#contemporary reading

[whitneydaniell]

by: Nikki Payne Published: Nov 15, 2022 Genre: Romance, Contemporary, Fiction 401 Pages, Paperback

★★★

GoodReads Synopsis:

Liza B.--the only DJ who gives a jam--wants to take her neighborhood back from the soulless property developer dropping unaffordable condos on every street corner in DC. But her planned protest at a corporate event takes a turn after she mistakes the smoldering-hot CEO for the waitstaff. When they go toe-to-toe, the sparks fly--but her impossible-to-ignore family thwarts her every move. Liza wants Dorsey Fitzgerald out of her hood, but she'll settle for getting him out of her head.

At first, Dorsey writes off Liza Bennett as more interested in performing outrage than acting on it. As the adopted Filipino son of a wealthy white family, he's always felt a bit out of place and knows a fraud when he sees one. But when Liza's protest results in a viral meme, their lives are turned upside down, and Dorsey comes to realize this irresistible revolutionary is the most real woman he's ever met.

My Review:

This was a s-l-o-w burn for me. I found that the more I read, the more I was interested in the story but for 75% of the book, I was quite over Liza and Dorsey.

This love story, in the foreground of Washington DC, didn't curl all the way over for me. Liza and her sisters are known for their beauty throughout the city: The Bennett Sisters with her oldest sister being a former beauty queen. Through their own trials and tribulations, all three Bennett sisters live in a two-bedroom apartment with their mother and grandmother.

Liza is fighting the good fight against gentrification in their neighborhood when she meets, uber-billionaire DOrsey Fitzgerald. This is truly a 'Pretty Woman' story -- that reference is used a few times in the book.

Here's where the story lost me:

Beverly Bennett is an awful mother who has cast her own insecurities and fears onto her daughters and, is jealous of them. She wants nothing more than for them to marry rich. The whole scene at the awards banquet was cringe-worthy. Ms. Payne, you could have given this family so many other struggles but this was too much for me.

Liza is a beautiful, educated young woman who is pining after a job with WCO, a foundation that Dorsey's mother created. While that is noble and great, however, in DC with her education, there would be plenty of non-profits that she could have worked for to get her experience. It seemed to me like she just wanted WCO or nothing else and that was frustrating.

How did Chicho get back to DC from Philadelphia after the gala? She rode up there with them as Maurice's plus one but, when it's time for them to leave, there is no mention of Chicho in the van.

The whole story with LeDeya and WIC (also, I hate this nickname), hated it. There could have been a better way to have Dorsey swoop in and save the day but, this?! Sidenote, so Janae is Danny Ocean now? She can hack accounts and create false wire transfers?! That was just too much.

My Final Thoughts: It was a cute love story. From the beginning, as a reader, I saw where it was going. Did it take too long to get there? Yes. Did I hate the book? No. Would I read a book solely about Janae and David's romance with backstories about both of them? Maybe.

One-Word Summary: T-Shirt

[cricketmuse]

Reader Roundup: March

March proved feisty in its determination to toss a bit more winter out before relinquishing to spring. A couple of sunny days lured me out of the house to bundle up and read in my chaise lounge enjoying some excellent reads. A bit refreshing, both in the weather and in the reading. Horse by Geraldine Brooks ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ image: Goodreads What a treat. Excellent research details along with…

[sweatermuppet]

Blessed Be by Sol Rios, published in Ghost of my Ghosts

[morningsaidthemoon]

Excerpt from The Song of Roland, translated by Norma Lorre Goodrich (Medieval Myths)

[skecherss]

them......

(Original panel from Robin (1993) #25)

[soracities]

Carl Phillips, "Fixed Shadow, Moving Water", Then the War: New and Selected Poems [ID'd]

[mire-7viii]

Why are women on here going on about "it takes a village to raise a child" to alleviate the mother's burden like that "village" is some mystical entity? What labour are you asking for, from whom do you want it, and how will you compensate?

Demanding that other people (and let's be honest, these women at least claim not to trust men, so the burden will inevitably fall on child-free women, because other moms also want breaks from childrearing, yes?) sacrifice their decision to not deal with children for a mother's desire to have offspring is anti-feminist.

[arc-hus]

Library in Kressbronn, Germany - Steimle Architekten

[slightly-depressed-sloth]

Experimenting with how I wanna draw Clark and Bruce, decided it would be best to draw them side by side to make sure they don’t look too similar *cough cough* Dc *cough*, also been wanting to draw them in 1940’s suits so combined them into one.

As always click for better quality

COMMISSIONS OPEN

+ Underwear version so that I could actually see their body types for reference later

Bonus; Clean profiles!

ID + refs under cut;

[ID; Digital drawing of Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent standing, both are dressed in 1940’s clothes. Bruce is on the left in a dark navy double breasted suit, with a black tie and yellow shirt, he has a five o’clock shadow and a scar on his cheek and ear. Clark is dressed in a brown suit, with a mismatched jacket and trousers, his trousers are darker and high waisted with a thin belt, his jacket is open and underneath he’s wearing a beige knitted sweater vest with a red tie and white shirt. Clark’s glasses are thick and tortoise shell in pattern. There’s a second drawing, which is in the same poses as the first but both men are in boxers and vests of the period. Behind each of them is a drawing of their face at profile view, Bruce is in full Bruce Wayne persona in his, clean shaven, properly washed for once and with makeup to cover his eye bags, he’s in a black tuxedo and smiling. Clark in his profile is in his above suit plus a fedora with a red band holding a press pass in his hat, he’s looking up in interest. The background to both is faded newspaper clipping of the Gotham gazette and the daily planet along with the superman and Batman symbol. End ID]

Here’s the references I based their clothes on btw, in case you’re interested!

[duohensheng]

i never expected the plot of tgcf to be so reliant on the concept of a group chat

[kiwymelody]

Imagine being a PhD student and checking out a statement at the Magnus Institute for research

First of all the guy doing the recording is way too into it, but he also keeps using the "additional research" segment to talk about his coworkers? Who the hell is Martin and why is he living in the Archives

[whitneydaniell]

by: Jayne Allen Published: Dec 20, 2019 Genre: Fiction, Contemporary, Romance 272 Pages, Audio Book (HH:MM) 07:15

★★★

GoodReads Synopsis:

For Tabitha Walker, her grandmother's old adage, "Black girls must die exhausted" is becoming all too true. Discovering she's pregnant--after she was told she may not be able to have biological children--Tabitha throws herself headfirst into the world of "single mothers by choice." Between her job, doctor's appointments, and preparing for the baby, she's worn out. And that's before her boss at the local news station starts getting complaints from viewers about Tabitha's natural hair.

My Review:

This read was a rollercoaster of emotions (and much like the first in the series), and I don't mean that in a good way.

Same trope. Same foolish mistakes. Same situationship. Same microagressions. Same friend group offering nothing to the story.

I'm invested in this series because I started it but (high-key) wish I wasn't. Allen's writing is all over the place and for me, the story doesn't resonate. The decisions that Tabby makes, the way she talks, and the people she keeps around; it does nothing for me.

Marc -- let's not even go there. How has he made it to book #2?

Ms. Gretchen -- Tabby leans so heavily on these older women (her grandmother Tabitha, in book #1) that it makes me question her friendships with Leila and Lexi.

When people show you who they are, believe them the first time. Between Marc and her daddy, Tabitha wants to be loved by men so badly that she will overlook their bad behavior and obvious neglect of her feelings just to have a connection with them. I didn't like how her relationship with her father was just glossed over and made whole because of her baby and the death of Granny Tab. No Sir, we would all need to sit down and talk to a professional if you skipped out on me, didn't maintain a relationship, went off and remarried, had other children that you were there for and, now all of a sudden we're 'cool' -- no!

I'll be reading the next in the series but, can't say that I'm looking forward to it.

Book #1 Review - Black Girls Must Die Exhausted

One-Word Summary: Nope

[xoalsox]

taemin doing jonghyun's adlib in sherlock (originally in clue)

[sweatermuppet]

What if I’m Simply a Dirty Earthworm? What If I’m a Dirty Man, What Then? What If I’m Nothing But a Sexless Worm? by Megan Borocki, published in Beaver Magazine

[Text ID: Do you still think of when I was small catching earthworms in my socks, face smashed in the mud, my soft fingertips digging for wet bodies to throw at my brother? I still miss your voice. Do you remember when you would hold my wrist above my head hissing grow into a clean woman? /End ID]

[soracities]

I wasn’t supposed to live like this. No one was supposed to live like this. The problem was that I simply didn’t know how to make it right...no one had ever shown me the right way to live a life, and although I’d tried my best over the years, I simply didn’t know how to make things better. I could not solve the puzzle of me.

Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

[galina]

Whale Fall, Elizabeth O'Connor – I was sent an advance review copy by picador, it comes out later this month. A powerful short novel with themes of environment, relationships with nature, colonisation, fascism, community, loss, grief, the impact of biased documentation and archiving, and the role of gender in society.

I really liked this, it hones in on a young girl coming of age on an unnamed island off the coast of wales, in the weeks leading up to war being declared in england.

What struck me was how precise and unflinching the language is in this text where images of island life are shrouded in a blanket of dramatic irony. Whales as literary allegory could feel overdone but not here, where the urgent message against fascism, against humans selfishly taking and appropriating for their own gain – whether from nature or other humans – is frank but not overwritten.