Imbolc – #MindforBooksPrompt Post

I found it tough to do a book post for Imbolc because I didn’t know what prompt to go with. Maybe having too much to choose from isn’t as good a thing as I think! 😀

So, with the Cherry Blossom blooming and my Daffodils starting to make shapes I’m in a very Spring mood so I picked some books that make me think of Spring when I look at the covers. I’ve read and LOVED All Boys Aren’t Blue and The Poet X. I’m a little afraid of reading Disappearing Act because the reviews aren’t amazing but it’s Robert Sheehan so I had to buy it and it’s a small book so I’ll get to it one day.

All Boys Aren’t Blue is in the sights of radical groups who want to ban it so I can tell you now I’ll be promoting this book as often as I can. It is such an insightful book and I personally think everyone could take away something positive and helpful from reading it, but the attempt to ban a book that would be beneficial to Black queer kids says nothing good about the people trying to do it. Which is obviously not shocking but it is infuriating.

All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson

In a series of personal essays, prominent journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist George M. Johnson explores his childhood, adolescence, and college years in New Jersey and Virginia. From the memories of getting his teeth kicked out by bullies at age five, to flea marketing with his loving grandmother, to his first sexual relationships, this young-adult memoir weaves together the trials and triumphs faced by Black queer boys.

Both a primer for teens eager to be allies as well as a reassuring testimony for young queer men of color, All Boys Aren’t Blue covers topics such as gender identity, toxic masculinity, brotherhood, family, structural marginalization, consent, and Black joy. Johnson’s emotionally frank style of writing will appeal directly to young adults.

Read Banned Books!

Disappearing Act by Robert Sheehan

In his debut collection of short stories, Robert Sheehan disappears into characters, challenging the complacencies of everyday experience, often from entirely unexpected angles.

Informed by the author’s peripatetic life, Disappearing Act reflects on the absurdity of human behaviour. Sheehan delves deep into his characters streams of self-talk and self-imposed delusions, exploring the dark impulses that lurk below the shiny surfaces of many outwardly normal lives.

Dark, provocative and often humorous, the collection will stay with the reader long after the book is finished.

Apparently it’s weird, which fits! 😀

The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo

A young girl in Harlem discovers slam poetry as a way to understand her mother’s religion and her own relationship to the world. Debut novel of renowned slam poet Elizabeth Acevedo.

Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, she has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking.

But Xiomara has plenty she wants to say, and she pours all her frustration and passion onto the pages of a leather notebook, reciting the words to herself like prayers—especially after she catches feelings for a boy in her bio class named Aman, who her family can never know about. With Mami’s determination to force her daughter to obey the laws of the church, Xiomara understands that her thoughts are best kept to herself.

So when she is invited to join her school’s slam poetry club, she doesn’t know how she could ever attend without her mami finding out, much less speak her words out loud. But still, she can’t stop thinking about performing her poems.

Because in the face of a world that may not want to hear her, Xiomara refuses to be silent.

This book made me sob on public transport. 😀