When No One Is Watching||Well Read

“HISTORY IS FUCKING WILD.”

And with that, buckle up because Alyssa Cole takes us on a ride!

This year I’ve read two of Alyssa Cole’s contemporary romance novels so when I heard she was publishing her first thriller, I was excited to read it!

When No One Is Watching follows Sydney, a New York native, as she becomes increasingly uncomfortable with the gentrification going in Gifford Place, the Brooklyn neighborhood where she grew up. After taking a walking tour of a place that she knows like the back of her hand, Sydney, unhappy with the whitewashing of it’s history, decides to put together her own tour. She wants to focus on the black and brown people who originally settled in the area and highlight all of the achievements of the community. Theo, one of her new neighbors who arrives with the first wave of Gifford Place gentrification, volunteers to help her do more background research. Over the course of a few weeks, strange things start to occur. Sydney is struggling to put her life back together after her divorce while caring for her terminally ill mother. The heat, stress, and sleepless nights have her on edge. Is she seeing things or is something diabolical happening in Brooklyn?

I really, really enjoyed this book! I waited until I was about half finished to read any reviews and I limited them to non-spoiler ones. I believe some of the negative opinions of the book had to do more with the marketing of it than the book itself. It’s being sold as a thriller. I don’t think it’s a thriller-at least not by traditional standards. This leans more toward horror. Let me say this, I’m not a fan of horror. I don’t want to watch it. I don’t want to read it. I definitely would have had reservations about reading it if it was marketed to me as horror. I don’t know the ins and outs of publishing and which kinds of books get more sales but if I had to guess, I’d say that the thriller audience is larger and perhaps publishers were looking to get a piece of that market.

I think if you approach the book as horror or a dystopian thriller(is that a thing?)you’ll have fewer issues with how the plot unfolds. The reader needs to be able to suspend belief in a way that you don’t when reading standard thrillers.

At times this book was difficult for me to read. I’m not often triggered by books but the microaggresions and flat out racism were often hard to process. Cole’s exploration of racism and the ways gentrification impact black and brown neighborhoods feels a timely despite it’s fantastical elements. These things are a part of history and still happening across the country.

The trauma of Sydney’s abusive marriage is also woven troughout the story. Sydney is a beautiful and smart woman. It is clear that her ex husband has robbed her of self confidence. The gaslighting she endured in that relationship is one of the reasons she has doubts about the things happening around her She no longer trusts her own instincts. That part of the character resonated deeply with me.

This was a (strong) 4 star read for me! I can’t wait to read more Alyssa Cole.

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Read more about racism and redlining here

Read more about how gentrification effects black communities here and here

Birthday Girl||Worn

Today I Turn 47! Forty-fucking-Seven. I remember being so young that I thought anything over 30 was basically the same as being 70. My how the times have changed.

No fancy date night out this year or drinks with friends but I feel remarkably happy to be here! I’m focusing on appreciating my life in the present and starting to (once again)to make plans for the future. Cheers to another year around the sun!

June Book Chat and July Reading Plans

Unlike May, June ended up being a pretty great reading month. Instead of sticking to the books I’d picked out, I simply read whatever the hell I felt reading! June was also the month that I fell down the romance novel rabbit hole and I’m not mad about it. Last month the world was intense and it seemed like there was some sort of twisted competition to plunge us deeper into the raging dumpster fire that we’re calling 2020 and I just needed to escape. And if escape is what you need, romance novels whether they be regency, contemporary or anything in between, will provide!

Anyway, my favorite books of last month could not be more different! Get A Life, Chloe Brown, is a contemporary romance. The main character, Chloe, is a plus-size, black Brit from a well off family who has had a bit of a sheltered upbringing. She decides to move out of the family home and get a life. The superintendent of her new building is a tattooed, Scotsman with a heart of gold. This book is sweet, funny, and high key steamy! I love the way the interracial relationship dynamic was handled as well as the depiction of a main character who also suffered from an invisible chronic illness.

My other five star read was the nonfiction book, The Cooking Gene by Michael W. Twitty. This was sort of a reread for me. I started reading it when it was initially published but didn’t get to finish it before it was due back at the library. This was one of my picks to read during the Queer Blackathon-a readathon hosted from June 19-21. I absolutely adored this examination of history and family told through the author’s exploration of food. I cannot recommend this book enough!

As for my(very very late!) July reading plans, I’ve picked up the magical and epic, The Starless Sea. Three lighter reads, the cozy mystery, A Deadly Inside Scoop, The Boyfriend Project, a contemporary romance, and The Bookish Life of Nina Hill. I also picked up two highly anticipated works of literary fiction, Real Life and How We Disappeared.

How is your summer reading? Have you picked up anything you loved yet?

Teenage Dream|| Worn

This is a full circle fashion moment.

“My god, are we gonna be like our parents?” *bonus points if you know the movie ;)

I’m fairly certain I wore this exact outfit nonstop the summer between seventh and eighth grade. The sneakers were probably K-Swiss instead of Adidas. The watch was definitely analog by Swatch. And the shorts were, if memory serves, a little bit longer. I went through several decades thinking my thighs were too big to see the light of day. One of the many things I’d tell my younger self is to wear less clothing!

We aren’t leaving the house too often. But, our library finally reopened and I occasionally get to take a solo trip to pick up books. And for a second, it feels a little bit like how life used to be.

Evolution

Right after my mom passed away I remember obsessively searching for quotes and articles about grief. I think in those first weeks I was searching for a connection to anything that would indicate that what I was experiencing was survivable.

It’s only fitting that the quote that I wrote down in my journal one gray January day feels so right for this evolution.

“Grief does not change you, Hazel. It reveals you.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

It just felt like the time for change. I can’t keep waiting for me to manifest perfection so here it goes.

Poppy and Gray is now The Bibliostyle, the place where books meet style. Let’s see what happens next!

New Instagram

Bookish Diversions || June Reads

I’m doing a little self-care this week and cutting back the time I spend on social media because I’m exhausted!

When things are too much, I do what I always do, retreat into books. There’s a ” book covers inspire my outfits tag” floating around Youtube. I thought I’d give it try by combining it with my June TBR list. So here are a few looks I pulled together inspired by the 5 books I plan on reading this month.

Click here to find out how you can help in the fight for justice.

Black Lives Matter

I’ve opened my laptop to begin the process of writing several posts. Nothing seems right. The world is on fire and everything is intense- heavy. There have been things happening that enrage me but I’m not sure how to talk about it here, in this space. I’ve always seen this space as a bit of a safe haven. A place where I can indulge in all of the things that make me feel my most authentic self. But, how do you do that when the brutality of the real world is knocking at your front door? Currently, my most authentic self is one filled with rage and sorrow, fear and exhaustion.

In the past few weeks we’ve seen a young black woman, Breonna Taylor, gunned down in her own bed asleep as the police served an unlawful warrant on the wrong address. We’ve seen video footage of the modern-day lynching of Ahmaud Abrey. Huxley Stauffer, a young Chinese adoptee was discarded by what he thought was his forever family when they decided their autistic son was too much to deal with. And, finally, we watched those excruciating 8 minutes it took for a police officer to murder George Floyd.

Dr. Martin Luther King wrote this in 1969 and I can’t help but think how little has changed in the last 50 years…

“ …I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. Certain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity. And so in a real sense, our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.”

Black lives matter. Black trans lives matter. Black love matters. Black mental health matters. Black art matters. Black dreams matter. Black future matters.

Click to donate: https://minnesotafreedomfund.org/

Book Chat || Such A Fun Age( a rant and a review)

A lot of us have more free time right now. One of the ways I’m keeping my brain occupied is by diving deep into my TBR(to be read) list. I managed to read five books in March which I haven’t done for a very long time! I loved two of them. I liked two of them. This one I HATED!

Such A Fun Age by Kiley Reid is a novel that had a lot of buzz around it, especially after it was chosen as a selection for Reese Witherspoon’s book club. The story revolves around two female characters, Alix, a 30 something wealthy white woman, and Emira, her 25-year-old black babysitter. It’s a book that promises to deliver insights into the transactional relationship between wealthy white people and the women of color often hired to love and care for their children. Exploring that complicated relationship and getting the point of view of both of these characters seemed promising. There was no reason that I didn’t think I would love this book.

The book opens with a scene that has become all too familiar. A young black woman is in a Whole Foods-ish type grocery store with her young charge. The security guard questions why this black woman would be with a white child late at night and accuses her of kidnapping. The entire thing is filmed by a bystander on his cell phone. If you thought this incident would drive the plot of this book you would be mostly incorrect.

Emira is mortified by the interaction and even more disgusted at the thought of posting it on social media which was suggested to her by the good samaritan. It does, however, set off some internal conflict in Alix. She becomes terrified that Emira, the only one who seems to be able to connect with her 3-year-old Briar, will quit or even worse, think they’re racist! In order to keep Emira happy, Alix decides to learn more about her and immediately and awkwardly begins to ask Emira all manner of personal questions- about friends, nights out- and when she can’t get more info without seeming entirely too obvious, she takes to gleaning info by checking Emira’s lock screen on her phone. She’s able to learn more about the babysitter’s taste in music, the relationship she has with her sibling and the flirtation between Emira and a new guy.

This is my first issue with this book. Alix is awful. I don’t think that all protagonists need to be good people. In fact, I find women characters who are emotionally complex and even unlikeable often make for compelling reads. Alix is not complex. She has imposter syndrome. Who doesn’t? There is a bit of background story given to make us more empathetic to her internal struggle. However, Alix is in her mid30s and I don’t think that high school drama would impact someone’s behavior so completely. I never understood why she was doing the things she did.

And there was Emira. This character and the scenes where she interacts with her girlfriends are so stilted and seem so inauthentic, I double-checked to see if the author was black. I have a 25 year old daughter and those conversations sound nothing like the snippets I hear when my daughters are hanging out with their friends. Other than the dread Emira feels about her upcoming birthday because she’ll be kicked off of her parents’ insurance and her romance with the bystander of the grocery store incident, we don’t learn much about Emira. We never learn why she hasn’t let her parents know she babysits for extra money especially since it’s not only a job she loves but it’s actually one she excels at. We never learn why she doesn’t want that moment to go viral. And, other than the white lady white ladying notion, we never really learn what she thinks about her previously detached employers suddenly taking a keen interest in her life. I just wanted more from this character. I think that if we’d been given more it would have made the story much more interesting.

And now we come to the reason I ended up hating this book. Alix has a group of girlfriends. Tamra is the “black friend”. She is the point person on blackness for these women. Tamra is the new model for wokeness. She sports her hair in shoulder-length locs. She is well educated and the principal of a prestigious prep school in Manhattan. Her twins sport full, curly afros and speak fluent French. Despite her perceived “wokeness” she exhibits so much antiblackness towards Emira that I was legitimately pissed by the end of the book.

There is a scene toward the end of the book where Alix is unsure about her perception of a situation. She looks to her friends for their opinions and when one of the other women implies( in the nicest possible way!) that Alix’s whiteness may be contributing to how she’s perceiving the issue, Tamra steps in and co-signs Alix’s garbage choice! Really, girl! I have amazing friendships with white women and I think one of the reasons is because they know I will call them out on their privilege in a heartbeat. When you love people you want them to be better, to know better and to do better. Tamra became the black friend white women will use to excuse their behavior and I could not believe she was written by a black author.

The only thing I liked about the book was the relationship between Emira and the little girl she babysits, Briar. I loved the way Emira was able to see the person Briar was and give her what she needed. Riley was able to portray the conflict some of the women hired to care for children may feel. Perhaps the situation is not the best for them but a lot of them will ultimately stay on longer because they feel a responsibility to those kids.

I really wanted to love this book, perhaps that’s why I was so deeply disappointed by it. Have you read it? What did you think?

The New Normal

In the month since my last post, the world has changed for all of us.

How are you all doing? Right now is a lot! Like we’re living in some sort of collective fever dream. My anxiety throws me into overdrive. I can’t sleep. I can’t stop refreshing news sites. I check Twitter. I watch news conferences on YouTube and the daily briefings from the governor . And then, I avoid everything and pretend it’s not happening. That it’s a vacation, complete with mid-morning dance parties and early evening cocktails. I’m hoping in the coming weeks to find some sort of balance. If The Good Place taught us anything, it’s that living in limbo is it’s own kind of hell!

I’m establishing a new routine for us. But, I’m also saying yes to lazy days and ignoring my to do list when we need it. I’m trying to stay informed. But, I’m also choosing to spend a chunk of the day off line listening to music and reading books. We’re doing some school work with Rowan. But, I know that I’m not an educator and I need to redefine what success looks like in these extraordinary circumstances. I’m also recognizing the privilege in slowing down and taking my time to process as I know many people are still out there as essential workers or now working from home and taking on the additional responsibility of educating their kids while doing so.

I’m not even sure what I’m trying to say except that I’m thinking of you and hoping that you are all safe and staying healthy. Cut yourself some slack for not being able to do it all or not wanting to do anything. In this new normal, getting through the day is a job well done.

Worn || Happy

Sadness and grief make the world look different. Everything is the same but different. The world keeps moving. Life, as they say, goes on. The sun isn’t shining but the temperature is blessedly warm for a mid-western winter. So, I’m keeping things simple- a favorite sweater, jeans, sneakers and a coat from my mom.