trueconfessionsofabookwhore-blog

[trueconfessionsofabookwhore-blog]

By @becauseofthem via @RepostWhiz app: Ella Fitzgerald was known as the First Lady of Song and the Queen of Jazz. In 1958 she blazed one of many trails when she became the first African American woman to win a Grammy. Day 8 of 28 Days, 28 Photos - Celebrating Black History Month! Please Share + follow along to celebrate heroes, past and present, who have paved the way! Take the pledge at http://becauseofthemwecan.com/

[trueconfessionsofabookwhore-blog]

Definitely adding these to my list... 📚📖👓 #bookworm #blackauthors

[trueconfessionsofabookwhore-blog]

Just a few #goodreads I picked up over the Christmas break... #booklover 👓📚📖😊

[trueconfessionsofabookwhore-blog]

Just finished reading The Awesome Girl’s Guide to Dating Extraordinary Men: A Novel by Ernessa T. Carter. I loved it! It was a laugh out loud, funny, heartbreaking, jaw dropping, relatable read that I was sad to see end. I can’t wait to read more by this author. If you haven’t read her previous novel 32 Candles, you should check it out. A few of the lead characters make an appearance in this one as well (but you can definitely read one without reading the other). But I highly recommend them both!

[trueconfessionsofabookwhore-blog]

[trueconfessionsofabookwhore-blog]

Happy Birthday to this beauty! 🎉🎉🎉 The late great Zora Neale Hurston... One of my favorite authors! She's the face of Google today... As she should be... #booklover #TheirEyesWereWatchingGod #myfavorite

[trueconfessionsofabookwhore-blog]

25 more powerful books for the black girls in your life.

More books for Bailey's list! #lovethis

[trueconfessionsofabookwhore-blog]

Promote a positive self-image and healthy self-esteem as soon as possible with these books!

And these are going on my baby girl's list... 

[trueconfessionsofabookwhore-blog]

For Harriet's list of 100 books by Black women everyone must read.

Some of these I've already read... But I'm definitely adding a few more of these to my list... 

[trueconfessionsofabookwhore-blog]

Y'all know I'm a book lover, nerd, geek... Whatever you choose to label me but I went to a thrift store this morning with @imjustnaturallyme and got all of these and only spent $6 total! I'm so excited! You have no idea! 😁📚 #bookwhore #nerdygirl #igotarealproblem #geeksanonymous

[trueconfessionsofabookwhore-blog]

Ever since I lost my mom at the age of 17, I’ve been really interested in “mother/daughter relationships”… And especially those of African American women. There are so many conversations that I wish I would’ve had the opportunity to have with my mom before she passed. Now that I’m expecting my daughter, literally any day now, watching this interview this morning on the Today show made me tear up. I can’t wait to share the bond with her that I had with my mom. And I can’t wait to read Maya Angelou’s new book, “Mom & Me & Mom”… Check out the link to see/read the interview… 

[trueconfessionsofabookwhore-blog]

In honor of Dr. Maya Angelou on her 85th birthday… 

[trueconfessionsofabookwhore-blog]

the prada plan series...

Disaya Morgan is the typical young girl you see in most urban fiction novels. She’s the daughter of a well-known pimp and prostitute, was placed in foster care, raped and forced to fend for herself. Eventually she becomes just like her mother and allows money to make her forget any morals she ever had. She’s beautiful, she’s making money, she can have any man she wants and other females are jealous… especially one in particular… Leah.

Disaya, better known as Ya Ya, meets Indie, a local hustler who is untouchable in the streets and everything she’s ever dreamed of in a man. They fall in love but the dramas of the street life and their pasts come back to haunt them, causing them both turmoil and hurt. And the story goes on this way…. For three, long, nail biting, suspenseful books….

I really wish this saga would end and this story was over by now…. Sigh… 

Now don’t get me wrong, the storyline is great. As I was reading the first book, it was difficult for me to put it down. I was so caught up in this story and had to know what happened next. Once I was done, I immediately began to read “The Prada Plan 2: Leah’s Story”. But once that one was over and I began to read the third (and what I was hoping would be the final) installment, “The Prada Plan 3: The Green-Eyed Monster”, I was over it. It’s like the never-ending story and I wish it would just end already. Part of my frustration with this series is that an obviously talented author gave me a familiar, predictable theme. I would’ve enjoyed reading about a fresher perspective on urban life instead. It’s too much of the same thing. Every story is the same. It’s bad enough when books end, but for the ending to suck as well is even worse.

With all of that being said, the fourth installment isn’t expected until January 2014. And I do want to know what happens next. But why do I have a feeling that it still won’t be over? I’ll probably be sending my kids off to college before this saga comes to an end.

Happy Reading!! (side eye)

Sidebar: This was my first time reading anything written by Ashley Antoinette or her husband JaQuavis. I’ve heard so much about them and I’ve always wanted to check them out so I decided to start with the Prada Plan (even though I know Ashley pinned these solo). Although the story line and creativity is awesome, if this is any indication as to how all of their books end (leaving you on a cliffhanger and thinking WTF?!), I think I’ll pass on the others…

[trueconfessionsofabookwhore-blog]

Always the case...

[trueconfessionsofabookwhore-blog]

Dream home library...

[trueconfessionsofabookwhore-blog]

the perfect marriage...

From the outside looking in, Denise & Derrek Shaw appear to have it all. The well paying jobs, nice house & cars, and a teenage daughter into any and every extra curricular activity you can imagine. But behind the pretense of their “perfect marriage”, they harbor a secret: They are both addicted to drugs.

Neither will admit that they have an addiction problem since they only use cocaine socially and Denise only takes a Vicodin pill here and there. But Derrek knows first hand the effects of drug abuse, as his parents were drug addicts who left him and his twin brother to live with their grandmother at a young age. He convinces Denise to attend a Narcotics Anonymous meeting with him where they agree to quit drugs forever.

Soon after, a devastating series of events take place surrounding their family, causing Denise & Derrek to turn to drugs once again to help them through their hardships. It isn’t until it’s almost too late and they’ve seemingly lost everything they’ve worked so hard for before they realize that they do in fact have a problem and need help. But it may actually be too late… They may have already lost the one thing that’s most precious to them both.

Once again, Roby has written another great story. It’s an easy read and it allows you to see how even the most successful people can get caught up and into drugs if they’re not careful. However, I thought that overall the story had been told before and was somewhat predictable. It feels familiar… like something I’ve already read although I can’t say exactly when and where. There were no real twists, and no excitement. I kept waiting for that one thing that would shock me and catch me off guard but it never came.

Oh well… I guess it’s to be expected because I tend to favor Roby’s “Rev. Curtis Black” series over her stand-alone novels. The books from her series always seem new and are full of twists that I never even saw coming… even after all these years of reading about this one man. So maybe I’m biased in my opinion but I’m much more excited about reading her next book (part of the “Rev. Curtis Black series) titled “A House Divided” due out in the spring.

Happy Reading!

[trueconfessionsofabookwhore-blog]

a cupboard full of coats...

This, by far, was the best book I’ve read in a long time… and certainly one of my favorites this year (yes I know the year just started). I had to make myself put it down because I found myself reading at the most inopportune times such as while sitting at my desk while my boss was in the vicinity…. and I didn’t seem to really care if I got caught either.

Jinx, a woman in her early thirties is living alone in England as an embalmer. She’s estranged from her husband and has a pretty non-existent relationship with her son, minus the weekends he’s forced to visit. Unexpected and unannounced, an old family friend, Lemon, shows up at her door to unleash his guilt and the secrets he’s held onto surrounding her mother’s death some 15 years prior. As they spend one weekend together, Lemon’s stories disclose many details that Jinx was oblivious to for years. But Jinx has her own stories to tell, also full of secrets and guilt. The stories transfer between the past and present seamlessly in a tale that is sure to have you on edge… literally dying to know what happens next.

This book is full of family secrets and culture… from the food, to the dialect and even how various skin tones and complexions are perceived.  A tasty sounding West Indian and Montserattian meal seemed to make it’s way into every chapter, which only made Bailey and I (yes, I’m blaming it on my unborn, growing baby) hungry. The same West Indian dialect caused for me to re-read a couple sentences but didn’t take away from the story at all. If anything it helped me to better understand the characters personalities. There was however the perception that those individuals of a lighter skin tone were prettier than those of a darker tone. But isn’t this how society still operates??? It’s just never openly discussed… And wait until you discover the semblance of the title to the story… I swear I had an “Aha moment”! This is a definite must read and I recommend it to anyone who loves a good family drama!

Yvvette Edwards is a British author who has lived in London her entire life. A Cupboard Full of Coats is her first novel and it was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. I can’t wait to see what she does next…

Happy Reading!