Tag: the nickel boys

September Reading Wrap Up + October To-Be-Read

Hello, friends!

As you can tell from the title, I’m here to tell you what I read and what I plan to read. So, let’s get into it!

Wrap Up

Check, Please! Book 1: #Hockey by Ngozi Ukazu

Rating: 4 out of 5.

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Giant Days, Vol. 13 by John Allison

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Promise, Part 1 by Gene Luen Yang

Rating: 4 out of 5.

The Duchess Deal (Girl Meets Duke #1) by Tessa Dare

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Well, it’s four stars across the board. I’d call it a successful reading month, even though 60% of them were graphic novels. IT STILL COUNTS.

If I had to pick a favorite, it would probably be The Duchess Deal by Tessa Dare. A close second is Giant Days by John Allison.

October To-Be-Read

There are three books that I need to finish up:

Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson

“Gripping, tragic, and densely atmospheric, Snow Falling on Cedars is a masterpiece of suspense—but one that leaves us shaken and changed.”

Check, Please!, Book 2: Sticks & Scones by Ngozi Ukazu

“. . . the last in a hilarious and stirring two-volume coming-of-age story about hockey, bros, and trying to find yourself during the best four years of your life.”

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow

“A book that carries the scent of other worlds, and tells a tale of secret doors, of love, adventure and danger. Each page turn reveals impossible truths about the world and January discovers a story increasingly entwined with her own.”

The rest of the books I want to read will probably be mostly sequels, and a thriller to make my list more appealing to the spooky szn lovers.

Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Promise, Part 2 by Gene Luen Yang

“Aang and Katara work tirelessly to prevent a dispute between Fire Lord Zuko and Earth King Kuei that could plunge the world back into war! Meanwhile, Sokka helps Toph prepare her hapless first class of metalbending students to defend their school against a rival class of firebenders!“

The Governess Game by Tessa Dare

“He’s been a bad, bad rake—and it takes a governess to teach him a lesson

The accidental governess.”

Goodnight Beautiful by Aimee Molloy

“. . . comes an irresistible psychological thriller featuring a newly married woman whose life is turned upside down when her husband goes missing.”

That’s about all I have for you in this post. What do y’all plan on reading in October? I’m assuming it’s spooky.

If you enjoyed this, then give it a like and follow my blog. Be respectful and happy reading!

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Top Ten Tuesday: Books on My Fall To-Be-Read List (9/22/20)

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl

Rules:

“I assign each Tuesday a topic and then post my top ten list that fits that topic. You’re more than welcome to join me and create your own top ten (or 2, 5, 20, etc.) list as well. Feel free to put a unique spin on the topic to make it work for you! Please link back to That Artsy Reader Girl in your own post so that others know where to find more information.“

Fall To-Be-Read List

The Exiles by Christina Baker Kline

” . . .an ambitious, emotionally resonant novel that captures the hardship, oppression, opportunity and hope of a trio of women’s lives in nineteenth-century Australia.”

Crazy Stupid Bromance by Lyssa Kay Adams

“A hacktivist and a cat café owner decode the friend zone in this romantic comedy from the author of Undercover Bromance.”

The Library of the Unwritten by A.J. Hackwith

” . . . books that aren’t finished by their authors reside in the Library of the Unwritten in Hell, and it is up to the Librarian to track down any restless characters who emerge from those unfinished stories.“

The Tea Dragon Tapestry by Katie O’Neill

“Join Greta and Minette once more for the heartwarming conclusion of the award-winning Tea Dragon series!“

Hell in the Heartland by Jax Miller

“The stranger-than-fiction cold case from rural Oklahoma that has stumped authorities for two decades, concerning the disappearance of two teenage girls and the much larger mystery of murder, police cover-up, and an unimaginable truth…“

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

“Colson Whitehead brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys sentenced to a hellish reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida.“

The Boys’ Club by Erica Katz

“Sweetbitter meets The Firm in this buzzy, page-turning debut novel—already optioned to Netflix—about sex and power in the halls of corporate America.“

1922 by Stephen King

” . . . a man who succumbs to the violence within—setting in motion a grisly train of murder and madness.“

Goodnight Beautiful Aimee Molloy

” . . . an irresistible psychological thriller featuring a newly married woman whose life is turned upside down when her husband goes missing.“

Paris Never Leaves You by Ellen Feldman

“Living through WWII working in a Paris bookstore with her young daughter, Vivi, and fighting for her life, Charlotte is no victim, she is a survivor. But can she survive the next chapter of her life?“

If you enjoyed this, then give it a like and follow my blog. Be respectful and happy reading!

Book Review: The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

213 pages

ISBN: 9780385537070

Published: 7/16/19 by Doubleday Books

Genre: Historical Fiction

Amazon | B&N

Rating: 4 out of 5.

2020 Pulitzer Prize Winner

Goodreads Synopsis:

As the Civil Rights movement begins to reach the black enclave of Frenchtown in segregated Tallahassee, Elwood Curtis takes the words of Dr. Martin Luther King to heart: He is “as good as anyone.” Abandoned by his parents, but kept on the straight and narrow by his grandmother, Elwood is a high school senior about to start classes at a local college. But for a black boy in the Jim Crow South of the early 1960s, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy the future. Elwood is sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy, whose mission statement says it provides “physical, intellectual and moral training” so the delinquent boys in their charge can become “honorable and honest men.”

In reality, the Nickel Academy is a grotesque chamber of horrors. Stunned to find himself in such a vicious environment, Elwood tries to hold onto Dr. King’s ringing assertion “Throw us in jail and we will still love you.” His friend Turner thinks Elwood is worse than naive, that the world is crooked, and that the only way to survive is to scheme and avoid trouble.

The tension between Elwood’s ideals and Turner’s skepticism leads to a decision with repercussions that will echo down the decades. Formed in the crucible of the evils Jim Crow wrought, the boys’ fates will be determined by what they endured at the Nickel Academy.

The book is based on the real story of a reform school in Florida that operated for one hundred and eleven years and warped the lives of thousands of children.

Review:

Throw us in jail, and we will still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and, as difficult as it is, we will still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our communities after midnight hours, and drag us out onto some wayside road, and beat us and leave us half-dead, and we will still love you. But be ye assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer, and one day we will win our freedom.“

I’ve had my eye on this book for a long time, but I hesitated to pick it up because I had never read anything by Whitehead. I had heard reviews about The Underground Railroad on YouTube that weren’t great. Honestly, I still don’t feel the need to pick up that specific book. This one drew me in because of the topic. I researched it before I jumped into the novel. If you don’t want to read a novel about it, please go read a few articles about the topic. This place was open for over 100 years. Think about how many kids were abused and traumatized. It’s awful, and if any of that is triggering to you, then maybe don’t pick this one up.

If you think that this is going to have a happy ending, you are wrong. It’s heartbreaking all the way through. One of the main issues I had with this book was not feeling attached to the characters. I felt bad for them, obviously, but they all fell very flat. Not sure if that’s how it was supposed to be, but I really wanted to know Elwood. I wonder what the novel would be like if it was just a bit longer.

That doesn’t mean that Whitehead isn’t a phenomenal writer. I was sucked in from the first line: “Even in death the boys were trouble.”

He also had a way of hinting to the reader that something more is going on behind the scenes. When Elwood arrives at Nickel, he mentions that it doesn’t seem too bad. As time goes on, however, he notices that boys have bruises and chunks taken out of their ears, etc. It all happens so fast, though. So don’t blink when you read this.

It wasn’t the perfect book, but it does what it’s supposed to. I find that it might be too short to convey the full story. Other than that and the flat characters, this is worth a read.

If you enjoyed this, then give it a like and follow my blog. Be respectful and happy reading!

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