What are your top books of the year so far?

The Reading Nook #10

Jun 30, 2024

Hey! Welcome to the Reading Nook, a space for books and bookish thoughts and ideas. I hope you’ve been doing okay. Congratulations on surviving the month of June.

Today, I’m sharing my reading journey this month and some of my favourite books so far in the year (we’re halfway through already!) along with some quotes I loved because why not?

Let’s get into it.

What kind of reading month was it?

This was another sluggish reading month for me. I guess I’m in a slow reading season. I didn’t spend as much time as I usually do reading but that opened up space for me to explore my other interests like crocheting (I finished my first crochet bag!), watching shows (I finished season 3 of Abbott elementary and started a new K-drama series titled Doctor Cha), and I started a psychological thriller podcast starring Cole Sprouse called Borrasca which I find so exciting.

For a while, I believed spending less time reading was inherently a bad thing since reading is a big part of my life, but I’m realising like all my other hobbies and interests, my desire to do them fluctuates at different times and that’s completely okay.

June Reading Journey

Top Books
personally loved

❁ Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
(Published June 2016 | 305 pages | Historical Fiction, Multi generational Fiction, African Literature)

This multi-generational historical story set in the British colony of Gold Coast follows the lives of the two daughters of an Asante woman—known to us as Maame—and their descendants. Her daughters, Effia and Esi, are half-sisters who don’t know of the existence of one another and whose lives take drastically different turns.

While Effia marries James, a British governor, and lives with him in the Cape Coast Castle built for the British expatriates and their families during colonialism, Esi is sold as a slave and lives beneath this castle in a dungeon where over 300 women are kept stacked on top of each other and in deplorable conditions until she is shipped to America.

We see Effia’s descendants navigate life through the ethnic wars between the Asante nation and the Fante nation along with the struggle against the British and slave trade. We also see how Esi’s descendants navigate slavery and racism in the United States, the excruciatingly brutal experiences they face and the absence of knowledge of where they come from.

I’ve wanted to read this for the longest time because it’s a book you see everywhere and for good reason. Yaa Gyasi is such a powerful author who weaves stories that slip into your very being and touch you (I’ve read Transcendent Kingdom and it was such a heartbreaking and amazing novel).

I’m in awe of this book. The point of view changes in every chapter, starting with Effia and Esi and then interchanging between the six generations of their descendants. It’s almost like a collection of short stories with various characters traversing distinct paths across different times and locations connected only by the single thread of their ancestry. I also can’t imagine the amount of research on colonial Ghana and slavery in the USA that went into creating this novel because it was so detailed and fleshed out.

The book explores themes of colonialism, slavery, ethnic disputes, class and culture, family dynamics, and the search for home and belonging. It gives explicit details on the struggles of colonialism, slavery, and racism so approach it with care.

You should read it if you have a thing for multi-generational fiction or if you are interested in reading an intricate story about the lives of people in colonial Ghana, the journey of African Americans into America, and the afflictions they faced.

Honourable Mentions
too good not to mention

❁ Slippery Creatures by K.J. Charles
(Published May 2020 | 265 pages | Historical Fiction, Romance, M/M Romance, Thriller, Suspense)

It’s been over two years since Will Darling returned from fighting in the Great War. Since his return to London, he quickly realises his only skill of knowing how to kill people and his previous career as a soldier aren’t enough to land him a job. He pawns off his military medals but it doesn’t do much to help him stave off poverty. So when his friend suggests that he contact his estranged uncle, he doesn’t see any other option. Surprisingly, his uncle, William Darling, welcomes him with open arms and allows him to work in his antique bookshop.

Not too long after Will finally has food, shelter, and a salary, his uncle gets a stroke and eventually dies, leaving everything to Will. Will is overwhelmed by the sheer amount of books he now owns in the bookstore and the lack of inventory, but he’s determined to sort it all out and grateful for the turn his life has taken. Until he begins to get strange and sometimes aggressive visits from some men demanding he gives them ‘the information.’

Will soon realises his uncle was in custody of something that has the power to change the world so much so that Will starts getting threats and his store is being broken into. What could be so serious that he’s getting visits from the war office and a frighteningly tall and muscular man with a strange tattoo on his arm offering him money for the information? But Will has no idea what it is or where to find it, especially in a store with over twenty thousand books. Then he meets Secretan Kim, a charming upper-class man who offers Will friendship and assistance. They have chemistry, intimate moments are shared and progress is made with the mysterious information puzzle. But it seems Kim isn’t who he says he is.

This was recommended to me by

Blessing Maraizu

and it wasn’t a book I’d naturally be drawn to but I had so much fun reading it. It was a funny, action-filled book and I was invested in finding out what ‘the information’ would be. Seeing how obstinate Will was through it all and the trouble his stubbornness landed him in was so entertaining and a bit admirable. The chemistry between Kim and Will was heady and the fight scenes had me on the edge of my seat.

You should read it if you’re looking for an action-packed and funny suspense story with some romance thrown in and a lot of betrayal set in early 20th-century Britain where they talk in a ‘posh’ manner.

❁ Mickey Chambers Shakes It Up by Charish Reid
(Published June 2023 | 320 pages | Romance Fiction, Contemporary Fiction)

Mickey Chambers works as an adjunct instructor at a university teaching writing. She loves it, her classes are engaging and her students like her. But she’s underpaid. And even though her parents brag about their thirty-three-year-old daughter being a professor—which she isn’t and can’t be without a master’s degree in literature—she can barely afford to pay for medication for her chronic illness: hyperthyroidism. So she’s on the search for a new job that can support her through the summer since she’s taking only one online class and paid meagrely for it.

Then there’s Diego Acosta, a grumpy forty-two-year-old widower and bar owner. After dropping out of college in his first year to take care of his sick mother, and then losing his wife, Louisa, to breast cancer years later, he has finally taken the leap to go back to school no matter how awkward and scary it seems at his age. But he’s uncomfortable with the state of the bar because it was Louisa’s front and he was always away in the back office taking care of the background stuff. So he decides they need more hands and that’s when he meets Mickey, a sunny woman with dimples he can’t ignore that gets his heart racing.

When she starts working at the bar, she’s changing things for the better with her bright personality and creative ideas but he finds out she’s his teacher for his online course. It’s dicey. He’s her boss, she’s his instructor, and there are feelings.

I went through this book so fast because it was easy to read and the characters’ bad decisions were entertaining. It was refreshing reading about a more mature couple and I liked seeing Diego go back to school even though it seemed “unconventional” for his age. It’s told from both their point of view and although Diego is quite annoying and Mickey is chirpy almost to a fault, their relationship is cute and obviously messy. It was also a very spicy read.

You should read it if you’re looking for a spicy but cute romance with characters in their thirties and forties making messy mistakes.

My top books of the year so far

Here are my top 5 books of the year so far with some quotes I pulled out of them:

How To Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair
(Published March 2023 | 352 pages | Memoir, Nonfiction, Rastafarian Culture, Feminism)

Like many young women born into poverty, the scarcity of her choices made her easy prey.

Drinking from Graveyard Wells by Yvette Lisa Ndlovu
(Published June 2016 | 158 pages | Short Story Collection, African Literature, Speculative fiction)

The wretched of the earth are not meant to make art, we are supposed to be too busy surviving.

And Then He Sang A Lullaby by Ani Kayode Somtochukwu
(Published June 2023 | 304 pages | Gay Fiction, Contemporary Fiction, African Literature, Coming of Age)

Anger is good, if channeled in the right direction,” […] “We can channel it into hate and blame and violence. Or we can fashion it into a fuel that sustains us as we try to make revolution.

Homecoming by Yaa Gyasi
(Published June 2016 | 305 pages | Historical Fiction, Multi generational Fiction, African Literature)
The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix
(Published April 2020 | 410 pages | Horror, Thriller, Southern fiction)

Why is it always bitches, Kitty thought. As if men believed that word had some kind of magic power.

Currently Reading: Everything Good Will Come by Sefi Atta & Collapse Feminism by Alice Cappelle

Excited about and hope to read soon: Blessings by Chukwuebuka Ibeh

That’s it for today! I hope you enjoyed this. I would love to hear from you so talk to me in the comments or by replying to this email:

❁ What kind of reading month was it for you?

❁ What are some of your favourite books so far in the year?

❁ Do you have favourite quotes you’d like to share?

❁ What are you currently reading or excited to read soon?