What does one do when one has dozens of books already read, not enough time to review them all, and lacking the motivation to write them all even if I had nothing but time?
Mini reviews! Mini-versions of things are often so much better than the full-sized ones, anyway. I give you cupcakes as evidence:
Now that we're agreed that mini things are often the best things, I feel good about giving y'all a couple of mini book reviews this week, starting with this one:
Dimity Elias Léger's debut novel, God Loves Haiti, opens with a scene of devastation moments after the 2010 earthquake ripped open the capital city of Port Au Prince. Natasha is newly married to the president of Haiti but in love with a young man named Alain, and we get chapters told from each point of view in the days leading up to and the weeks immediately following the quake.
This book put me very much in mind of Junot Díaz's writing, and his blurb, in fact, graces the front of the book.
Told with equal parts warmth and black humor, this novel is, more than anything else, a love song to the complicated and problematic nation and its resilience. As somebody whose cultural home is the similarly complicated and problematic state of Mississippi, I could immediately relate to and appreciate Léger's simultaneous love and frustration for a homeland that is not likely to be easily understood by outsiders.
I greatly admired this book, and if it weren't for the last few pages of epilogue, I could even say that I wholeheartedly loved it. That not withstanding, I believe that Léger is well on the way to writing a name for himself.
This book was published earlier this month from Amistad, a division of HarperCollins, and I read an advance reading copy provided to me at my request. This book also qualifies for my diversify-your-life shelf because the author and the three principal characters are all POC.
Mini reviews! Mini-versions of things are often so much better than the full-sized ones, anyway. I give you cupcakes as evidence:
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| Why don't I have these in my face right now? Life is hard. Image found here. |
This book put me very much in mind of Junot Díaz's writing, and his blurb, in fact, graces the front of the book.
Told with equal parts warmth and black humor, this novel is, more than anything else, a love song to the complicated and problematic nation and its resilience. As somebody whose cultural home is the similarly complicated and problematic state of Mississippi, I could immediately relate to and appreciate Léger's simultaneous love and frustration for a homeland that is not likely to be easily understood by outsiders.
I greatly admired this book, and if it weren't for the last few pages of epilogue, I could even say that I wholeheartedly loved it. That not withstanding, I believe that Léger is well on the way to writing a name for himself.
This book was published earlier this month from Amistad, a division of HarperCollins, and I read an advance reading copy provided to me at my request. This book also qualifies for my diversify-your-life shelf because the author and the three principal characters are all POC.
