Beautiful Country by Qiun Julie Wang

 Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2021--San Antonio

Beautiful County by Quin Julie Wang is a memoir of the life of a young girl whose Chinese family lived illegally in the US after staying beyond the limits of their visas--the father's as a student and the mother and daughter was visitors.  It clearly expresses the difficulties of being here illegally--fear of being found out and deported, degrees and experience in the former country being meaningless here, jobs in sweatshops, low pay, cramped and unsafe living conditions, difficulty of ever getting ahead financially, difficulty finding a footing in schools without prior knowledge of English, teachers suspecting you of cheating if you write too well in English, the high extraneous costs of education, etc.  Most of the book deals with the family's life and, in particular, the daughter's life during the years she goes from the first grade through the 6th.  It's gives a good idea of how difficult life is for immigrants, and especially those without legal residency, in the US.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

Thursday, Sept. 30, 2021--San Antonio, TX 

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi is a fascinating story.  It covers several generations of the members of the royal families of two African tribes from the late 1700s to the present with an emphasis on certain descendants of two sisters.  It deals with colonialism, slave trading, tribal wars, arranged marriage, skin coloration, beliefs, desires, etc., following the lines of descendants in both Ghana and America.  There are often parallels that are easy to see between political situations and family life of the times throughout that long period and today here in America.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

Peaces by Helen Oyeyemi

Saturday, Sept. 15, 2021--San Antonio

I quit reading Peaces by Helen Oyeyemi after getting through 20% of it.  I could follow the story, but it just didn't interest me.  It involved magical realism which I have never much appreciated.  The ratings for the book cover the whole range fairly evenly distributed between 1 star and 5 stars.  I rated it 2 stars out of 5 since I could follow the story easily but because I just wasn't interested in continuing it. 

The Promise by Damon Galgut

 Thursday, Sept. 9, 2021--San Antonio

The Promise by Damon Galgut received great reviews by BBC, The Observer, and The Times.  Set in South Africa, it is the story of the members of an Africaans farming family and the members of the family of their Black servan.  It covers approximately a 50-year period of time from when apartheid existed to recently.  It reveals the changes that take place in South Africa related to race relations, economics, religion, and politics.  It is well written and worth reading.  I give it 4 stars out of 5.

Afterparties by Anthony Viasna So

Monday, Aug. 30, 2021--San Antonio

Afterparties by Anthony Viasna So is a book consisting of a collection of short stories about the lives of Cambodian immigrants living in the Central Valley of California after immigrating to the US following the collapse of the Pol Pot Khmer Rogue regime.  The stories are quite humorous and provide intimate glances into the lives of "Cambos"--both those who have struggled in poverty and those who have lived the American dream of growing wealthy, their traditions, their extended families, etc.  There are connections between the stories--characters who are parts of more than one story although, each story is separate from the others.  The book was recommended by the New York Times.  Unfortunately, the author, a graduate of Stanford University, died of an overdose in 2020.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

 Tuesday, Aug. 17, 2021--San Antonio

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett is a very good book that was a finalist for the National Book Award.  The two main characters are two girls/women who were born and raised in a rural Louisiana community of light-skinned black people.  Everyone there took pride in being light-colored and the town was unwelcoming to those with deep black skin.  However, the residents there also suffered, like so many black people, from discrimination and even violence at the hands of whites.  The two girls, at age 17 run away to New Orleans to create a new life for themselves.  And after one gets fired from the laundry where they both work, their lives take a change.  They need money to support themselves, and it isn't easy for a black girl to find a job, especially one who is not legally an adult.  One day the unemployed one wanders into a New Orleans department store--not through the side entrance for blacks but through the main doors.  No one says or does anything; they assume she is white.  She has always been good in school, has good penmanship, is good at typing, etc., so when she learns that the department store is hiring a new secretary, she applies and gets the job.  From then on, the sisters gradually grow apart with one continuing to live as a black person and the other passing as white.  They eventually lose track of each other and live totally separate lives.  The book continues to tell the stories of these two sisters and the children they have, the problems that keep them apart, the coincidence that brings them together briefly, and the distant friendship the develops between their two daughters.  I liked the story and the quality of the writing.  I gave the book 4 1/2 stars out of 5.

Home Stretch by Graham Norton

Thursday, Aug. 12, 2021--San Antonio

I enjoyed Home Stretch by Graham Norton more than most of the books I have read recently.  It's well written and occasionally has wonderful laugh-out-loud moments.  The story has some similarities to one of my all-time favorite novels, Atonement--especially the aspect that something is reported at the beginning that is a falsehood that results in lives being ruined for years.  I couldn't put the book down once I started it.  And I was so sorry for it to end, since I had enjoyed it so much.  I gave it 4 stars out of 5.