BOOK REVIEW: FINDING ME by VIOLA DAVIS

 

About:

In my book, you will meet a little girl named Viola who ran from her past until she made a life-changing decision to stop running forever.

This is my story, from a crumbling apartment in Central Falls, Rhode Island, to the stage in New York City, and beyond. This is the path I took to finding my purpose but also my voice in a world that didn’t always see me.

As I wrote Finding Me, my eyes were open to the truth of how our stories are often not given close examination. We are forced to reinvent them to fit into a crazy, competitive, judgmental world. So I wrote this for anyone running through life untethered, desperate and clawing their way through murky memories, trying to get to some form of self-love. For anyone who needs reminding that a life worth living can only be born from radical honesty and the courage to shed facades and be . . . you.

Finding Me is a deep reflection, a promise, and a love letter of sorts to self. My hope is that my story will inspire you to light up your own life with creative expression and rediscover who you were before the world put a label on you.

My Thoughts:

No words....

I rarely read memoirs, but Viola Davis is one of those actresses that I have always admired and boy oh boy did she have a story to tell. I am glad I listened to the audiobook because it was narrated by her. What an experience I had listening. I laughed, I cried, I even reflected on my own experiences.

What is amazing is learning about how many obstacles Viola had to overcome in her life; poverty, abuse, domestic violence, neglect, everything imaginable. Sometimes we feel as if we could never rise above our problems, we whine and complain about everything. Viola is a great example of a woman with immense strength, someone who kept pushing even though many doors were shut in her face.

What I liked too is the fact that she stressed that becoming an actor should not be about the fame, that it should be an outlet to express oneself, it should be about the art. I really admired her advice for young actors. This book really is going down as one of my favourites for 2022.

I recommend this one to everyone. It is a really good memoir.

BOOK REVIEW: HARRY POTTER #1: HARRY POTTER AND THE PHILOSPHER'S STONE BY JK ROWLING

 

ABOUT:

Harry Potter thinks he is an ordinary boy - until he is rescued by an owl, taken to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, learns to play Quidditch and does battle in a deadly duel. The Reason ... HARRY POTTER IS A WIZARD!

MY THOUGHTS

I finally read the first book in the Harry Potter series and you know what I really enjoyed it. As much as I read, there are many popular books and book series that I am yet to try. I never thought I would like this story as much as I did though. Good book.

Book Review: The Island of Forgetting by Jasmine Sealy

 

ABOUT:

How does memory become myth? How do lies become family lore? How do we escape the trauma of the past when the truth has been forgotten?

Barbados, 1962. Lost soul Iapetus roams the island, scared and alone, driven mad after witnessing his father’s death at the hands of his mother and his older brother, Cronus. Just before Iapetus is lost forever, he has a son, but the baby is not enough to save him from himself—or his family’s secrets.

Seventeen years later, Iapetus’s son, the stoic Atlas, lives in a loveless house, under the care of his uncle, Cronus, and in the shadow of his charismatic cousin Z. Knowing little about the tragic circumstances of his father’s life, Atlas must choose between his desire to flee the island and his loyalty to the uncle who raised him.

Time passes. Atlas’s daughter, Calypso, is a beautiful and willful teenager who is desperate to avoid being trapped in a life of drudgery at her uncle Z’s hotel. When she falls dangerously in love with a visiting real estate developer, she finds herself entangled in her uncle’s shady dealings, a pawn in the games of the powerful men around her.

It is now 2019. Calypso’s son, Nautilus, is on a path of self-destruction as he grapples with his fatherless condition, his mixed-race identity and his complicated feelings of attraction towards his best friend, Daniel. Then one night, after making an impulsive decision, Nautilus finds himself exiled to Canada.

The Island of Forgetting is an intimate saga spanning four generations of one family who run a beachfront hotel. Loosely inspired by Greek mythology, this is a novel about the echo of deep—and sometimes tragic—love and the ways a family’s past can haunt its future.

My thoughts 

I am going to sound a bit cliché' here but this book was very very good. It is definitely one of the best books I have read in 2022. I stumbled upon this book at my library on Libby Overdrive and began without any prior knowledge what it was about, all I know it was set in Barbados. Much to my surprise it was a family saga that spoke to generational secrets and unsolved conflicts. (My kind of story).

Beginning in the 1960s we learn of Lapetus, who was driven mad due to unresolved childhood trauma, caused in part by his parents and his brother Cronus. Cronus, became later on the holder of family secrets and the patriarch. 

We then meet Lapetus and Cronus' sons Z and Atlas. Atlas was a very interesting character indeed, a typical Caribbean man of sorts, desirous to leave for a better life but held back because of a feeling of family responsibility and obligation. His was a story of a spirit broken.

His daughter Calypso , though was the most interesting of the book. I think that she was so misunderstood and looking for love. Her story was heartbreaking because at a very young age especially with her relationship with the very older Odie, spoke to a young lady begging for help and never getting it from her parents, Uncle Z or anyone else. 

Many girls can relate to Cali I think because sometimes families see sexual abuse or grooming happening and do nothing. I was so angry coming to the end with the conversation that she had with her father Atlas about "the delegate" (you will have to read the book to find out) but after reflection I understood why Atlas did not react.

The issue of the acceptance of the LGBTQ community in the Caribbean was well depicted in the book through the experience of Nautilus (Calypso's son). Nautilus was another family member who struggled to find his way and even though he was driven out of the island to Toronto, he was still very very lost even more so. 

Generational curses are real. I have always believed that and this is why I loved this story so much. I highly recommend this book. 

BOOK REVIEW: A LITTLE LIFE BY HANYA YANAGIHARA

 BLURB

A Little Life follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves.

MY THOUGHTS

Was it traumatic / sad? Yes

Did you cry? I did inside...

Did the book have triggers? (Rape, sex, child abuse, violence, every thing else)

Was it beautifully written? Yes

Would you consider rereading? Yes

Is it one of the best books you ever read? Absolutely.

Would you recommend it to others? YESSSSS

If you have been following my blog and IG @trinigirlreads, you would have seen this book in my current reads for a while. I had to take in this massive book in parts. I was determined to finish reading this before the end of 2022 mainly out of curiosity since many persons expressed that this has been one of the saddest book of all time.

First, this story is about friendship (lifelong friendship). Willem, Malcolm, JB and Jude became connected in college and we follow them as they navigate through young adulthood to older age. They all experience doubts, fears and insecurities in every aspect of their lives with respect to relationships and careers but it is Jude's mysterious life that takes the cake.

felt

A Little Life teaches many lessons one of which is that people never truly get over childhood trauma especially without the help of a therapist or counsellor. Jude's story was a lot to read. At one point I swore that he was a real person. Willem was the character though in the book that I connected with the most. In my opinion he was drawn to Jude mainly because of Jude's vulnerability and his need to be helped. While he was no doubt a true friend to Jude, at some points I wondered if his past had more to do with the relationship they had.

I truly loved Harold for what he did for Jude. JB was misunderstood I felt because I think that of the four friends he and Jude were more alike than they realised. Malcolm just disappeared after the first half of the book though. I may have liked to hear more about him, But I get that Jude was a lot to unpack.

In all this was a great story. not for the weak of heart that's for sure but one that needed to be told. Very often we believe that we do not need others. But this book is evidence that no matter who we are we all need friends and love in our lives.

BOOK REVIEW: THE PERSONAL LIBRARIAN BY MARIE BENEDICT AND VICTORIA CHRISTOPHER MURRAY

 

About

The remarkable, little-known story of Belle da Costa Greene, J. P. Morgan's personal librarian—who became one of the most powerful women in New York despite the dangerous secret she kept in order to make her dreams come true, from New York Times bestselling author Marie Benedict and acclaimed author Victoria Christopher Murray.

In her twenties, Belle da Costa Greene is hired by J. P. Morgan to curate a collection of rare manuscripts, books, and artwork for his newly built Pierpont Morgan Library. Belle becomes a fixture on the New York society scene and one of the most powerful people in the art and book world, known for her impeccable taste and shrewd negotiating for critical works as she helps build a world-class collection.

But Belle has a secret, one she must protect at all costs. She was born not Belle da Costa Greene but Belle Marion Greener. She is the daughter of Richard Greener, the first Black graduate of Harvard and a well-known advocate for equality. Belle's complexion isn't dark because of her alleged Portuguese heritage that lets her pass as white—her complexion is dark because she is African American.

The Personal Librarian tells the story of an extraordinary woman, famous for her intellect, style, and wit, and shares the lengths to which she must go—for the protection of her family and her legacy—to preserve her carefully crafted white identity in the racist world in which she lives. 

My Thoughts 

I went into this book blindly, with no prior knowledge of what it was going to be about and I was blown away by the story of Belle De Costa Greene, personal librarian of the powerful JP Morgan. Imagine my surprise also to learn that this work was loosely based on a true story. 

The authors of this book did an excellent job with this. Reading Belle's experience as a coloured woman who passed for white was mind blowing to me. She experienced the glitz and glamour of the time period while working for one of the most powerful man in the United States at the time.

I now appreciate after reading many books on the hardships that African Americans had to face to be accepted, that many went to great lengths to just have some form of equality. What was amazing was how she pulled it off for as long as she did going on to be a successful and powerful woman ahead of her time. This was a very daring thing to do.

Belle's life while there were triumphs came with a bit of sadness, in her family, in love, but what I admired most is that in spite of everything she was going through in her personal life her determination to make the Pierpont Morgan Library a success never faltered. 

I really enjoyed this book.