All posts tagged: class

National Book Award-winning and NYT bestselling author Jacqueline Woodson’s RED AT THE BONE, about family, history, ambition, and a teen pregnancy

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By Leslie Lindsay  Beneath the trouble, lies a very powerful and poignant tale about race and class, ambition, and more. RED AT THE BONE is destined to become a classic.  ~Wednesdays with Writers: SPOTLIGHT!~ The thing with ‘classic’ literature is that it is typically polarizing; that is, not everyone is going to love it, there will be themes that make readers squirm, that make us uncomfortable. Classic literature does that. That’s exactly what we’ll find in this bestseller from Jacqueline Woodson, RED AT THE BONE (September 17 2019). Told in a forward-and-backward momentum, Woodson tells the story of two African American families from different social classes who come together because of a teen pregnancy and the child it produces. We begin with a sixteen-year-old’s coming-of-age party in somewhat contemporary (2001) times. Melody is that baby from sixteen years ago, when her mother was an unmarried pregnant teen. Adoring relatives look on, but what we don’t know is the pain each of them has carried. “In less than 200 sparsely filled pages, this book manages to encompass issues of class, …

OMG! This book–y’all have GOT to read SUCH A FUN AGE, about race, class, and how everything can be misconstrued

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By Leslie Lindsay  A striking, surprising debut from from an exhilarating new voice, SUCH A FUN AGE is a compulsive page-turner.  AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A REESE’S BOOK CLUB x HELLO SUNSHINE BOOK PICK “The most provocative page-turner of the year.” –Entertainment Weekly “A great way to kick off 2020.” –Washington Post   ~FICTION FRIDAY: SPOTLIGHT!~ You guys! I cannot stop thinking about–or talking about–this book! It’s a bit like Jennifer Weiner meets the pacing of a psychological thriller meets Kim Brooks’ SMALL ANIMALS, but there’s so much more, too. SUCH A FUN AGE (Putnam, December 30 2019) is compulsively readable; it’s like a bad car accident you just can’t take your eyes from. And I am so grateful to G.P. Putnam’s Sons for this review copy. Emira Tucker is a 25-year-old attractive black babysitter trying to make ends meet between her part-time jobs. She out at a friend’s 26th birthday party when the mother of her young charge calls–it’s nearly eleven p.m.–requesting her babysitting services–NOW. She doesn’t look like a babysitter at the moment. She’s …