Book Review: "Call Us What We Carry" by Amanda Gorman

Call Us What We Carry is a collection of powerfully soaring, inspiring, relevant poems by the National Youth Poet Laureate.

Like many across the world, I marveled at the incredible talent of Amanda Gorman during President Biden’s inauguration, when she became the youngest presidential inaugural poet in U.S. history. Her poem, “The Hill We Climb,” dazzled me, leaving me emotional, breathless, and endlessly replaying the video of her reading on YouTube.

This collection examines the pandemic and how it affected our collective consciousness. It looks at history, race, bigotry, despair, hope, rebuilding, and capturing the spirit of our country. It feels both immensely ambitious and yet so timely, viewing the world from a distance and yet close-up at the same time.

I don’t read a lot of poetry so this was a wonderful change of pace for me. The design of the book itself is incredible too—some poems are formatted into different shapes, the book needs to be turned in different ways to get to different parts—and it adds to the experience. Each poem is also uniquely told.

Wonderfully, “The Hill We Climb” is included in Call Us What We Carry, and I watched her once again on YouTube as I read that poem. It remains as mesmerizing today as it was over a year ago. I’d imagine the audio version of this book might be incredible. Gorman’s talent is truly a gift.

Book Review: "The Prophets" by Robert Jones, Jr.

The Prophets, a debut novel by Robert Jones, Jr., is haunting, affecting, gorgeously written. This will remain in my mind for a long time.

“I ain’t a animal, but I know. I know that when you trapped in a small space, you start getting used to being small. And people, they know, too, and they start treating you like a small thing. Even if you big like you are, Sam. They still treat you like something small.”

Samuel and Isaiah are slaves on Empty, the Deep South estate of the Halifaxes. They are in love with each other, and their relationship is often the only thing that can bring them salvation amidst the cruelty and violence and fear they experience on a daily basis.

But as with any environment in which people are treated with cruelty, even those in the same plight turn on one another, and when Samuel and Isaiah’s relationship is exposed, it sets off a brutal chain of events. And while their relationship is at the crux of The Prophets, the book also focuses on some of the other slaves, the Halifax family, and a chorus of seemingly otherworldly voices.

This is a difficult, emotional book to read at times, and at times the lyricism of Jones’ storytelling and the multiple narrations required slightly more concentration than I'm used to giving while reading. But the power, the beauty, the cruelty of these stories demand to be told, to be read, to be understood, if still not fully comprehended by all.

I’m grateful to have read this as a buddy read with my friend, Louis. As always, his perspectives helped round out the experience of reading this, and his friendship and his humor are exceptional.

When the “best-of” accolades at the end of 2021 start to get assembled, there’s little doubt that The Prophets won’t be on that list.

Book Review: "Sex and Vanity" by Kevin Kwan

Sex and Vanity is another zany tale of wealth, love, and excess from Kevin Kwan, the author of Crazy Rich Asians and its sequels.

⁣ ⁣ "When we align with the truth of who we are, all things are possible."

Lucie Churchill arrives on the gorgeous island of Capri for the wedding of her old babysitter. She can’t believe she’s been invited to what will inarguably be the wedding of the year, especially in such a beautiful location. She also can’t believe she’s being chaperoned by her older cousin Charlotte, who always reminds the half-Chinese, half-American to “think of her [white] family’s name” when doing things.⁣

⁣ When Lucie meets the handsome, intelligent George Zao, something about him makes her bristle. He seems to always be where she is, he always seems to know everything, and he’s too confident. But when an incident brings them together she suddenly can’t get him out of her mind no matter how much she tries. And when they are caught in a delicate position, she is forced to leave Capri and forget him for good.⁣

⁣ A few years later, now engaged to society’s most in-demand bachelor, Lucie runs into George again. The more that she learns about him, the more she becomes conflicted about how she feels. In the end she does everything she can to push him away, to once again sublimate the Chinese side of her heritage.

⁣ ⁣ What will win out, heart or heritage? Love or social appropriateness? Once again, Kwan brings his trademark sly humor along with his immense descriptive talent. This is a book that should be seen, felt, and tasted, because everything sounds so breathtaking. (Plus most of the food sounds utterly outrageous.)

⁣ ⁣ This book didn’t really wow me, though, as much as the Crazy Rich Asians series did. I think there was more fun in those books and the romances were more exciting. Even the constant bragging got old after awhile. But despite its shortcomings, I still enjoyed the book and I will read everything Kwan writes. I just wanted to love this one more.⁣

Book Review: "Washington Black" by Esi Edugyan

"How was it possible, thought I, that we lived in such nightmare and all the while a world of men continued just over the horizon, men such as these, in ships moving in any direction the wind might lead them?"

George Washington ("Wash") Black is an 11-year-old slave growing up on a sugar plantation in Barbados in 1830. He has felt the cruelty of his master and his overseers, and seen the violence with which other slaves are treated. But when the master dies, there is little time to rejoice, as the new master appears to be equally, if not more, twisted and sadistic.

Wash is surprised and frightened when he is pulled from the fields to become the manservant to the master's eccentric brother. Christopher Wilde, or Titch, as Wash calls him, is a man of science, a man desperate to study the natural world around him and make brilliant discoveries. Titch treats Wash as his research assistant, and under Titch's tutelage, Wash's talent for nature drawing begins to flourish.

Titch's greatest dream is to soar through the skies in the Cloud-Cutter, a balloon-like contraption he has designed. No one, Wash included, believes it will ever be able to leave the ground or travel far, yet Titch is determined to make sure it is ready for the right conditions. And when a man dies, and Wash is the leading suspect, Titch and Wash know they must disappear far from Barbados—and they hope the Cloud-Cutter will help them get on their way.

The two make their way across the Atlantic, traveling up the east coast of the U.S., up into Canada and eventually, to a remote outpost in the Arctic. All the while they live in fear that the bounty hunter searching for Wash will find them, but they fail to understand that black men are treated the same way no matter where they are.

"It had happened so gradually, but these months with Titch had schooled me to believe I could leave all misery behind, I could cast off all violence, outrun a vicious death. I had even begun thinking I'd been born for a higher purpose, to draw the earth's bounty, and to invent; I had imagined my existence a true and rightful part of the natural order. How wrong-headed it had all been. I was a black boy, only—I had no future before me, and little grace or mercy behind me. I was nothing, I would die nothing, hunted hastily down and slaughtered."

When Titch and Wash are separated, Wash realizes for the first time that he is the only person he can count on to save himself and change his life's circumstances. His journey takes him through Canada, to England, Amsterdam, and the windswept deserts of Morocco. Amazingly, he learns the lessons it takes men their entire lives to learn (if that), lessons about betrayal, love, identity, independence, and self-worth.

Washington Black is a tremendously thought-provoking look at a boy who becomes a man as most of the world looks at him as less than that. Wash knows he is more than people believe he is, yet proving that to them—and himself—causes more emotional pain, and puts him at great risk. He is a tremendously fascinating character, one it will be very hard to forget.

Esi Edugyan is a magnificent storyteller, and in addition to the suspenseful, emotional, powerful parts of her story, she does a fantastic job with imagery as well, as her characters travel across the world. This book is a meditation on what freedom truly is, and how we are just as responsible for freeing ourselves as those whom have kept us captive. It is a story that will make you think, it will make you angry at times, and in the end, it will make you feel.

I've never read anything of Edugyan's before, but I was tremendously impressed with her talent. This isn't necessarily a fast-paced book although it never felt slow. I just immersed myself in Wash's incredible journey.