Who Says Words Will Never Hurt You?

Lexicon
by Max Barry
Published by Hodder & Stoughton

3 1/2 Stars
Reviewed by Amanda

Are you a cat or a dog person?

In the world of Lexicon, your answer reveals everything they need to know about you.  Who are "they"?  They are the poets, people who are hardwired to resist persuasion and to use language as a weapon against the rest of us.  Studying linguistics, personality and psychology, poets have the ability to subvert free will and compel us do as they wish.  The most powerful poets are given pseudonyms that appropriately demonstrate their mastery over language and, thus, over society:  T. S. Eliot, Charlotte Bronte, W. B. Yeats, Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf.

Lexicon tells the story of Emily Ruff, a homeless teenage grifter who shows promise as a poet, and Wil Parke, a man who unknowingly survived an apocalyptic event in Broken Hill, Australia.  As Emily is recruited by the poets and sent to an exclusive school to cultivate her gifts, Wil is on the run from would be assassins for reasons unknown.  As their stories intertwine, Barry explores the power of words and the sway they hold over us.

Lexicon is a clever exploration of modern society.  In our media saturated culture, we are surrounded by words from a variety of sources, most of whom have a vested interest in persuading us to adopt their viewpoint or engage in action that is beneficial to them.  What are politicians, corporations, pundits, and advertising executives if not "poets"?  And, more often than not, they succeed in manipulating and coercing the American public.  There is so much spin that it's often hard to tell where the truth ends and the fiction begins--even more chilling is that many people don't even care, content to let the bias of others "think" for them.

While I enjoyed the premise of Lexicon and was certainly drawn in by Barry's fast-pace, the sense that it could have been more nagged at me.  Its premise is one that could lend itself to a more complex, nuanced examination of the ability of speech to influence, but Barry keeps it at surface level.  While Barry's intent seems to have been to write a fun, intelligent thriller, I would have readily signed on for something more substantial.  For example, the purpose of the poets and the intricacies of their organization is never revealed, and the specifics of how their influence works is given only a basic "nuts and bolts" explanation.

However, I was still set to give this a 4 star rating just for its inventiveness and the fun I had along the way, until the unsatisfying end.  No spoilers here--I'll only say that, for all the originality of the premise, the ending was underwhelming and predictable.

THE KILLER ANGELS BY MICHAEL SHAARA

The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

”This is a different kind of army. If you look at history you’ll see men fight for pay, or women, or some other kind of loot. They fight for land, or because a king makes them, or just because they like killing. But we’re here for something new. I don’t … this hasn’t happened much in the history of the world. We’re an army going out to set other men free.”

Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain


The position of all the troops on July 3rd, 1863. The last day of battle. You can see the famous fishhook deployment of the Union troops in blue.

I hadn’t really thought about how unusual it is in the history of the world for men to be fighting for the freedom of others. It was one of many times while reading this book that Michael Shaara crystallized some thoughts for me. I love those moments when I read something, and I know without a shadow of a doubt that another tumbler has clicked into place. With every click I have come one step closer to understanding everything. ( a mad thought that doesn’t last long) So the North was preserving the Union and freeing the slaves, but what exactly where the boys in butternut fighting for.

”They kept on insistin’ they wasn’t fightin’ for no slaves, they were fightin’ for their ‘rats.’ It finally dawned on me that what the feller meant was their ‘rights,’ only, the way they talk, it came out ‘rats.’... Then after that I asked this fella what rights he had that we were offendin’, and he said, well, he didn’t know, but he must have some rights he didn’t know nothin’ about. Now, aint that something?”

33% of Southerners owned slaves. Mississippi and South Carolina had much higher percentages at 49% and 46%. So why did all those Southern boys rich and poor fight for the ‘rats to keep slaves? Most Southern Americans, as do most Americans today, had an expectation that they would be rich someday, the eternal optimists. Those poor white sharecropper farmers aspired to be slave owners. It is the same reason why I hear people who live below the poverty line saying they didn’t believe it was ‘rat that the government was taxing the one percenters more than the rest of us. It doesn’t make sense, but then they...might...just win the lottery...someday.


General Robert E. Lee on Traveller. Lee said, “Well, we have left nothing undone. It is all in the hands of God.” Longstreet thought : it isn’t God that is sending those men up that hill. But he said nothing. Lee rode away.

This book is centered around the three days of the battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania. Robert E. Lee, overall commander of the Confederate army and GOD to many, is trying to make a final thrust North to force the Union to seek terms. His men loved him unconditionally.

”The secret of General Lee is that men love him and follow him with faith in him. That’s one secret. The next secret is that General Lee makes a decision and he moves, with guts, and he’s been up against a lot of sickly generals who don’t know how to make decisions, although some of them have guts but whose men don’t love them.”

He is a different man than he was at the start of the war. Some would say he is a brilliant tactician, but if you walk the grounds of the battle of Gettysburg which I have not had that opportunity physically, you will discover that Lee gave his generals an impossible task. The battle smells of desperation. Shaara makes the case that Lee was already suffering from the heart condition that would eventually kill him.

”But it was not the pain that troubled him; it was a sick gray emptiness he knew too well, that sense of a hole clear through him like the blasted vacancy in the air behind a shell burst, an enormous emptiness.”


General James Longstreet loyal despite his fervent disagreements with Lee on tactics.

Lee was feeling weak and mortal at Gettysburg. He wanted the war ended now. It certainly clouded his judgement. He was a man of faith and honor. In Pennsylvania he put too much faith in God finding his cause righteous and he depending too heavily on the honor of his troops to make it to that grove of trees at the top of the hill. He had a brilliant commander in Lieutenant General James Longstreet. Longstreet argued to slide around the enemy and to fight another day. If truth be known he disagreed with this whole thrusting North business. He wanted to build trenches and fight a defensive war. You don’t win glorious honorable battles fighting a defensive war and Lee was addicted to winning battles. There is a whiff of Shakespearean tragedy around Longstreet.

”It was Longstreet’s curse to see the thing clearly. He was a brilliant man who was slow in speech and slow to move and silent-faced as stone. He had not the power to convince.”

He was a strong, commanding figure until he got around Lee.

”Longstreet felt an extraordinary confusion. He had a moment without confidence, windblown and blasted, vacant as an exploded shell. There was a grandness in Lee that shadowed him, silenced him.”

He was an eccentric as well. He was living more in his mind than in his body.

”Longstreet touched his cap, came heavily down from the horse. He was taller than Lee, head like a boulder, full-bearded, long-haired, always a bit sloppy, gloomy, shocked his staff by going into battle once wearing carpet slippers.”

Lee counted on him, but unfortunately he would have traded Longstreet for Stonewall Jackson every day of the week and twice on Sunday.


General John Buford died a few months after Gettysburg from Typhoid Fever. He was a huge loss to the Union side.

Shaara also takes us into the minds of Union men like General John Buford who arrived at Gettysburg and realized the importance of deploying troops on the high ground against a superior Confederate force. He knew he had to hold out until reinforcements arrived. He’d done this before.

”He had thrown away the book of cavalry doctrine and they loved him for it. At Thoroughfare Gap he had held against Longstreet, 3,000 men against 25,000, for six hours, sending off appeal after appeal for help which never came.”

What impressed me about Buford was his ability to think out of the box and adapt to any situation. Unfortunately for the Union he didn’t have long to live or his name may have been further immortalized in Civil War history books.


General John Bell Hood

There was also Colonel Joshua Chamberlain who commanded the 20th Maine. He was a school teacher by trade, a professor at Bowdoin before the war broke out. He and the Maine troops were positioned at the far left of the Federal line. He was on Little Round Top facing the seasoned veteran General John B. Hood. Hood was a Longstreet man and firmly believed in the concept of a defensive war. Despite their objections to Lee’s tactics Hood and Longstreet did everything they could to obtain the objectives.


The 20th Maine’s bayonet charge.

Chamberlain’s men fired until they ran out of bullets and then Chamberlain in an act of desperation yelled:

”Let’s fix bayonets.”

Chamberlain and his remaining men charged down the hill in the face of enemy fire and because of the ferocity of their attack Hood’s men turned and retreated.

There are descriptions of battles so elegantly told that the horror is somewhat mitigated by the eloquence of Shaara’s writing. Bravery is not just for Custeresque men like General Winfield Scott Hancock who inspired such loyalty from his acquaintances, even those dressed in gray, such as his best friend General Lewis Armistead. Shaara describes the true crisis of consciousness these officers were facing. Most of them had fought together in the Mexican-American war, went to West Point together, drank together, and had been united as one before this war where politics forced them to choose sides against the friends they had once fought with.

”They’re never quite the enemy, those boys in blue.”
“I know,” Lee said.
“I used to command those boys,” Longstreet said.
“Difficult thing to fight men you used to command.”
Lee said nothing.”

By the end of this book I felt I knew all these men as intimately as I know friends I’ve known for decades. It is as if Shaara raised them from the dead, one by one. They are talking skeletons with nothing but truth rattling through their teeth. Their souls are showing through their pale gray ribcages enscrolled with their most intimate thoughts. They hid nothing from Shaara not their fears or their desires. The war has never been more real to me. Highly recommended!


















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Stay Gold, Sodapop

Stories I Only Tell My Friends by Rob Lowe
2011
Reviewed by Diane K. M.
My rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars



This was a surprisingly enjoyable read. I generally avoid celebrity memoirs, but I saw a nice excerpt from Rob Lowe's latest one, "Love Life," about how emotional he was when his son went away to college, and decided to give his first autobiography a chance.

I am a child of the 80s, so I grew up with Lowe's movies and those of the so-called Brat Pack. The Outsiders was popular when I was a kid, and I also liked St. Elmo's Fire and About Last Night. Lowe's book had good behind-the-scenes stories about those movies and others, and he was frank about his womanizing and drinking problem back then. One sobering story occurred when Rob was about 14 and he met John Belushi at a party. When Belushi heard that Rob wanted to be an actor, Belushi said, "Stay out of the clubs." Rob wrote, "I should have listened. Instead, I got my first agent."

Lowe also describes how he got his start in acting, and his early friendships with Charlie Sheen, Emilio Estevez, Tom Cruise, C. Thomas Howell, and every other 80s movie star you can think of. One of my favorite chapters was about making The Outsiders, in which Rob played Sodapop, and how close the cast became during a long shoot in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Unfortunately, a lot of Rob's scenes were cut from the 1983 movie, but 20 years later, Francis Ford Coppola made a director's cut that restored a lot of that footage, and was more faithful to the S. E. Hinton novel.

Rob admits he had a reputation for partying in the 80s, but his redemptive moment came after he met Sheryl, the woman who has been his wife since 1991. He went to rehab and maintained his sobriety, and he has continued to do good work in movies and TV. (I thought he was great on The West Wing and Parks & Recreation.) 

Overall, this was a nice, diverting read -- an excellent start to summer.

500 Ways to Tell a Better Story

500 Ways to Tell a Better Story by Chuck Wendig
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Sometimes, the stars align and magic happens. Like when I happened to be chewing through the second draft of something I wrote years ago and Chuck Wendig makes one of his writing books free for one day only in honor of his birthday. 500 Ways to Tell a Better Story is a collection of writing tips told in Chuck Wendig's trademark humorous style.

- 25 Lies Writers Tell
- 25 Realizations Writers Need to Have
- 25 Reasons I Hate Your Main Character
- 25 Reasons Now is the Best Time to be a Storyteller
- 25 Reasons You Should Quit Writing
- 25 Things All Writers Need
- 25 Things I Learned While Writing Blackbirds
- 25 Things I want to say to So-Called Aspiring Writers
- 25 Things to Know About Writing the First Chapter of Your Novel
- 25 Things Writers Should Know About Creating Mystery
- 25 Things You Should Know About Creativity
- 25 Things You Should Know About Transmedia
- 25 Things You Should Know About Word Choice
- 25 Things You Should Know About Writing Fantasy
- 25 Things You Should Know About Writing Sex
- 25 Things You Should Know About Writing Short Stories
- 25 Ways to Earn Your Audience
- 25 Ways to Fight Your Story's Mushy Middle
- 25 Ways to Unfuck Your Story
- 25 Ways to Write Full Time

As with 250 Things You Should Know About Writing, Chuck covers a wide range of writing topics in a style that's very similar to the one he uses on his blog, complete with copious penis references. If his blog makes you want to strangle him, you probably won't dig this.

There's a lot of overlap in this, both between topics and with the topics covered in 250 Things You Should Know About Writing. I thought the selection on Writing Fantasy was the shining star of the book, thought useful writing nuggets could be unearthed in every chapter.

I wouldn't say this book was essential but if you're into Chuck Wendig and need some writing advice, you could do a lot worse.

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Doctor Who: The Silurian Gift

Doctor Who: The Silurian Gift by Mike Tucker
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

In a future where the petroleum supply is nearly exhausted, an industrialist is extracting a mysterious superfuel called Fire Ice from a lake beneath Antarctica. But what is the super fuel and what is the beast that is attacking workers? That's what The Doctor and a journalist named Lizzie are trying to find out...

This one started out great. There were greedy businessmen, short-sighted environmentalists, dinosaurs, a mysterious hairy beast, and Silurians. Then things started getting unnecessarily complicated.

The Doctor as well written and I liked the Silurian plotline, as I always do when the scaly ones make an appearance. Then the Sea Devils showed up and things got a little cluttered.

It had its moments but The Silurian Gift fell a little short for me. 2.5 out of 5 stars.

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Again for the Defense: Mickey Haller

Reviewed by James L. Thane
Four out of five stars


This is another excellent Mickey Haller courtroom drama from Michael Connelly. As the book opens, Mickey is called to the L.A. jail to represent a pimp who is accused of killing one of the women he "represents" in a dispute over money. The pimp had booked a date for the woman at an expensive hotel. But the woman calls the pimp and tells him that there's no one in the room and that she has come home empty-handed.

The pimp admits going to her apartment and arguing with her, insisting that she was simply holding out the money on him. He even admits to putting his hands around the victim's throat, but insists that she was alive and well when he left her.

The cops believe they have an open-and-shut case, and when Mickey is called in, things are not looking good. They get even more complicated when it turns out that the victim was a former client of Mickey's. Mickey always had something of a soft spot for the woman, whom he knew by another name. He believed, mistakenly, that she had taken the stake Mickey gave her, left the life and started anew. He's embarrassed to discover that he's been played.

Mickey takes the case, and no reader will be surprised to learn that it quickly becomes even more complicated than it initially appeared on the surface. Even more surprisingly, Mickey's client may actually be innocent. Proving that, however, will not be all that easy and along the way, Mickey makes some very powerful enemies and may put himself and those around him in grave danger.

As always in a book by Michael Connelly, there's plenty of action, great dialogue and tension that builds to the proverbial shattering climax. The courtroom scenes are especially gripping and confirm Connelly's position as a major player in the legal thriller genre.

Saturday Night Dead: Buried SNL Stories Unearthed

Thirty-Nine Years of Short-Term Memory Loss: The Early Days of SNL from Someone Who Was There by Tom Davis
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Captivating for its often hilarious and, in the very least, entertaining stories about life as a writer for Saturday Night Live in its earlier years.

Thirty-Nine Years of Short-Term Memory Loss is an autobiography of sorts, sketching out Tom Davis's life with a patchwork of details. Davis was Al Franken's long-time writing partner. The duo formed up early in their lives, working out bits that garnered them, if not fame and fortune, enough notoriety to attract the attention of SNL's producer Lorne Michaels.

Davis is a natural writer, so the book is interesting enough on its own, but once the stories featuring SNL alumni kick-in...that's when the good shit hits the fun-fan! There are plenty of oddball and incredible tales that many of the principles would no doubt rather weren't published. If you enjoyed the show in the 70s and 80s, this is for you.

Where Thirty-Nine Years of Short-Term Memory Loss falters is...well...it's in the title. Davis took a lot of drugs when he was young, not all of which were entirely beneficial, especially in relation to his current state of coherence. The latter half of the book gradually succumbs to his disjointed mind, as the stories flitter from one topic or time period to an entirely different one without the slightest segue or any seeming purpose. Occasionally a story ends for no apparent reason at all. At other times you're left wondering just how reliable Davis' memory is and how skewed the facts may be.

Even with all its failings, if you get through just half of this book you'll have consumed a chunky collection of prime-grade comedy.

Exposing Paul

Paul McCartney by Peter Ames Carlin
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Get Back To Where I've Never Gone.
I've read about the Beatles and I've read about Lennon, but I'd never read about McCartney, and I supposed it was about time. You see, because of bios and whatnot that I've read about Lennon, my boyhood idolization of him lost its shine. As a consequence, Paul's star rose subconsciously in my mind, and I knew that wasn't fair. It was time to level the playing field and Peter Ames Carlin's book steamrolled it.

I Should've Let It Be.
Paul McCartney has the reputation of an attention-grabbing, soulless popstar. Sure, the people say, he's written some catchy tunes, but Lennon's the one who pumped heart and soul into the lyrics. I knew the reputations (and I also knew to take some of that with a grain of salt), but what I didn't expect was the level of Paul's desire for fame: Paul to manager Brian Epstein, "If we all make it, that's fine. But if we don't, I'm going to be a star, aren't I Brian?" That sort of bare selfishness coming from a boy talking about his best mates makes it hard to stomach McCartney's attempts to portray the Beatles as all-for-one, four musketeers, blood-brothers for life. Everything's cool! Everything's groovy! We're all in this together! It wasn't and they weren't.

Take A Sad Song And Make It Sadder.
Death, tragedy, yes yes, the man's had it all and it's quite sad, but what really saddened me was Wings-errorera McCartney's attachment to the Beatles and Lennon. On the one hand it feels like puppy-dog, younger brother devotion to big dog/older brother figure John. On the other hand it stinks like a desperate man grasping to put it all back together, like a drunkard who's just realized his damaged marriage is all he's got.

I'm Happy Just To Read Of You
Icky, yes, this book makes me feel icky about Paul McCartney, but Carlin takes his digs at all four members as well as many in their entourage. But no, it's not all bad. I doubt I would've finished the book if it had been a cover to cover slam-fest of the man and all around him. The book just shows him worts and all. It's even-handed, almost journalistic. I hesitate to say it's completely unbiased, because Carlin clearly loves the music. He spends a great deal of time going over almost each song, especially during the Beatle years. Readers will find many pages worth of in-studio stories, as well as what they were thinking and going through while writing chart-toppers and life-alterers, those many three minute moments that have gone straight to the hearts of so many listeners. This isn't "my" music, I was born in '72, but The Beatles and post-Beatles songs were played heavily on the radio in my youth. I remember being about 4 years old sitting on an old area rug in the living room picking at the rubber matting underneath it through the foot-worn holes and thinking the lyrics to the song playing in the background, Band On The Run were actually "band on the rug," as in rubberband, the stuff I was plucking at. Oddly specific song, I thought. Regardless of my confusion (I've got it sorted now, thank you), the Beatles have played a major role in the soundtrack of my life, and I love them for it, even after reading this.

Come Together Ratings: 4.3
I'm struggling with the rating on this one. It was just about 5-star-enjoyable and it gave me everything I'd want out of a Paul McCartney bio, but still, I came away from the reading with a bad taste in my mouth. It's no fault of the author. Blame it on the doe-eyed manchild on the cover.

Lark

Lark
by Tracey Porter

Four out of five stars
Reviewed by Sesana

Publisher Summary:

When sixteen-year-old Lark Austin is kidnapped from her Virginia hometown and left to die in a snowy forest, she leaves behind two friends who are stunned by the loss. As Lark's former best friend, Eve can't shake the guilt that this tragedy was somehow her fault. Meanwhile, Nyetta is haunted each night by Lark's ghost, who comes through the bedroom window and begs Nyetta to set her soul free. Eve and Nyetta realize that Lark is trapped in limbo, and only by coming together to heal themselves will they discover why.

My Review:

 This is a small book, and I read it very quickly, but I think it's going to stay with me for awhile. It's risky, especially in such a short book, to use three POVs. Porter was able to juggle them quite well, enough to make each of the three voices distinct. The fantasy elements are quietly integrated into the book, without entirely taking over until the end.

But what made this book most effective for me was the way that Porter confronts rape culture, using thoughts that make sense for a teen girl to have, especially when using Eve's POV. When she wonders why nobody seems to be trying to keep girls from getting murdered, when she gets angry that all she and her friends are being told is what <i>they</i> should do to avoid being victims, when she notes (sadly? bitterly? both) that girls getting raped and murdered is normal... They're honest, painful reactions to the reality that Eve is being confronted with. I wouldn't call this a Message book, but it definitely has something to say.

But there is a certain flatness to the book, mostly in the peripheral characters. This is probably a side effect of how short the book is, and how internal all three POVs are. I got absorbed enough in the three girls' interlocking stories that I hardly noticed until I was thinking about the book later. But I did read this very quickly, in one sitting without major interruption, which probably helped the flow.

Lark is beautifully written, which makes it bearable to read. Because otherwise it's painful, without solutions or answers to the larger issues. Which is, I'm sorry to say, terribly realistic. Maybe what Porter is saying is that, unless evil is confronted, nothing can be done to stop it. The answer isn't telling girls to wear modest clothing and take self defense, it's creating a world where wearing a leotard after gymnastics class isn't a justification.

Coffee Will Make You Black

April Sinclair
Harper Perennial
Reviewed by Nancy
5 out of 5 stars

Summary

Set on Chicago's Southside in the mid-to-late 60s, Coffee Will Make You Black is the moving and entertaining tale of Jean "Stevie" Stevenson, a young black woman growing up through the Civil Rights and Black Power movements. The novel opens at a time when, for black families, seeing a black person on television was an event; when expressions like "I don't want nothing black but a Cadillac" and "Coffee will make you black" were handed down from one generation to the next without comment. Stevie is a bookworm, yet she longs to fit in with the cool crowd. Fighting her mother every step of the way, she begins to experiment with talkin' trash, "kicking butt, " and boys. With the assassination of Dr. King she gains a new political awareness, which makes her decide to wear her hair in a 'fro instead of straightened, to refuse to use skin bleach, and to confront the prejudice she observes in blacks as well as whites. April Sinclair writes frankly about a young black woman's sexuality, and about the confusion Stevie faces when she realizes she's more attracted to the school nurse - who is white - than her teenage boyfriend. As readers follow Stevie's at times harrowing, at times hilarious story, they will learn what it was like to be black before black was beautiful.


My Review

I couldn’t resist the title. When I was little, my mom used to give me my own mug with a little bit of Café Bustelo and a lot of sugar. It made me feel pretty grown up that I was drinking coffee with my parents. My grandmother would look at me disapprovingly and say, “coffee will make you black.” Well, obviously it wasn’t working, so I would hand my empty mug back to my mom and ask for a refill. Then she would tell me that too much coffee is no good for you. But if it makes me black, how can that be a bad thing?

I was tired of being white. Most of the white kids in my neighborhood were Jewish and came from far wealthier families than my own. The Puerto Rican kids all spoke Spanish and were various shades of brown. Though my dad was born in Puerto Rico, he had a very pale complexion. My mom, on the other hand, has that rich brown shade I so desired. Looking more like my dad than my mom made it difficult for me to fit in. My closest friend was Jewish, but I enjoyed hanging out with the black girls. They were the best at Double Dutch jump rope and tried to teach klutzy me, but all I ever got to be was a turner. My friend Penny sometimes asked me to braid her hair. Oh, what fun! It was so unexpectedly fine and easy to style. Some days, she would wear it loose with a plastic headband. Other days she would come to school in cornrows with colorful beads on the ends. Penny stuck up for me when a couple of girls harassed me on the school bus. I loved her colorful clothes and no-nonsense attitude. Whenever I was with her, no one would mess with me. One day I wanted to bring her home. My mom said it was OK, since my dad was working and wouldn’t be home until evening. While Penny was visiting, my dad shows up unexpectedly and spouts racial invective, causing poor Penny to run out of the apartment in tears. That was the end of our friendship. She eventually moved out of the neighborhood and so did I.

After Penny, I developed a crush on Joanne Chesimard when I saw her on TV passionately speaking about revolution. She was beautiful, eloquent, and wanted to change the world. I wanted to be just like her when I grew up and refused to believe she had anything to do with bank robberies and killing police officers.

Life is a series of disappointments, but black is beautiful.

All big cities have similarities. Even though Jean Stevenson “Stevie” grew up in Chicago, many of her experiences triggered sweet and painful childhood memories of growing up in the Bronx. This is not only a story about the problems of growing up and gaining independence. There is a lot here about family relationships, friendships, race relations, the feminist movement, standards of beauty, discovering one’s sexuality, and the turmoil of life in the 1960’s.

Stevie sometimes hangs out with the wrong crowd. She defies her mother’s attempts to make her “white” by resisting hair straighteners and skin lighteners. Stevie just wants to be herself and embraces her life with passion.

This was a funny, moving and heartwarming story about growing up. I’m looking forward to Stevie’s college years in the sequel, Ain't Gonna Be the Same Fool Twice.

Also posted at Goodreads