lot of the book is about the things we automatically think about others and how we don’t always know their pain. I’ve read a bunch of books since this and I just can’t get it out of my head. I’m pretty sure I’m gonna pick it up again and from me, that’s high praise because I rarely read anything multiple times.

Band’s image from Bandcamp.

Meet Me @ The Altar has kept me a float on the tough days at work. I love the crashing sounds that remind me of my youth but, also have a kind of hopefulness that was missing from that old school Pop punk scene. The band is made of three Black women and it sounds just like the early 2000’s version of Paramore but, with just a litte edge. The song “May the Odds Be in Your Favor” has definitely struck a cord with me and “Garden” sweeps me into a head rocking, feet stomping, angst but, in a good way. I just love seeing my people in a genre that just never felt like was for me, y’know?

One Night in Miami was beautifully acted and written. Just knowing it’s Regina Kings directorial debut has me floored because each scene grips me and holds my attention even with the play aesthetic. Aldis Hodge, Leslie Odom Jr., Kingsley Ben-Adir, and Eli Goree do an amazing job showing  Jim Brown, Sam Cooke, Malcom X, and Cassius Clay at this point in their lives and ultimately their activism. Watching these actors stand not get swallowed up by the dialouge that could move mountains it was a treat.

Official Promotion Poster

Each man has a different viewpoint, and comes from a different place and throught talking (mostly arguing) they begin to see the Black struggle in different ways. Learning from eachother to become better leaders and clear the way for for others. It also shows just how much hasn’t changed from even before the Civil Rights Movement. These men were pioneers and it felt amazing to be a fly on that wall in that room.

Jim Brown’s first scene floored me watching him sit down with a man who sung his praises just for it to end in such a way… It was a cold shower of realization. Aldis Hodge played it perfectly to a letter and got me interested in man I didn’t honestly know that much about. The living man enjoys the film and I don’t want to ever know if this really happened or not. A great perhaps.

There’s a lot more I could say and there’s even more to talk about so I’ll leave this one here and I’m thinking about doing a part two so look out for that. So what else have you all been doing to educate, consume, and create this Black History Month? Checking my blog might be a start but, I hope you are keying into all the culture we have to offer. Good luck, Readers.

All images hold original copyright, no copyright infringement meant.

Famous Last Words (Looking for Alaska review)

Posted on by Warren Dalton

I remember when I first read Looking for Alaska. It wasn’t the first time my heart had broken from a book but, it was one that would be with me for a long time. I decided to pick up Looking for Alaska again before the show came out and I’m so glad I did. I don’t usually read books multiple times but, something about Alaska got me to read everything John Green ever published. Something about his writing about way too smart teens and overly elegant speech patterns made me secretly want to be a character in his books. They were perfect. Damaged just enough to be lovable. Using big words and perfectly exposing introspective ideals that even if they don’t fit perfectly they convey so much more about the character. You can tell this made me sound not only extremely pretentious but, incredibly annoying. (I apologize to everyone who knew me back then and a few who know me now.)

I fell in love with his characters and I think so far Paper Towns is my favorite by far. Margo Roth Spiegelman is awesome because no one writes about even fluffy women as if they’re desirable. She’s intelligent, daring, and just the person to get me out of my shell like she did for Quentin. Looking back that might have been a bit pathetic. It’s about putting people on pedestals a bit like Looking For Alaska. It’s definitely something I needed to hear when I was growing up.

The thing I like now about John Green’s writing is that the love interest is always a person. They have things they have wants and needs and an entire life without the MC in it. Which brings me to Alaska Young (Kristine Forseth). In the book, she was flirty and mysterious and we never got a look into who she was. Pudge (Charlie Plummer)thought she was perfect and so did we. Everyone’s perfect Manic Pixie Dream Girl.

Returning to the book this last week, I felt bad for Alaska. Knowing what happens to her and really listening to her this time though she broke my heart. Not because of her sudden exit from our lives but, that she was really and truly failed by the people around her. She asked for help with every breath and no stopped to even ask her if she was okay. I remember being like that when I was really going through depression badly. Literally telling anyone who would listen about the pain I was in. I knew I wasn’t faking it well enough for people not to notice but, no one stepped in when there was time to spare for them to save her. Her boyfriend Jake also must have had a terrible time in the book but, we never see what he went through even though they were still together and he’s on a phone call with her only an hour before she dies.

The show takes what is about a six hour audio book to read and blows it up into a full television series. It takes away a bunch of the mystery showing scenes that are completely from Alaska’s point of view and really show us in more ways than one what she was really going through. I think they were trying to make her a more three-dimensional character but, I feel it took a little away from the latter half of the book. It’s only two episodes which encompass the mystery that is Alaska young and kind of ends in an anti-climatic breeze. Maybe it’s not about why she died instead, about the person who died and the spot they used to take up in their lives.

Thank you Tanya Lao for probably the only good picture of these two.

Chip (Denny Love) to me was way more impactful to me in the show. Whereas in the book even though the things he got Pudge to do were engaging Colonel himself wasn’t. We understand he’s mad at the rich people for being rich and being assholes we don’t really get to much more of him than that. He’s angry and he holds grudges. In one of the best additions to the story, we get the Cottilion scene. For the first time, we actually see Chip as a multi-faceted individual. He tells his friends there is a truce during the debutant ball and it’s about Sara (Landry Bender). And it was so heartbreaking watching him come to her rescue for him to be shot down so publicly. I knew I was invested in the show seeing them sitting in the downpour of the sprinklers. And she knows and understands him so well at that moment… It was such a beautiful scene between the two of them. It just hurt to watch them inevitably break up. And watching her get together with Longwell felt like such a betrayal to the audience as well.

One of the major problems I have with this adaptation is the way they handled Takumi (Jay Lee). I think Jay Lee’s performance is spot on my problem I guess is how his character doesn’t really get his moment to shine. In the show, it’s only hinted that he may have feelings for Alaska. In the book, when it comes to light, he says one of the most impactful lines of the book it really frames the whole thing differently. “You don’t have a monopoly on Alaska.” He basically tells Miles he doesn’t own grief. Her memory doesn’t live and die with him. That really hit me ten or so years ago and it was kinda sad not having this scene in the show. It really repositions the book and shows how there’s a bunch more going on in scenes that we didn’t see. Takumi keeping his last memory of her to himself was also a good character moment.

The final character I want to highlight is Mr. Hyde (Ron Cephas Jones). If I’m being frank I don’t know how to talk about him. His backstory is so sweet it makes my heart full and every time he came around I’d hang on his every word. He has always been the wise man in the book but, even more, now he has already to some degree walked all their paths and feels a bit of his own regret that he couldn’t save Alaska.  In the miniseries, it’s shown even more how much it pains him to write her question on the board and what it means to see it there.

There’s probably a lot more I want to say about Looking for Alaska. It’s definitely a book I’m gonna keep with me for a long time. I love stories about mental health because I feel that talking about things always makes the burden a little lighter. Like in the book, we all have our crosses to bear but, I think talking about them can put a new perspective on them. Quoting one of my favorite games… “The world ends with you.”

Book Report April 30th 2018

Posted on by Warren Dalton

Tomi Adeyemi’s Children of Blood and Bone is an excellent book I wish I had gotten into it when it first came about but, now that I finally have I’m recommending it to everyone  It has all the tenants of YA fantasy and adds a bit more. I said it before on twitter

This book fills in some of the pieces I’m looking for I can’t get enough of the different magics and even though it uses soft magic which is something I’m not always a fan of and forms a world around it that makes the whole thing startlingly compelling.

Zélie Adebola is one of our main point of view characters and she lives with an undeniably defining trait in her white hair and dark skin. She and the people like her diviners are people chosen by the gods to wield magic. Except the magic is all gone none of the diviners have the power to do things like raising the dead (You all know why that was of particular interest to me.), controlling the elements, healing, and even causing disease. The reason, was on a night eleven years ago magic dried up and the king’s men fled the cities and killed those already awakened to their powers.

I have to assume Tomi knew what she was doing by making all of the diviners’ dark skin people while those without power but, of royal descent were of a lighter skin. By doing this she points a finger squarely at the subculture of colorism. Colorism the thought that people with skin closer to white are somehow better, more attractive, and for some reason more sought after. No spoilers but, she goes from a type of animosity at the world for her skin tone and those of others that made them somehow more noble, to finding a way to talk about loving hers as well as those of people seen above her. I feel like this for anyone who has ever had negative thoughts about their skin tones will see it in thoughts reflected by this book.

Each of the point of view characters has an arc here while some are more pronounced than others there’s no one gets left behind. The plot is very straightforward and tight but there’s more than enough to expand the world and show there’s a lot more to see. I need another installment of what I hope is a much longer franchise.

Honestly, if you don’t like books that talk about real things in a way that is accessible to people, then I’d say still pick it up. It’s still an awesome story with diverse characters and looks into a setting we don’t usually get in fantasy. Tomi Adeyemi has written a book that not only did I love to read and suggest to others but, a book that is just what YA needs right now.

PS, I listened to this on in audiobook form and I loved the voice acting of Miss Bahni Turpin. She did so much with each of the characters that each one felt so unique and polished I thought I was in a room full of them.