audible.com – Monic Ductan

I’m listening to the audiobook of New Nigeria County by Clare Brown. It’s a satire I found on Audible.com about a Black woman who calls 911 on a White youth in her neighborhood. She assumes he’s a gang member because he’s wearing cargo shorts. Whites are marginalized in the community. For instance, Blacks tell them their names are difficult to pronounce, and Europe and European culture are disparaged. The book plays off of race-based stereotypes, and to some degree, gender-based stereotypes too. The things I like best about it so far are the writing and the readers/actors. Inflections in the voices of the actors made me chuckle, and several clever jokes stood out. Try it if you like satire.

I read Colm Toibin’s Brooklyn several years ago, and I also enjoyed that movie adaptation. Right now, I’m listening to the sequel, Long Island. This book follows Eilish and the events that occur after she and Tony have been married for twenty years. They are living in New York with their two children, and they live near Tony’s brothers and mother. The opening of the book really hooked me. A complete stranger with an aggressive posture shows up at Eilish’s door. The stranger sounds like an Irishman, and he says that Eilish’s husband has impregnated the Irishman’s wife. He goes on to say he refuses to raise the bastard and that he will deliver the baby to Eilish’s door once it is born. Eilish is shocked and hurt. She doesn’t want the baby, and she’s surprised and mortified to learn that her mother-in-law is considering adopting the baby.

This book reminds us that Eilish also had an affair in the previous book. We catch up to Eilish’s previous lover in here, and I like that I don’t know where exactly the author is going with these two storylines.

I’m only about six chapters along so far, but I’m really enjoying it. It’s a good premise for a book. I like the family dynamics in the story, and I have always loved domestic novels! I look forward to finishing this one.

I finished the whole thing in two days. It’s about a 30-year-old woman whose 12-year-old daughter is murdered in a park along with the daughter’s best friend. The mother, Eve, vows to find her daughter’s killer. She lives in a tiny town in Missouri where both her mother and her ex-lover are into drugs and hard living.

The one thing that bugged me about this one was that Eve, the first-person narrator, keeps a secret from the reader for about half of the book. She simply doesn’t tell us who her daughter’s father is, even though she knew all along. Aside from that, I found this book to be a fun read that kept me guessing. I especially liked the way the author characterizes Eve and her mother. Eve was really shaped by her upbringing, and that comes out on the page. I also appreciated that the book is so short (only about six hours long for the audio version). I despise when authors waste words, and Engel doesn’t waste many. An interesting, entertaining novel. Brava!

I just started this one today. I’m about three hours into it, and I like it so far. It’s about a Black southern family, and it focuses on the females living in Memphis. They endure spousal abuse, sexual violence, and single motherhood. I’ve always been a sucker for a generational novel, and I love reading about women’s lives.

The thing I like most about this one is the love and appreciation for Black beauty. Most novels I’ve read are by white authors who wax poetic about blue eyes and/or pale skin. This one doesn’t do that so far. There’s a paragraph in chapter one where the character admires a tall, dark-skinned woman. 🤗

The book skips around in time. The earliest events take place in the 1930s and the more recent events take place in the early 2000s. There’s a family tree at the beginning of the story to help you keep track of who is who since there are so many principal characters.

If you like women’s fiction and family sagas, give this one a try.

I got this book free with my Audible.com subscription. I’m about a third of the way through and really enjoying it thus far. Based on the title and cover I wasn’t sure what to expect. I thought it would be a historical because of the old fashioned dress of the woman on the cover, and I was right about that, but I never would’ve guessed based on the title and cover that the book would be about the Donner Party.

In case you haven’t heard, the Donner Party was a group of several families traveling in a wagon train to California in 1846-1847. The trip was supposed to take several weeks, but the party got lost in the mountains during an attempt to take a shortcut. There was a snowstorm and some of the people died. Some of the surviving travelers resorted to cannibalism to stay alive.

The book is written in first-person, (my favorite POV!) from the perspective of a young woman who robs a man in Cincy and takes off with the Donner party to California in hopes of both fleeing prosecution and also establishing a better life for herself.

So far the biggest conflicts are between her and the other travelers. She’s acting as a nanny for the Keseberg family. Mr. Keseberg is based on a real historical figure. Our narrator respects him but clashes with his wife.

Can’t wait to see what happens next…

Category: audible.com

What I’m Reading Now: New Nigeria County by Clare Brown

What I’m Reading Now: Long Island by Colm Toibin

The Familiar Dark by Amy Engel

What I’m Reading Now: Memphis by Tara Stringfellow

What I’m Reading Now: When Winter Comes by V.A. Shannon