books Archives – Janshea Bowens

Books for February 2019

A few days into February and I thought it would be good to share some of the books I am looking forward to. These four books, coming this month, are set to be great reads. Here are my sought after books for February.

1. On the Come Up by Angie Thomas

On the Come Up is Angie Thomas’ sophomore offering. Her first book, The Hate You Give, was a bestseller that was made into a film. Ms. Thomas writes biting fiction that reflects the often dangerous world of young black kids. On the Come Up was published on February 5th and tells the story of young Bri striving to be a great rapper. Her road to stardom is fraught with looming homelessness, and the reality of becoming who you are meant to be. Furthermore, it seems to be a honest look at the struggle of staying solvent when you are poor and working class.

2. An Unconditional Freedom by Alyssa Cole

An Unconditional Freedom is the third and last installment of Ms. Cole’s Loyal League series. These books take place during the time of the American Civil War and centers on slaves and freed slaves interacting in the turmoil of the times. In this book, we meet a freed man who is kidnapped and sold into slavery. He is eventually freed and joins the Loyal League, a collection of spies working to take down the Confederacy. I have enjoyed the first two books, which you can find here, and look forward to An Unconditional Freedom. Only problem is I have to wait until February 26th!

3. Separate by Steve Luxenberg

This book has a long subtitle, and I didn’t think it would fit in the heading. Specifically, Separate: The Story of Plessy v Ferguson, and America’s Journey from Slavery to Segregation, is the actual title. I wonder why that couldn’t have been shortened. It is a mouthful! This Supreme Court case ushered in the devastating idea of “separate but equal”. And if you know anything about American history, you know how disastrous that was. It set a dangerous precedent with far reaching implications. The book covers around 50 years in the lives of those involved with the case. It sounds fascinating for this history fan and drops on February 12th.

4. The Source of Self-Regard by Toni Morrison

I adore reading Toni Morrison. Her books always stretch my brain and makes me feel. A really huge deal in my world. This latest book, due February 12th, is a bit of a history of Toni Morrison collection. It includes essays, speeches, and meditations from the author over the past 40 years. That’s also its subtitle. The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations is the full name. Ms. Morrison has a sharp mind and a sweeping view on race and how it impacts us. I’ve never read her nonfiction work, so I look forward to this peek into her mind.

Review-Archangel’s Viper

Hey there! It has been a moment, but I just wanted to drop in with a quick review of the latest Guild Hunter novel, Archangel’s Viper. Archangel’s Viper is the 10th installment in Nalini Singh’s Guild Hunter series. This is not the latest book, because I am behind in the series.

The Series

The Guild Hunter series is a paranormal world much like ours. Archangels are the pinnacle here. They are mostly beautiful and always deadly as they oversee other immortals and the humans. The Guild Hunters are those whose job it is to hunt down rogue vampires who break the contracts they have with these archangels.

The Story

Venom is one of the elite guard of the archangel of New York, Raphael. Seven of the best vampires and angels are a part of the guard. They have pledged allegiance to Raphael out of honor and a belief in his way of doing things. In this world filled with angels and vampires, Venom is unique. His eyes are like snakes and poison is in his fangs (he’s a vampire). Holly was once kidnapped by a crazed archangel who butchered her friends and left something of himself inside her. She has spent years learning how to live with her personal tragedy and how to control and use her new abilities. She is small and fast and her fangs carry poison too. Holly’s education is led by Venom and they have been like oil and water from the beginning.

Now Holly has come into her own and is also working for Raphael, when Venom returns from a few years abroad and stumbles right into a plot to kidnap her. During the search for the person behind the bounty on her head, Venom realizes that Holly is changing even more and something about it isn’t quite right. Holly is desperately trying to keep him from learning about the malevolent voice in her head. But they don’t yet realize the two are connected. The search brings them closer and they can no longer deny the chemistry they have. Since Venom is aloof and intimidating, while Holly is witty and combative, they have a hard time agreeing on anything. Even the chemistry may not be enough.

The Last Stand

The two find themselves having to breach another archangel’s home in order to save Holly. The cost may still be too high, for she and the voice inside can no longer co-exist. As the cost becomes clearer, Holly and Venom finally give in to the romance they feel. They are hoping the wait wasn’t too long. The epic battle for her life and the continued existence of their world comes to a dramatic conclusion sure to appease the romantics and the adrenaline junkies.

Where To Go

If this book sounds exciting, you can read more about Nalini Singh and her stories by clicking here. You can find the book here. Let me know if you have ever read her work, or if you decide to give her a try.

4 Ideas to Spark Your Creativity

Hello to all my creatives, this post is for you. I mostly write and am working on a new novel. This is slow going, because I am still working on how to structure a story and keep it going till the end. It is much harder than it sounds, but all writers are constantly getting better… what we like to call ‘perfecting our craft’. I imagine many creatives have a similar stance. So, today, I want to talk about a few ways I like to spark, or even reignite, my creativity.

Change of scenery. I work at a desk in my home office and by office, I mean the corner I keep my computer and desk in. Because of have young kids, this doesn’t always lend itself to productive actions. It also means a lot of my writing gets done in the evening, especially during the summer. When I really need to keep going with the story, I like to grab my laptop and try the park or even the ubiquitous coffee shop. Some like it for the people watching, that they then use in their writings. But mostly, I use it as an opportunity to zone out to the sound of my keys and the voice of the story.
Change of story. This might sound counter to what you are trying to accomplish at that time. Yet, often putting down your current project to start or continue another, gives your brain a chance to stretch in a different way. Then when you come back to the current work, your words may flow a bit better. As a writer, my brain is often thinking about characters in the background, so leaving and returning often has given my brain time to work on any problems without me being totally present. It is like when you get those flashes of insight and great ideas when you are in the shower. Mostly, that’s because you are not laser focused on the problem and have moved on. So, then your brain can work out the sticking points.
Change of background. This one sounds weird and really similar to changing your scenery. But I use it in a different manner. Background for me is often the sounds of a home with kids arguing, televisions going, and interruptions even though I am supposed to be in a ‘no talk to Mommy’ zone. Some people write with music and have whole play lists devoted to their book. Or they just use it as white noise so they can focus. If you usually work to background noise, maybe try working in a place where there is no noise. Maybe you will hear that character who couldn’t get through your background. If you normally work in a mostly quiet environment, you can try music, or the television on a channel that doesn’t distract you but, can focus you. You don’t have to have a work in progress (WIP) play list, you could just put on a music genre you enjoy. The different stimuli may spark a new idea or direction, or just focus the one you are on.
Put it down and pick up a book. Sometimes we can get so caught up in the story we are trying to create for the page that when we get stuck, we feel like we can’t stop. We have a goal and are adamant about reaching it. Yet, that isn’t always realistic, so when all else fails me, I pick up a book. Most writers I know love to read, and they don’t just read the types of books they write. Going off into a new world provided by a book just gives me a respite from the work of writing.

Now, these four ideas are certainly not unique and you may have heard of one or all, but I hope you got some new ideas about how you can avoid the occasional burn out of perfection. These are mostly ideas for writers, but I can see where others could adapt the ideas for their own use. Let me know what types of things you use to spark your creativity and keep it alive. I look forward to hearing from you.

3 Books of My Late Summer Reading To-Do List

Have you been reading this summer? I spend a lot of time reading, a host of genres. Really anything that captures my attention I will try. I even have that terrible feeling of guilt to finish books I don’t really like. So, I generally have a never-ending books to read list that grows daily as I find more interesting stories I want to give a try. This summer I meant to catch up on some books I had on my list from earlier in the year and read one parenting book in regards to my 2e children. Well, like many of you probably, summer was a blur of fun, pools, beaches, camps, and video games. While the kids did all of that, I found myself gravitating to quick and fun reads with tons of HEAs. So, I didn’t get to some of those books I originally planned on, but I read other great stories, so it isn’t a bust! Now, as we have only a few weeks before back to school here in Central Florida, I am re-committing to finishing these three books.

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi – this book has had a lot of great buzz. Many writers I enjoy following made me aware of Ms. Adeyemi before the publication in February. Then I saw the viral video of her unpacking her first box of bound books and I knew I wanted to be a part of her expansive love of words. This fantasy tells the story of one girl’s journey to reintroduce magic to her world along with fighting the ruling monarchy. Grand new world with interesting characters and qualities, check. There are wonderful takes on mythology, religion, and culture, so sign me up to be immersed in this newly imagined world where a girl is fighting to save us all. And, it is now a summer read on Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show, which is awesome exposure for the author. This is a must read on my list and I can’t wait to jump into Orïsha through the pages of this novel.
Cedric The Demonic Knight by Valerie Willis – in the vein of transparency, I personally know Ms. Willis but haven’t read her work before. This is the first in the Cedric Series and was published a few years ago. Here we get to go on another adventure into a fantasy world built with folklore, myths, and history from the 12th century. It is filled with beasts and demons, where Cedric battles himself in an epic choice quest. I always find it fascinating the many ways writers use and interpret folklore and myth. I am excited to finally read this fantasy world.
The Explosive Child by Ross W. Greene, Ph.D. – as you know through many of my posts, I have twice exceptional (2e) kids and sometimes that means things don’t go so smoothly. One of the psychiatrists in our lives suggested I read this book to better equip myself and our family with understanding behaviors, identifying triggers, and solving problems in a proactive manner. I have read the first couple of chapters and I see us in almost every paragraph. So, I look forward to reading this popular parenting guide that has been useful to so many others and recommended by those we entrust with our physical and mental health.

Now that I have this goal, I’m planning to finish by September 30th. Stay tuned to see if I can do it.

Books I’m Looking Forward to this January

So, I think we all know I love to read at this point. I have done numerous posts about some of the books and characters I enjoy. Now that it is a new year, I don’t want to talk about resolutions, so let’s talk about a few books I am looking forward to this January as I reset my goals and habits.

J.R. Ward – Blood Fury, releases January 9, 2018. This much-anticipated third installment in the Black Dagger Legacy series actually becomes available on the day of this writing. I stumbled upon the Black Dagger Brotherhood series years ago and was enthralled from the first. This series deals with a race of vampires just trying to live their lives steeped in their antiquated caste system while keeping their identity safe from humans. The Brotherhood is an elite group of warriors led by a king who doesn’t want the throne and tasked with keeping the worse of their society policed as the community is broiled in politics and plots that don’t care about remaining secret. Great world building, great action, and love too! The Legacy series is a spinoff/followup to the Brotherhood that deals with the training of the next generation of warriors. Blood Fury is the story of Peyton and Novo, an unlikely duo of warriors, both out to prove themselves.

Christine Feehan – Judgement Road, releases January 23, 2018. Christine Feehan is prolific and her worlds are full of vampires, shapeshifters, magic users, and those with extrasensory abilities. I have reviewed her writing here on the blog before. This book is the first in a new series called Torpedo Ink. It takes place close to Sea Haven, a town used in both her Drake Sisters and Sisters of the Heart series. There are motorcycles and trained killers, secrets, and love. I look forward to learning a whole new world of these men and women and how they are going to overcome circumstances the rest of us would run from.

Susan Mallery – Sisters Like Us, releases January 23, 2018. Susan Mallery writes great contemporary romances with the sort of real world feeling that makes you feel it could be you and your friends in similar situations. This new book revolves around sisters who appear to be opposites but are grappling with similar problems involving kids and their mother. I have a sister and we often feel dissimilar even though we love each other fiercely, but we have certainly felt even closer with adding kids to the mix and with the hi-jinx of our aging parents. I feel this story is one I will relate to in a fun way.

J.D. Robb – Dark In Death, releases January 30, 2018. J.D. Robb is the pseudonym of Nora Roberts and the vastly different books she rights under the two names has always fascinated me. Robb writes a close futuristic crime thrillers featuring the bitingly literal Eve Dallas and the people who inhabit her life as a police lieutenant in New York. These circle includes her mysterious husband Roarke, a thief turned billionaire business guru. This marks the 46th book in the series and most of the joy, for me, comes from Eve’s confusion over everyday sayings and items along with her keen mind for crime and seeing her dragged kicking and screaming into friendships. In this installment Eve is trying to find a killer employing scenes from an author’s stories. It sounds similar, but I am sure it will be fun anyway!

Ronen Bergman – Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations, releases January 30, 2018. I have never read a Ronen Bergman book, but the title and premise of this one caught my attention. I love the fictional Israeli Mossad agent, Gabriel Allon, written by Daniel Silva. I have reviewed him on the blog, here. So, this real account of how Israel’s Mossad agents use something I have only read about in fiction sounded like my kind of book. I look forward to reading it.

An Intro to Bosch World

I am late to the party. I don’t mind being late to new, to me, characters. I love discovering people I want to read about, learn about, and spend time with. Because when you are reading a book series, it is like watching a television or movie series. In visual arts, you are waiting for next week, or maybe next year to see what happens next. In books, we have longer, sometimes just months but often a year or more waiting to know what happens to our new friend. Even if the story is wrapped up in the previous book, the life of that person doesn’t end, like yours doesn’t, what comes next and will it be as exciting as the last thing that happened? I get to fly through some of that unknown when I come to a character late in the series. The biggest meaning I am not impatiently waiting to know what happens in the character arc next. The downside, for me, is that I am a pretty fast reader, especially when I am excited about new books, so I sometimes catch-up before the next in the series is ready. Then I am like everyone else, stalking author websites and social media in hopes of learning the exact second the next book becomes available! So, I am late to the Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch party, but there are quite a few, so I should be okay with filling my Bosch world cup without pause for a long while.

Michael Connelly came to my knowledge with The Lincoln Lawyer, which I enjoyed. I didn’t spend a lot of time learning about the author, though, else I would have found Bosch World much sooner. So, when I was perusing my library offerings for an interesting read, I came across a Michael Connelly book that I hadn’t read nor was it involving Mickey Haller. Mr. Haller is the main character in The Lincoln Lawyer. The premise was interesting and he had written something I like before, so let’s give it a try. The Black Echo, the book that introduces us to Bosch World, was a gripping read. I am not gripped by a book and its characters all that often. I love a lot of books and characters but I am not always losing sleep to see what happens next! I was hooked and am spending way too much time reading each book. I am currently on book three, The Concrete Blond. Mr. Connelly is on book twenty, so I hope I don’t get caught up too soon. Though, as I have found after book two, Mickey Haller and Harry Bosch have overlapping lives and I can’t wait to reread the Haller books as they coincide with the Bosch books. It seems to be a vast and interlocking world and those are some of the best kind.

So, Hieronymus Bosch is a man intimately acquainted with violence and being alone. His mother names him after a Dutch painter and he doesn’t know his father. His mother is murdered when he is eleven and he spends the rest of his growing years being shuttled between foster homes and the state-run youth hall. He joins the army and becomes a tunnel rat during the Vietnam War. When he leaves, he joins the Los Angeles Police Department and works himself into a prestigious detective position. But, when we meet him in The Black Echo, he has been demoted and disgraced which sets up the characterization of Harry as a lone shark who is out for the truth, no matter the cost. It is costing him plenty and he seems to be accepting of this truth. Each book, so far, is written on a timeline closely following the previous one. This series writing is really fun because no matter the time between publishing, it feels as if you have missed nothing of the character’s life. You feel intimately connected to their lives and invested in what happens next. I would think it might be good for the writer too, it is like writing how we live, which can lead to an abundance of information and less room to make errors about the people we have written about. Bosch has a highly developed sense of right and wrong, he wants the answer, because the right answer is more important than the political line of the police force. He finds the politics and familial attitude of the department a bit stifling, beneath him, and really I think he has no real idea how to be in a family. He doesn’t have a lot of history of familial bonds, no way to transfer that kind of devotion to a job he sees as very black and white. Now, this in no way means he won’t bend the rules to get to the truth, but he seems to make sure that when he does, they won’t impede on prosecuting the culprit in the end. So, his separation inside the department is its own character because everyone else is in the departmental family, they don’t have any problem with the politics, they go along to get along. Harry being apart is an affront to some and no problem to others. How this impacts each book looms large in the first two books, I look forward to figuring out if it continues to play a part.

These crime thrillers are just the thing for a good story. The twists have been good, the back story is revealed a bit at a time, steadily giving us insight into Harry and how he lives his life and performs his job, which he will tell you is his mission not a job. If you enjoy crime thrillers, or if you are looking for something new to try, give Hieronymus Bosch a go, then let me know if he excites you too… or not!

Readying for NaNoWriMo

If you don’t have any idea what NaNoWriMo means, don’t fear, I will explain and you can read about my first involvement here. NaNoWriMo is an acronym for National Novel Writing Month. It is also a great website where you can be supported in your writing endeavors and share your dreams with other dreamers. At the NaNoWriMo site, you can sign up to participate in writing a novel in one month, track your writing progress, get support, and connect with writers online and in person. If you find yourself signing up, look me up and be my friend, I am JansheaAuthor there.

One of the biggest wins for me last year was discovering the rich bounty of writers in my area, and all the wonderful, supportive ways I could be involved with getting better at crafting stories. In the other months that I am not participating in NaNoWriMo, I can participate with local writers and online ones with the continuing writing camps held and months dedicated to polishing up your new masterpiece.

So, we are only in the month of September, why would I bring up NaNoWriMo now? Well, we have a bit over a month to decide what will be working on in November and many of us are still trying to figure that out. Some of us have pages of ideas and partially fleshed out stories, some of us write works for publishing year round and may know what is next on the schedule. Yet many of us could benefit from a little time to decide on a subject matter and start outlining a broad picture to work from. Now, I am not a huge outliner before writing, but in spending time crafting, I have found it a great help to have an overview of storyline, characters, setting, time, and possibly theme. It is much easier than you might suspect to forget the details when using names, dates, or familial connections. It brings the story to a screeching halt when writers get distinguishing details wrong during the course of a book. Readers are discerning, while the writer sometimes misses things from constantly reading the story. You can probably guess, I found this out the hard way in my own work.

As such, I am starting the thinking, deciding, and big picture work for this year’s NaNoWriMo. I found those little reminders and ‘atta girls’ doled out when participating, really felt good and helped with goal setting. Sometimes writers get lost in all the ideas and have a terrible time focusing. Occasionally I am even paralyzed to inaction from too many thoughts and poor focus. So, if you are like me, try starting now and set some small goals in preparation for the marathon of NaNoWriMo. If you are more put together as a writer than I am, feel free to share your skills in getting there! Either way, I hope you spread your wings with your writing this year. May you soar to a new level in your writing.

I am starting with subject matter. I will spend the next week deciding exactly what subject I plan to tackle this November. What will you work on to prepare for NaNoWriMo? Let me know in the comments. I look forward to hearing from you.

Have You Met Cormoran Strike?

A good friend and fellow bibliophile recently introduced me to the character Cormoran Strike. I was a bit leery because I had heard, as most everyone, that Robert Galbraith author of the The Cuckoo’s Calling, was really J. K. Rowling! I loved Harry Potter along with most of the world and love sharing them with my children now that they are of an age to understand and not be too frightened by the deepening seriousness of the events portrayed. Yet, I had picked up Ms. Rowlings first adult fiction book, The Casual Vacancy and found it ponderous and frankly I haven’t finished it yet! I still keep a note about where I stopped in some weird notion that I will go back to it one day and find it compelling in a way I didn’t the first time. Writing this, I certainly feel like it sounds as if I am never actually going back. But let me tell you readers a secret, I am often compelled to finish what has been left undone and especially after meeting Cormoran Strike, I see myself re-tackling The Casual Vacancy as I impatiently wait on the fourth book of the series.

Anyway, back to what you came for, Cormoran Strike! The Cuckoo’s Calling was the first book to introduce a large, slightly unkempt former Special Investigator for the British military. He storms onto the page at the beginning of the end to a nasty long term relationship and runs right into his new temporary secretary, Robin Ellacott. We are then taking on a ride that gives out slivers of background that has depth for both Cormoran and Robin. Cormoran has been in injured while serving in Afghanistan and as a result his right leg is amputated below the knee. Robin has just become engaged to her long time boyfriend, yet has some mysterious past situation that caused her to drop out of university and second guess her relationship. Robin is secretly thrilled to be working for a private detective while interviewing for permanent jobs, and Cormoran is taken aback that the temp agency had sent another secretary for he had no funds to pay another one. You see, Cormoran has left his beloved, anonymous military career behind and opened his own private detective agency, and frankly things aren’t going so well. Then he is strangely asked to investigate a high profile suicide by the victim’s brother and the rest as they say is golden literary history. The ending will leave you gasping and rushing out to pick up the next installment, The Silkworm.

As Cormoran and Robin are drawn into the often eccentric world of authors and publishers in The Silkworm, I was blown away by the novels within the novel and the climatic unveiling of how this novel in a novel is the key to the killer! I know that sounds weird and confusing but trust me, it was masterful and astonishing to me, as the ‘fake’ novel in the Cormoran Strike investigation is highly detailed, meticulously thought out and researched because it directly correlated to the murderer. My friend, mentioned above, just listened to me gush, or rather read my gushing through my Goodreads review, and assured me that the third installment was even better.

Which lands us at the latest published Cormoran Strike novel, Career of Evil. In it Robin and Cormoran have become friends and partners, while she continues to argue about her job with her fiancé and planning a wedding, they both stalk around the apparent attraction between the two of them. The more they work together in fraught situations, the closer their friendship, respect, and dependency becomes. We can all see the undercurrents of attraction in their thoughts on the page. Cormoran has recognized from the beginning that coming off a tumultuous long term relationship and being around an attractive, smart, and ambitious Robin is not necessarily a good or smart thing to do. The engagement ring on Robin’s hand is like his own private safety net. For Robin, her first meeting with Cormoran certainly didn’t paint him in an attractive light. He is tall, broad, unkempt and apparently sleeping in his office! Yet, as they work to solve cases and build the business, she can see how intelligent and determined he is. He also helps validate her dream of being an investigator. The interplay between them is realistic and entertaining. As they learn more about each other, the more attractive they are too. Who knew the temp secretary hoarded a long denied dream of being an investigator and had the instincts to do well at helping Cormoran with more than the filing and bills? Who knew Cormoran could be pleasant, funny, and understanding since he looked like a roughened tank crashing through life when they first met? The Career Evil brings crime to the door of Cormoran and Robin’s office and directly involves Robin in what appears to be a grudge against Cormoran. His past has netted him enemies and three stand out to him as potential perpetrators he believes the Police should investigate. These suggestions from Strike aren’t taken as well as he would like, he isn’t exactly the police detectives’ favorite person after solving two high profile cases they had originally mishandled. This of course leads him to investigate things himself, along with Robin. Both are going through upheavals in their personal lives, this new case has brought upheaval to their professional lives as well and forces them both to assess the important things a little more closely. The story takes many frightening twists with the main characters front and center in the crime, instead of being sidelined viewers trying to prove a point. Pasts are uncovered, lives are complicated, and Ms. Rowling formulated a criminal answer that had me screaming out loud and hitting my forehead in surprise. But it was the good kind of surprise, because I had been grappling with figuring out who had committed the crime I couldn’t see the tree for the forest (yes, I know that bit is backwards, but read the book and you will get it), much as the characters in the book too. The reveal was a cleverly delivered delight to this reader. Now that I have met Cormoran Strike, I don’t ever want to let him go!

Good news for me and others who love the series, BBC One will be producing a television series entitled Strike about the fascinating world of Cormoran Strike. I read it has also been picked up by HBO for American and Canadian distribution. So, the wait begins, both for the next Cormoran Strike novel and the televised realization of the characters I have come to love.

If this intrigued you into checking them out for yourselves, click on the titles which will take you to Amazon for purchase. If you use them, I will be compensated via the click.

Happy Reading and hopefully short waiting for book four everyone. Cormoran Strike is a winner on my shelf!

Classic Book Review: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

I enjoy going back periodically and reading books I read long ago or are considered classics of literature. Now, to be honest, I can’t remember if I ever actually read One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey before. I do remember seeing the movie adaptation with my grandmother. Spending time with my grandmother watching old movies and television shows is one of the more loved memories I have of her. I have a love of movie musicals, films from the 1930s through the 1950s, and cheesy television Westerns like The Rifleman and Big Valley; all because there was one television and she controlled what we watched and cartoons and kid specific programming only came on Saturday mornings. I know for some reading this, the concept is absolutely unbelievable. There are just so many more options for occupying our kids (for good or bad). So, when I needed a contemporary reading break, this title caught my eye.

The blurb on book read: “In this classic of the 1960s, Ken Kesey’s hero is Randle Patrick McMurphy, a boisterous, brawling, fun-loving rebel who swaggers into the world of a mental hospital and takes over. A lusty, life-affirming fighter, McMurphy rallies the other patients around him by challenging the dictatorship of Nurse Ratched. He promotes gambling in the ward, smuggles in wine and women, and openly defies the rules at every turn. But this defiance, which starts as a sport, soon develops into a grim struggle, an all-out war between two relentless opponents: Nurse Ratched, back by the full power of authority, and McMurphy, who has only his own indomitable will. What happens when Nurse Ratched uses her ultimate weapon against McMurphy provides the story’s shocking climax.”

Now, you know as much as I remembered when I picked it up. It was in many ways a shockingly realistic picture of 1960s mental health in America. This to say, there are horrible medical practises in place such as shock therapy and lobotomies which today no one would think to be a reasonable or acceptable standard of care for the mentally ill. It also includes vernacular of the day which is demeaning to black people. If these ideas are offensive, I certainly suggest not reading the book. But I caution those who dislike reading or studying historically accurate snapshots of the past, those snapshots help us see where we were wrong and how we can hopefully improve. Many also speak to the dichotomy of the big bad nurse who is there to thwart all happiness in the men she is supposed to care for and the boisterous ideal of a “real man” who doesn’t go quietly along with her domination. He blows in and looks around and seems to decide that all these shrugging, quiet men are in need of toughening up to the status quo. But to me, the real gem in this book is the narrator, he is a mixed race man of great stature who we learn early on has been here a long time and is faking at being deaf and voiceless (dumb in the book). The Chief as he is called, is part Native American (the book is not so correct in its wording) and part white and tall, but no one pays him much attention and as such he sees all. His thoughts on the rules and rulers of the medical ward are fantastical such as you might expect from the mentally ill, but they are superb examples of how our actions to assimilate and control can be viewed as a mindless machine, much in the vein of ‘Big Brother’.

The writing is full of imagery and flows in a very conversational tone. You feel like you are sitting in on a secret being whispered and you feel a little honored to be in on it all. There are many characters peppered in the story and you will find yourself horrified, saddened, angry and probably exceedingly invested in what happens to each. This novel gives it all to you and you feel like you are there amidst the white walls and green patient uniforms.

Go checkout One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and be transported as I was. I believe you will be glad you did or you just might be a little upset, that is good too. The writing will stay with you long after the last word is read.

Book Review – The Blackbirds by Eric Jerome Dickey

This was a 500+ page turner that took me a while. I took so long to finish because it was so full of knowledge that sometimes my brain just wasn’t ready. I needed short, sweet, and fun to make it through the day. While The Blackbirds is long, lush, complicated, and both fun and not so much simultaneously. I had to take my time reading the tale of 4 girlfriends living in Los Angeles who happen to be Black and African. They are in their twenties now, but their lives have been intertwined and filled with heartache, despair, turmoil, misunderstandings and the simple human longing for love and understanding. As we go through each of the ladies’ present lives on the occasion of their birthdays, we learn their struggle, their abiding love and support for one another above all and finally their acceptance with themselves.

Kwanzaa, Indigo, Destiny, and Ericka are shaped by bad choices, wrongs perpetuated against them, health issues, familial and cultural ties that don’t always fit, and an abiding friendship that keeps them grounded while allowing them to experiment and figure things out for themselves. This book of life felt so true to me, I felt that the women here could be any group of friends but even more surprisingly me and my friends. The writing about them is lush and full of sentiment that makes you feel for them and root for them. They remind you of your own mistakes and how blessed you are to have been able to move past them. It is a small slice of life that feels immediate and relevant, especially to black women who don’t often see themselves depicted in literature in a way they can relate too.

Towards the end Mr. Dickey gives us a surprising twist that seems to be contradictory, but helps tie the end of the story back together, as you have been separated in each woman’s immediate story. I won’t give out the end, but will say I felt it was brave and left a large feeling of truth in me. I felt I had the answer to the final page and I liked it that way, I liked thinking what I would of the continuing story of Kwanzaa, Indigo, Destiny, and Ericka. I don’t usually like stories that compel you to come to your own conclusion of what the author might mean, but this time, I was right with Mr. Dickey to the end and was pleasantly surprised to be so satisfied at the conclusion.

I will lastly say that these women have appeared at earlier times in their lives in earlier books by Mr. Dickey, as he says in his remarks at the end. I have read other books but don’t really remember these characters and admit it didn’t change my involvement in their current story and I don’t feel I missed anything by not having really ‘met’ them before. I say, if you hunger for a deep read that will speak to you about life and choice and coming back from the brink, pick up The Blackbirds by Eric Jerome Dickey, I don’t think you will be disappointed. Go here for your own copy!