Books by Black American Women – Equal Opportunity Reader

[REVIEW] The Weight of Blood, by Tiffany D Jackson

(Buy this book.) The blurbs call this a Black version of Stephen King’s Carrie, and they’re mostly right. The author set out to write this as an homage, only shifting the tone of the main character’s terror, not the source. Instead of sheltered, abused, religiously traumatized Carrie White, this book focuses on Madison Washington. MaddyContinue reading “[REVIEW] The Weight of Blood, by Tiffany D Jackson”

[REVIEW] Bloodmarked, by Tracy Deonn

he black and white ebook cover of Bloodmarked, depicting a young Black woman and white man back to back in a battle stance surrounded by magical energies. The cover is displayed on a Kindle that is being held by a Black woman's hand(my hand) in front of an old-fashioned historical American building on a cold rainy day.

(Buy this book) What I expected from the hotly anticipated sequel to Legendborn: Our heroine Bree, having discovered she’s the bearer of a magical legacy from her slave-owning white ancestors that supercharge the gifts inherited from her mother’s ancestral line, raises up a network of fierce Black women rootcrafters, takes on the Round Table, andContinue reading “[REVIEW] Bloodmarked, by Tracy Deonn”

[LAST WEEK IN BOOKS] All Black Everything

This week I feel like doing an all-Black, all-excellent diverse book news update. Y’all down? There we have it, fellow readers; an all-Black-everything book news update. If you are interested in finding diverse books by Black authors to read, click on the links above or check out the following booklists from the Equal Opportunity Bookshop;Continue reading “[LAST WEEK IN BOOKS] All Black Everything”

[REVIEW] Fevered Star, by Rebecca Roanhorse

The black and white cover of Fevered Star is seen from above resting in the lap of a woman in a pink and white striped summer dress, a Thai iced tea with boba balanced on one knee.

(Buy this book!) Let me just rip the band-aid off; meh. I wanted to love this book because of what it is. I love fantasy that steps away from the hoary old medieval Europe tropes. This series, set in a world based on pre-Columbian South American cultures, follows a clash between age-old forces of lightContinue reading “[REVIEW] Fevered Star, by Rebecca Roanhorse”

[REVIEW]How To Catch A Queen, by Alyssa Cole

(Buy this book!) Black. Royals. In. Love. Let me say that again, y’all. Black. ROYAL. Romance! That’s it. That’s the whole review. Go read the book. Okay, fine. As much as I wish that was the whole review, it’s not. As much as I wanted to adore this tale of stern King Sanyu finding andContinue reading “[REVIEW]How To Catch A Queen, by Alyssa Cole”

[REVIEW] Fledgling, by Octavia Butler

(Buy this book here.) *Content warning* Not every written word ages well. Every author has something in their catalog that gives readers of the future the ick. Sometimes it’s the whole catalog. If they’re lucky, it’s just one book or part of a book. Octavia Butler got lucky. Fledgling has been called Butler’s vampire novel,Continue reading “[REVIEW] Fledgling, by Octavia Butler”

[REVIEW] The Secret of Gumbo Grove, by Eleanora E Tate

A paperback copy of The Secret of Gumbo Grove lies on a table, surrounded by a crochet project, an open laptop, and a blue and white paper bookmark.

(Buy it from Bookshop here.) Finally I have time to write another book review! Eleven-year old Raisin Stackhouse loves Prince, her younger sisters, and history. She’s a responsible kid who does odd jobs for neighbors in her South Carolina tourist town, so when Effie Pfluggins, the church secretary, calls her over to help clean gravesContinue reading “[REVIEW] The Secret of Gumbo Grove, by Eleanora E Tate”

[Review] Life After Death, Sistah Souljah

A Kindle lays flat on a dark, plum-colored velvety blanket. It displays the black and white cover the Life After Death, which depict a pair of full women's lips above the book title.

(If you don’t love yourself today, you can buy this here at Bookshop) Did any of y’all ever read Christian end times spec-fic? By that I mean books like Left Behind, This Present Darkness, and other religious novels focused on spiritual warfare, heaven, hell, and salvation. There are a lot of odd things about evangelicultureContinue reading “[Review] Life After Death, Sistah Souljah”

[REVIEW] The Coldest Winter Ever, by Sister Souljah

A Black woman(me) is partly visible, holding a tablet displaying the cover of The Coldest Winter Ever. The book cover shows a Black girl's face from the nose down, her full lips painted bright pink. The woman holding the book is also only visible from nose down and wearing a similar lipstick

(Buy it on Bookshop) Back in 1999, I was an 18-year old nerd who spent way too much time reading.(Big surprise.) I was a soft, weak naive thing without an ounce of fight in me–but I hated this book and would have happily beat the brakes off of somebody like Winter Santiaga in real life.Continue reading “[REVIEW] The Coldest Winter Ever, by Sister Souljah”

[REVIEW] Our Black Year: One Family’s Quest To Buy Black In America’s Racially Divided Economy, by Maggie Anderson

(Buy it on Bookshop here. Or not.) To cut right to the chase, this book really pissed me off. On its face, it’s a real life account of an affluent, educated Black family in Chicago who decided to spend all of 2009 buying from only Black businesses in order to demonstrate the ethnic disparities inContinue reading “[REVIEW] Our Black Year: One Family’s Quest To Buy Black In America’s Racially Divided Economy, by Maggie Anderson”