Happy Monday, readers! It’s been a pretty low-key week for me — while I finished a few books, I still haven’t managed to sit down and publish the reviews for them yet. Maybe this week. Last week, I read Kingdom of Souls by Rena Barron, and while the story wasn’t bad, it just didn’t speak to me.
This week, for better or for worse, our schools are opening back up. What this means for me right now is this: how do I put books directly in the hands of the adolescents in our school system? I have an abundance of brand-new books from my personal collection that I’m looking to rehome, and it’s going to be a minute before I get my other book project off the ground.
Perhaps it’s time to visit with the librarians.
On to my reads for this week. First is my personal audiobook, and the other is the audiobook I’m listening to with my wife.
Brittney Morris wrote my favorite book of 2019, Slay. It’s Black Girl Magic, it’s counternarrative about girls, in particular Black girls, in MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role playing games) and the potential they have to create these spaces as safe spaces for themselves. And it’s unapologetically Black, which is something I appreciate. Not that there aren’t points of entry for other readers as well. But as a reader who is also Black, and a gamer, I felt seen.
So naturally, I was stoked when The Cost of Knowing came up on my Libro.fm dashboard as one of this month’s ALCs. If it strikes near a chord as Slay did, I know I’m going to want to put it in the hands of adolescent readers. Here’s hoping I get a copy this summer…
I’ve convinced my wife to pick up Cemetery Boys this week; I’ve been raving about it since I finished it. We’d listen to the audiobook together, but all of the library copies are checked out. So instead we’re listening to a book I’ve seen all over the place but don’t really know too much about. (Also, here’s hoping I get a digital copy soon so I can read ahead.)
the (book) supplier 