Leaving Atlanta : The book that stays with you

I wasn't even planning to read this one. I had read Tayari Jones's An American Marriage and loved it. But then the thought of reading her debut never crossed my mind till the time I read Deepa Annapara's Djinn patrol on the purple line. I read her interviews and in one of them, she had mentioned that she was inspired by Jones's Leaving Atlanta amongst others.  It was then I decided that I had to read one more book by Jones.


The book is all about the infamous Atlanta child murders and is written in children's voices. I might sound biased but books written in children's voices are naturally good. Children's worlds are simple and yet very simple but certainly not easy to capture. If an author has done that well, half a job is done.

Tasha is in grade fifth and her parents are separated. But they come together when the city is gripped with the fear of missing children. Tasha is safe and protected but unfortunately, the boy she began crushing got snatched and so did Rodney, her classmate. While Tasha had loving and protecting father, Rodney is the one with an abusive one. His father doesn't think twice before taking his belt out and beating him black and blue. And more than often he is found thinking that lucky are the ones who have no father at all. And then we have Octavia, a bookish girl living with her mother in a humble house. She is the poorest of all, hence ostracised by fifth-graders.

When the kids started disappearing, her mother decided to send her to her father who lives someplace else. Now the father has a family of his own and Octavia is not really even comfortable around him. But then her working mother had to do it because she couldn't risk losing her.

In a nutshell, the book talks about three kids and their relationship with their dads. Like I mentioned, Jones had done a good job capturing their little world.

Read it to know what it meant to be black kids in a dangerous American town. 

The forbidden fruit : Oranges are not the only fruit

Jeanette had always been about the kind of life she was going to live. Her adoptive mother chose god over anything else and expected the same from Jeanette. She took her to church and introduced to bibble which she always kept close to her heart.


 And Jeanette was not complaining until she met Malanie in an icecream shop where Malaine used to work.  Her world fell upside down and the church went crazy when she felt insanely attracted to Malanie a fellow church member in a way that was not accepted by the church.


The novel will be difficult to read for those who are not aware of Christianity but then it is always good to learn new things. Jeanette Winterson's writing will leave you in split even when you don't understand what is happening. The book is aptly short and that's why it doesn't feel like a drag even when it feels boring sometimes. Jeannette and her take on men are funny. She doesn't feel guilty when she realizes her attraction for women because by that time she already knew men are not even capable of romantic relationships.


Read it because it's funny ! 

Open City : Letter to all the cities I have lived and loved.

How true was Bojack Horseman when he said, ' In this terrifying world, all we have are the connections we make'? If I had to summarize this book in one sentence, it would be this. In a heartwarming but difficult book, Teju Cole talks about cities and the people in them. Starting with New York, it goes to Brussels and then Lagos, the city of his childhood and then comes back to New York again. 

There's thing about New York city or every city for that matter. Everybody has their own version. You can walk around a bustling city of millions and yet see something that had never been seen by anyone. It is all the more different when you are in New York. This book is about Julius, a psychiatrist's fellow's New York.  When he is not diagnosing patients, he walks around the city and some times down the memory lane which takes him to Brussels and  Lagos. 

Conversations, conversations and more conversations. It is the conversation that makes memory. Julius vividly remembers all the conversation. There's one with a doctor which makes him realise that age brings a certain kind of freedom which can't be expect at a young age. There are some with a shop owner in Brussels that makes him wonder why people stereotype so easily. European Muslims can be seen having beer and doing things that one would do in Europe and yet they are labeled as fanatics across the world. In a same way Blacks in America are stereotyped as hip hop dancers by the rest of the world. The shopkeeper wanted to know if blacks live the way the way it is shown on MTV. Are their lives all about dancing and rapping. To which Julius reply, no, there are some who go on to become lawyers, doctors and engineers. It is not easy for them but they still do. 

As you read, you come across the history of the United States of America and it will make you wonder its attitude towards immigrants although the country was built by them. There are chapters that talk about systematic oppression against blacks which make it all the more important read. 

Julius also talks about his not so happy childhood in Lagos. There is not much to talk about and how he wished there was. It was all going well till the time pops up this woman in New York who Julius raped eighteen years ago. She tells him she has tried to forgive and forget but couldn't. She tells him she remembered about it everyday and it had never left her alone. You would want to know Julius reaction to all this but sadly there isn't any. The book ended abruptly. Did he have any regrets? What did he do ? Did he at least apologize? But no, Cole left us wondering at that. 

True that you will meet people you hurt and then also meet people who hurt you. And that's what make your life it is. But what Julius did was crime and as a reader I wanted to know how the accusation affected his life. But no...