Audiobook Review: The Hate U Give

Author: Angie Thomas

Narrator: Bahni Turpin

Duration: 11 hours 40 minutes

Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.

Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr.

But what Starr does—or does not—say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.

Goodreads  

First Line Fridays: July 10th

This weekly meme is hosted by Hoarding Books.  Here's a book I listened to recently: 

Graphic Novel Review: Colorblind

By Johnathan Harris, Garry Leach (Illustrations)

Johnathan Harris is fifteen, and lives in Long Beach, California, where he loves playing soccer with his friends, and listening to their favorite rapper, Snoop Dogg, a Long Beach native. His mom, dad, and three brothers are tight, but one of the most influential family members for Johnathan is his Uncle Russell, a convict in prison, serving fifteen years to life . . .

Uncle Russell taught Johnathan from a very young age to see people from the perspective of their cultures, and not just their skin color. He imbued a pride of his ancestry and cautioned against letting hatred into his heart.

But when Johnathan was just eight years old, something happened that filled him with fear and the very hatred that Uncle Russell had warned him about. What happened to Johnathan made him see that a dream of a colorless world was just that. A dream.

That event shook him to his core. Anger grew inside him like a hot coal. Uncle Russell had told him to “throw it away or you will get burned,” but Johnathan was young and frightened. He was having a hard time forgiving, much less forgetting.

Colorblind is Johnathan’s story of confronting his own racism and overcoming it. It is a story of hope and optimism that all, young and old, should heed.

Goodreads 

His and Her Reviews: Bossypants Audiobook

The hubby and I listened to Tina Fey's book during our Northern California trip. 

Read by Tina Fey

Duration: 5 hours 35 minutes

Before Liz Lemon, before "Weekend Update", before "Sarah Palin", Tina Fey was just a young girl with a dream: a recurring stress dream that she was being chased through a local airport by her middle-school gym teacher. She also had a dream that one day she would be a comedian on TV.

She has seen both of those dreams come true.

At last, Tina Fey's story can be told. From her youthful days as a vicious nerd to her tour of duty on Saturday Night Live; from her passionately halfhearted pursuit of physical beauty to her life as a mother eating things off the floor; from her one-sided college romance to her nearly fatal honeymoon - from the beginning of this paragraph to this final sentence.

Tina Fey reveals all, and proves what we've all suspected: you're no one until someone calls you bossy.

Includes special, never-before-solicited opinions on breastfeeding, princesses, Photoshop, the electoral process, and Italian rum cake!

Goodreads

#FitReaders 2020

 

I found another weekly meme that I'm excited to participate in. #FitReaders2020 is hosted by Felicia the Geeky Blogger and Jen from That's What I'm Talking About. This is a fitness oriented challenge where readers are encouraged to get up and do some sort of workout. The #FitReaders have a Facebook Group and are on Twitter. There will be weekly check-in posts to keep participants accountable. 

For now, I will do my posts on Mondays and see how it goes. :)

Goals:

First Line Fridays: July 3rd

While browsing through some blogs today, I encountered this fun weekly post hosted by Hoarding Books.  And I thought to myself, why not? 

Here's a book that I recently read and absolutely loved: 

Audiobook Review: King and the Dragronflies

Author: Kacen Callender

Read by: Ron Butler

Duration: 5 hours 3 minutes

Twelve-year-old Kingston James is sure his brother Khalid has turned into a dragonfly. When Khalid unexpectedly passed away, he shed what was his first skin for another to live down by the bayou in their small Louisiana town. Khalid still visits in dreams, and King must keep these secrets to himself as he watches grief transform his family.

It would be easier if King could talk with his best friend, Sandy Sanders. But just days before he died, Khalid told King to end their friendship, after overhearing a secret about Sandy-that he thinks he might be gay. "You don't want anyone to think you're gay too, do you?"

But when Sandy goes missing, sparking a town-wide search, and King finds his former best friend hiding in a tent in his backyard, he agrees to help Sandy escape from his abusive father, and the two begin an adventure as they build their own private paradise down by the bayou and among the dragonflies. As King's friendship with Sandy is reignited, he's forced to confront questions about himself and the reality of his brother's death.

Goodreads