Fun summer read! Quick read and love that it takes place in NYC and Westchester County. Also a story line very much in the news concerning college admissions with a different twist. Her characters are always so true to life and always get a good laugh from her stories!

The amazing compilation of the writing of 80 writers and 10 poets spans four hundred years of the African American experience. Each of the ten sections includes 8 writers (each taking 5 years to cover) and one poet. The writers’ approaches are varied and well-known to little known stories emerge. I finished feeling angry but inspired.

Wonderful.

Loved it! Devoured this book in practically one sitting, it's so good. The setting is amazing described, the characters are great, and the plot is captivating. The book definitely picked up in the last hundred pages or so and became the horror I was looking for. I can't wait to see the limited series adaptation of this - it has such incredible potential! The book is a bit of a slow burn for the start, but the end 100% made it worthwhile.

3.5 stars. I really enjoyed the second half of this book compared to the first. The writing does feel a bit juvenile at points, but I think it was intentional to really have us understand the characters and what the author was attempting to convey about them. Would be a good beach read.

Louise Erdrich’s novel speaks of her ancestors and Chippewa culture. Her grandfather fought termination bringing his flight to Washington DC to help defeat the proposed dispossession of the Chippewa from Turtle Mountain, North Dakota. At points the book dulls and could have been shorter, but her characters come to life and her story teaches.

I listened to this book on audio. I found it very hard to stay engaged in this. Perhaps already knowing the outcome diminished the story for me, the details provided went into the minutia. The author should not have done the audio - whew his accents were awful.

Amazing book! Tons of detail and humor.

This book was amazing, but I can't give it five starts because it was to romantic for me.

This was great. Jo is a Chinese-American girl living in the South. Her and her adoptive father, Old Gin, face rampant discrimination, especially considering the fact that they are treated as "in-between" - they are not colored, but they are not white, either. They are treated poorly, while also facing the realization that many segregation rules do not seem to specifically apply to them. When Jo is fired from her job, she takes up her previously position as lady's maid for a girl she grew up being mistreated by. At the same time, the newspaper shop they live under is at risk of going out of business if they don't come up with some great new idea to get a whole lot of subscribers. Enter Jo, who under the anonymous name of Miss Sweetie decides to start writing an advice column that challenges many of the racist and sexist ideas her society is filled with. Of course, this brings with it a whole host of problems - Jo's writing is a crime in and of itself, and she will be chased out of town if anyone finds out that she is Miss Sweetie. She also has to balance staying hidden underneath the printshop, bite her tongue when it comes to the cruel things her mistress says, and ignore the fact that Old Gin seems to be doing something sneaky that she worries may have to do with marrying her off to a stranger. And, of course, she's still curious about where she came from - who were her parents, and why did they abandon her with Old Gin to begin with? Jo is a great role model for young girls to look up to - she is spunky and has her own thoughts and opinions that she is not afraid to share with others. She is a big risk taker, and an absolute delight to read about.