Tag: Racism

LaGuardia by Nnedi Okorafor & Tana Ford

Yes, I am totally here for open border advocacy allegories, sci-fi tales that center non-white perspectives and experiences, and sly critiques of racism, overt or otherwise! Dr Freedom Chukwuebuka is five months pregnant when she abruptly leaves Lagos to return to New York City. She leaves behind a clinic where she treated both humans and …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/06/10/laguardia-by-nnedi-okorafor-tana-ford/

A Place for Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza

What a lot of fatuous nonsense. First of all, let’s talk about the marketing for this novel. It’s being touted as the story of a Muslim Indian-American family and sure yes, but also it’s a very specific brand of Muslim, a conservative Shi’ah that’s as bizarre to me, raised a mainstream Sunni Muslim, as the …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/03/19/a-place-for-us-by-fatima-farheen-mirza/

Front Desk (Front Desk #1) by Kelly Yang

Welp, that’s two five-star amazing children’s books in a row for me, I honestly feel blessed. My 8 year-old borrowed this from his teacher, so it’s been sitting, with that compelling cover, on the dining room table where we eat and study and play for a few weeks now. Jms has already finished reading it, …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/02/27/front-desk-front-desk-1-by-kelly-yang/

Slay by Brittney Morris

Before this devolves into a rant on stupid Adobe products, let me first admit that I couldn’t read the entire book, as the first page of each chapter was entirely invisible to me. That said, I did very much enjoy what I did read, and Slay was exactly as good as expected where expected. Very …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/09/27/slay-by-brittney-morris/

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

The Underground Railroad is a hell of a book. Like Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters, Whitehead’s book was published in 2016 and takes a slightly science fictional look at slavery in the United States of America. Winters’ narrative brought slavery into the 21st century and imagined what the peculiar institution would be like in …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/04/18/the-underground-railroad-by-colson-whitehead/

The Weight of Our Sky by Hanna Alkaf

I finished this book in two compulsive sittings, and if I’m being perfectly honest, I think I would have liked it better if I hadn’t had to break concentration a little past the halfway mark to go do life stuff. Because The Weight Of Our Sky is the kind of book that grabs you by …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/04/17/the-weight-of-our-sky-by-hanna-alkaf/

The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein

In The Color of Law Richard Rothstein lays out the case that segregated patterns of residence in every part of the United States are not the result of impersonal market forces, not just the result of patterns of individual choices among large numbers of people, but are instead the result, often the intended result, of …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/04/04/the-color-of-law-by-richard-rothstein/

The Bridge by David Remnick

Because I am all about timely reading, I have just finished The Bridge, whose subtitle is The Life and Rise of Barack Obama, and which was published in 2010. As Remnick explains in the acknowledgments, his “hope was to write a piece of biographical journalism that, through interviews with his contemporaries and certain historical actors, …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/03/09/the-bridge-by-david-remnick/

Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff

In the eight linked tales that comprise Lovecraft Country, Matt Ruff takes readers on mind-stretching journeys across time and space, far more frightening trips across the mid–twentieth century US, conjures ghosts in Chicago, banishes them in New England, and summons up a sparkling cast of friends and relatives who are doing their best to live …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/12/09/lovecraft-country-by-matt-ruff-2/

Dread Nation (Dread Nation #1) by Justina Ireland

Wow, I didn’t even know about the firestorm over this book and the author and her Twitter use until after I’d read and thoroughly enjoyed Dread Nation. It’s a really terrific novel: what if zombies rose after the Battle of Gettysburg, and American history took a decided turn to deal with this new existential threat? …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/05/19/dread-nation-dread-nation-1-by-justina-ireland/