All Aboard the ARC: We Deserve Monuments by Jas Hammonds

***Note: I received a free digital review copy of this book from NetGalley and Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group in exchange for an honest review. I have not received compensation for the inclusion of any links for purchase found in this review or on any other page of The Voracious Bibliophile which mentions We Deserve Monuments, its author, or its publisher.***

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Review

You know who really deserves a monument? Jas Hammonds, for writing such a breathtaking, heart-stopping, rip-out-your-soul-and-stitch-it-back-together-into-a-magnificent-tapestry gem of a book. I have been struggling for something like a month now to write a review that would do this book justice and you know what? It’s just not possible. So I want you to take me at my word when I tell you that We Deserve Monuments is *the* book you have to read when it comes out later this year. Actually, go ahead and preorder it right now. I’ve already got my copy pre-ordered. It is a testament to Queer Black girls everywhere and a shining example of how love can bring people together, how it can heal the deepest of wounds even when the odds are stacked against them. Rarely does a book contain near-equal doses of mystery, romance, and adventure, but Jas Hammonds understood the assignment and got the mix just right.

Rarely does a book contain near-equal doses of mystery, romance, and adventure, but Jas Hammonds understood the assignment and got the mix just right.

Avery Anderson has a plan. That plan involves staying focused on her studies and getting in and out of her mother’s hometown of Bardell, Georgia as fast as she can. Her plan is to get into Georgetown and study astronomy like her mother, Zora. Moving from Washington, D.C. to Podunk MAGA country at the beginning of her senior year was not in the plan at all, but when her mom receives a letter from her old friend and neighbor Carole that reveals her Mama Letty is dying, the whole Anderson family uproots their lives to go and care for her in her last months.

Avery knows very little about her Mama Letty, especially since her mother never talks about her. Their first meeting doesn’t go very well. When Mama Letty nicknames her Fish after spotting her lip ring and questions whether or not she’s a lesbian now, Avery is ready to run not walk back to D.C. Mama Letty is cantankerous, gruff, and has her walls up so high not even Jericho could compare. How is Avery supposed to get to know someone who won’t even talk to her other than in grunts and monosyllables?

At the same time, Avery was hoping for a break from her old friends Kelsi and Hikari, but she didn’t envision the break being so permanent. Ever since her breakup with Kelsi, fueled by Kelsi’s racist micro-aggressions about Avery being “barely Black” (she’s biracial), things haven’t been the same. Now that she’s in Bardell, D.C. feels like a completely different galaxy. The rules are different. The scenery is different. The people are different. Who will Avery become if she lets all of it in—and who will she become if she doesn’t? The move throws Kelsi and Hikari’s lives into stark contrast compared to her own and there’s nothing that can be said or done to remedy that. And why should she even try to remedy it when they scoffed at her lip ring? When they begged her not to shave her head? When they minimized and tried to erase her Blackness from the equation of her identity? What’s the point of being friends with people who don’t want you to be the most authentic version of yourself possible?

Who will Avery become if she lets all of it in—and who will she become if she doesn’t?

It doesn’t help that something is rotten in the state of Georgia on Sweetness Lane. There’s something that’s being kept from Avery by Zora and Mama Letty, something they don’t talk about but which fuels their arguments and resentments. Avery has vague flashbacks back to when she was little. She can see things being thrown and hear raised voices. She can remember the dissonance of the family fighting while they were supposed to be celebrating Christmas. But neither Zora nor Mama Letty wants to talk about it. No one wants to rip off the bandaid so the wound can heal.

And then there’s Simone, Carole’s daughter. Simone stirs longings in Avery from the first time they meet, but they’re not in Washington, D.C. They’re in Bardell, Georgia, where anti-Black racism and homophobia are alive and well. Thriving, even. Should Avery act on her feelings or tamp them down? Catching feelings for someone new was not part of the plan, but Avery soon discovers that life cares little for our plans.

Catching feelings for someone new was not part of the plan, but Avery soon discovers that life cares little for our plans.

Avery befriends Simone and Simone’s friend Jade. She’s quickly initiated into their friend group and made a part of their rituals. She learns what real friendship looks like, the kind where you don’t have to separate the different parts of yourself out like straining something through a sieve. She also learns that there are weird connections between her family and Jade’s family, who are rich and white and own The Draper Hotel and Spa. In fact, everything in Bardell seems oddly connected to different parts of Avery’s family and their history. Learning hard truths forces Avery to accept that nothing is what it appears to be on the surface and that everyone has something to hide. Will the truths she learns help to heal the fractures in her family, or will Mama Letty die without things being set right? I lost all of my fingernails racing through the pages to find out.

Will the truths she learns help to heal the fractures in her family, or will Mama Letty die without things being set right? I lost all of my fingernails racing through the pages to find out.

It’s so hard for me not to give up too many of the plot details but I just want you to know that I will be talking about this book until it comes out and harassing everyone I know to read it when it finally does.

We Deserve Monuments is due to be released by Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group on November 29th, 2022 and is now available to preorder wherever books are sold.

Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please like, comment, follow, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at fred.slusher@thevoraciousbibliophile.com or catch me on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.

Book Review: Nutshell by Ian McEwan

*Nutshell (Audiobook)* by Ian McEwan and Rory Kinnear (Narrator)

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Review

I’m being generous with three stars. I say this because while I love the way Ian McEwan crafts sentences, there are parts of Nutshell that could have been completely excised and the story would have been all the better for it. This makes the fourth novel by McEwan I’ve read. The first, Atonement, I hold in the highest regard as one of the most finely-crafted novels ever published in the English language. Likewise, On Chesil Beach and The Children Act were excellent reads with a lot to say about the human condition. These other novels had characters which were fully-human and expertly-drawn. In short, they were believable. When I was reading about them and their lives I felt as if I were spending time with people who were real and had something important to say. Not so with Nutshell.

He learns during the course of the novel of a plot concocted by Trudy and his Uncle Claude (Judy’s lover) to murder John Cairncross, his father and Judy’s estranged husband.

Nutshell, which reimagines Shakespeare’s Hamlet as a fetus in his mother’s womb, is narrated by the unnamed fetus. His (the fetus, of course) perception of events and knowledge of the world is based entirely on what he picks up from inside of his mother, Trudy. He also seems to inherently hold the opinions and worldviews of a conservative middle-class Englishman, but we’ll ignore that for now. He learns during the course of the novel of a plot concocted by Trudy and his Uncle Claude (Judy’s lover) to murder John Cairncross, his father and Judy’s estranged husband.

A poet without honor in his own home yet held in high esteem among his peers and acolytes, John lacks the financial success or critical acclaim that would elevate him outside of his own circle.

John Cairncross is a tenderhearted man, an Englishman of the most delicate sensibilities. A poet without honor in his own home yet held in high esteem among his peers and acolytes, John lacks the financial success or critical acclaim that would elevate him outside of his own circle. Claude, however, is John’s antithesis: a crude man of pedestrian tastes and baser instincts, with few concerns above money, sex, food, and drink. He’s a brute wholly convinced of his own virility, disdainful of all who don’t ascribe to his own particular brand of traditional masculinity.

Whether the reward is the inherent pleasure found in the act of reading itself, something worthwhile gained in the reading, or even something else less describable, we all read for a purpose.

We’re meant to dislike him and Trudy as well. But to be perfectly honest, Trudy is the only character in the novel I found to be redeemable. Her flaws are not those which provoke disgust in the reader, at least not this one. Claude and John, and the unnamed fetus, which is presumably male, are each dislikable in their own ways. This is not to say that literature is or should be a popularity contest, it’s just worth mentioning here. Another thing that I thought about while reading Nutshell is the fact that, while all fiction requires the reader to suspend disbelief to one degree or another, this is usually done so that the reader may reap some type of reward. Whether the reward is the inherent pleasure found in the act of reading itself, something worthwhile gained in the reading, or even something else less describable, we all read for a purpose. Oftentimes, we bring multiple purposes to the same text. Information, entertainment, leisure, it doesn’t matter. I didn’t really get anything out of Nutshell.

That’s it in a nutshell.

All Aboard the ARC: HBR Guide to Crafting Your Purpose by John Coleman

***Note: I received a free digital review copy of this book from NetGalley and Harvard Business Review Press in exchange for an honest review. I have not received compensation for the inclusion of any links for purchase found in this review or on any other page of The Voracious Bibliophile which mentions the HRB Guide to Crafting Your Purpose, its author, or its publisher.***

If I’m being honest, I approach most self-help and/or personal growth books with a healthy dose of skepticism. It’s not that I’m a Negative Ned or a Pessimistic Paul, per se. It’s just that the market is so saturated with hundreds (probably thousands) of these titles that contain basically identical content that I can’t help but roll my eyes whenever I see a new one hit the shelves. Even the anti-self-help, cool, trendy, swear word-laden titles have started to reach critical mass. At first it was cool to read these because you could be like, “Look at me! I’m bettering myself but in a cool hipster way. F$&$ yeah!”

Even the anti-self-help, cool, trendy, swear word-laden titles have started to reach critical mass.

Even worse than the typical fare one finds in the Personal Growth section of bookstores are the ones that purport to help you find your true purpose in life. Purpose. Such a heavy word. Just listen to anyone who’s achieved a modicum of success in any given field and they’ll tell you all about how they found their true purpose in life. For the rest of us, these people serve as shining examples of our own glaring mediocrity. If only we could find our purpose, maybe we too could enjoy the level of personal and professional fulfillment that these people have.

Just listen to anyone who’s achieved a modicum of success in any given field and they’ll tell you all about how they found their true purpose in life.

The truth, however, is a little more complex than that. I recently got the opportunity to read and review the HBR Guide to Crafting Your Purpose by John Coleman, published by Harvard Business Review Press. In it, he managed to dismantle some of the skepticism I’ve accumulated over the years through the careful analysis of his own research, plenty of evidence from other reputable sources to back it up, and more than a few real-life examples to provide illustrations for the concepts he lays out in his book. All in all, I was impressed.

Coleman begins his book by discussing the “crisis of meaning” modern society is currently experiencing. Many (if not most) people go to work simply to earn a paycheck. They find no meaning in the work they perform and their days are filled with drudgery and the overwhelming sense that nothing they do matters or provides value. Because of the proliferation of information technologies which allows them to be accessible at all times, they also have no work-life balance. When life is all work and no play, misery quickly ensues.

When life is all work and no play, misery quickly ensues.

One of Coleman’s main assertions throughout his book is that purpose is not something inherent or static. It is fluid and malleable. More than anything, it is something that can be crafted by each individual to provide meaning and happiness in each area of one’s life. It is not always something that one finds, but rather something that can be designed to fit the needs and desires of each individual based on their backgrounds and values.

More than anything, it [purpose] is something that can be crafted by each individual to provide meaning and happiness in each area of one’s life.

Another thing I liked about Coleman’s book are the numerous exercises he included to allow the reader the chance and space to put to work the concepts which he discusses. Whether someone is fresh out of high school or college or already somewhat (or even mostly) established in their chosen career field, I can’t think of anyone that wouldn’t benefit from Coleman’s wisdom.

Whether someone is fresh out of high school or college or already somewhat (or even mostly) established in their chosen career field, I can’t think of anyone that wouldn’t benefit from Coleman’s wisdom.

The HBR Guide to Crafting Your Purpose was released by Harvard Business Review Press on January 11th, 2022 and is available to purchase wherever books are sold.

Quote for the Day: March 30th, 2022

Do one thing every day that scares you.
Eleanor Roosevelt

Quote for the Day: March 29th, 2022

It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.
Oscar Wilde

Quote for the Day: March 27th, 2022

*The Catcher in the Rye: A Novel* by J.D. Salinger

What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn’t happen much, though.
J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye: A Novel

Quote for the Day: March 26th, 2022

Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don’t how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings.
Anaïs Nin

Quote for the Day: March 25th, 2022

*Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls: A Memoir* by T Kira Madden

I can do things like that when I write—pluck any thread of want and weave a whole world.
T Kira Madden, Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls: A Memoir

Quote for the Day: March 24th, 2022

You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.
James Baldwin