![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Books read in 2023 # 44-45 - Love Stories
May. 30th, 2023 11:39 pm44. The Heart of a Woman by Maya Angelou - This one can be subtitled "Men Tell Maya Who They Are: But She Doesn't Have Old Maya to Tell Her Better" mostly from the ending when she marries a South African activist who is just a May Day Parade full of red flags. He cheats on her. He "forbids" her from working. He keeps saying that he's handling the finances until they are served with an eviction notice. It gets worse in Egypt where she has to work (despite her husband's objections) to pay for all the items that the husband keeps falling behind on payments.
And the guy she leaves for this man is possibly worse mostly because he's a bail bondsman and a major part of the prison industrial complex. But also he uses the N word without shame.
That's not the only part of the book. Most of the book is about her work with the NAACP and her attempts and putting on shows to raise money for Martin Luther King. She also meets Malcolm X who tells her that she's foolish for protesting after the death of a post-colonial African leader but promises to not take the side of so-called conservative black leaders who will condemn her. Billie Holiday shows up to be the worst house guest but also sweet in her own way. Maya is not pleased when Billie informs Maya's son that her song Strange Fruit is about Southern states where they will chop his nuts off.
Also Maya has a fuckbuddy at one point and at another point threatens to shoot a baby when her son runs afoul of a local gang leader. She claims that she was bluffing. But I don't think I'd want to test that. Seriously, don't fuck with Maya Angelou.
45. Mooncakes by Wendy Xu and Suzanne Walker - Now this one is a love story between a teenage witch and her non-binary werewolf lover. This is more of what people think when they hear love story, but I argue that Romeo & Juliet is a love story because it's about love and what love story ever ends happily? The best you can hope for is the beginning of Up - old man standing over wife's grave. Like that one chapter of Sandman stated, the only way to ensure a happy ending is to know when to stop.
So this one is about Nova, the teenage witch with hearing aids whose old friend shows up in her town fleeing from a cult that wants to turn their werewolf powers into something evil. Tam and Nova make for a cute couple and their Nova's grandmothers are very happy to have them. The book is fun and I don't remember much of it, but I'm happy that I made the journey with these two and hope to read more of them.
And the guy she leaves for this man is possibly worse mostly because he's a bail bondsman and a major part of the prison industrial complex. But also he uses the N word without shame.
That's not the only part of the book. Most of the book is about her work with the NAACP and her attempts and putting on shows to raise money for Martin Luther King. She also meets Malcolm X who tells her that she's foolish for protesting after the death of a post-colonial African leader but promises to not take the side of so-called conservative black leaders who will condemn her. Billie Holiday shows up to be the worst house guest but also sweet in her own way. Maya is not pleased when Billie informs Maya's son that her song Strange Fruit is about Southern states where they will chop his nuts off.
Also Maya has a fuckbuddy at one point and at another point threatens to shoot a baby when her son runs afoul of a local gang leader. She claims that she was bluffing. But I don't think I'd want to test that. Seriously, don't fuck with Maya Angelou.
45. Mooncakes by Wendy Xu and Suzanne Walker - Now this one is a love story between a teenage witch and her non-binary werewolf lover. This is more of what people think when they hear love story, but I argue that Romeo & Juliet is a love story because it's about love and what love story ever ends happily? The best you can hope for is the beginning of Up - old man standing over wife's grave. Like that one chapter of Sandman stated, the only way to ensure a happy ending is to know when to stop.
So this one is about Nova, the teenage witch with hearing aids whose old friend shows up in her town fleeing from a cult that wants to turn their werewolf powers into something evil. Tam and Nova make for a cute couple and their Nova's grandmothers are very happy to have them. The book is fun and I don't remember much of it, but I'm happy that I made the journey with these two and hope to read more of them.
