Flip the Page
A girl perpetually stuck in books, reviewing and recommending books to get you perpetually stuck in books.
This podcast will be highlighting fiction books across all genres from mainly Black authors. If you're struggling finding or deciding what books to read written by Black authors with Black characters and dope storylines, you've found the right place!
For those who love reading, those who don't love reading, and those yet to find their love of reading. This is a safe space, sis, so don't be afraid to tap in!
Flip the Page
Ep 15 | Reading Wrap Up: Y'all, This Reading Slump...
Hey y'all, welcome back to another episode Flip the Page. I'm doing things a lil different in this episode and bringing y'all a reading wrap up of the books that launched me into the worst reading slump I've experienced in years. Featuring (mostly) romance books.
Books covered in this episode:
1) Curvy Girl Summer by Danielle Allen
2) Sweetness in the Skin by Ishi Robinson
3) Can't Let Her Go by Kianna Alexander
4) Saavy Sheldon Feels Good As Hell by Taj McCoy
[Intro Music] Hey. How y'all doing? So if you tuned into the previous episode, you'll know I took a little break from the pod. And genuinely, I'm super happy that my subscriber count is barebones because it kind of sorta affords me the flexibility to kind of crash and take a break without feeling any of pressure.[Giggles] Because truly, your girl burned out. Oh my gosh. But to all of you who have subscribed to the channel so far, thank you. I see you and I appreciate you. Muah. No bars. Sorry.[Giggles] In all honesty, while I was doing some reshuffling in my life, I kind of lied. when it came to books... at a certain point last year, truly, truly, truly I became stuck in the worst reading slump I've experienced in recent years. Keeping it so real, I needed a break from the novels like it was definitely the novels I read recently that just took me out of it. I was not feeling them at all, and my genuine disappointment in the books sucked out any motivation I had to actually pen out a conversation about it. Then on top of that, life was busy and whooping my ass. So I took a break. But y’all probably don't really give a fuck about how I'm feeling, and most likely didn't click on this episode to hear about my mental state in the latter half of 2024. What you probably want to hear about are the actual books that led me to this slump. If you're plugged into my forum on Reddit, you've probably seen a few of my posts ranting about a few of them, but I wanted- I wanted more space to really flesh out my thoughts and just chat shit freely. Which led me here. Moving right into the drag in T minus three. Two. One. The following reviews are about to get real gutter butter and nasty. If you're uncomfortable with critique coming from a place of love but mostly loathing, I'd encourage you to click out of this episode. Viewer discretion is advised. I'm going to try to keep these reviews as spoiler free as possible. As possible, being the operative words. Let's kick things off with some positivity so y'all can’t slap me with the hater allegations right out the gate. Curvy Girl Summer. Curvy Girl Summer by Danielle Allen. This book is about a woman, Aaliyah, who starts dating men via dating apps to get her family off her back about being single. Is it ever that serious? I guess. At the bar she goes to for her first date, she makes friends with the bartender, Ahmad, and they come up with this plan for Aaliyah to have all of her dates at the bar while he's working, so he can intervene if she runs into any creeps or weirdos on this app, which she does. A lot. Obviously, it ain't long before feelings start blossoming between the two. Now, I'd been looking forward to reading this for a hot minute. So when I open up the book and the opening pages started off with a dedication from the author to their grandparents, followed up on the next page with a very detailed description of Aliyah getting [REDACTED] down with a [REDACTED] by her ex. I wasn't too optimistic. But honestly, once you get past the first chapter and meet Ahmad and get into the flow of things in the dates... It got good. I don't see enough people talking about this book, but if you love romance with a thick sexual tension and explicit scenes, come get your juice. No, because I actually enjoyed the - out of this book. It was honestly just a fun read. Aliyah and Ahmad start out as frenemies who gradually become good friends. Best friends, really. When I tell you, the banter between the two was top tier. I'm one of those people who loves, like, jokey, roasty banter in a relationship dynamic. Keeping still though, of course, like we're not hurling slurs around. It was right up my alley. From jump, they both had a clear attraction to each other, but due to certain circumstances and misunderstandings, they don't take that step to admit their attraction to each other. Although they definitely toe the line, quite deliciously, I might add, as the sexual tension and chemistry between them was palpable. I ate it the - up, Not the straights got me back on they side with this one. Ooh. Plus Unplanned... But yeah, I definitely recommend this one to romance lovers out there. Aliyah is also a fat black woman and deals with fatphobia from her family, specifically from her uncle and men she meets face to face on these dating apps. The author does an okay job navigating it. I mean, I'm not expecting some deep or groundbreaking tackling or dissection of fatphobia in a romance book, so it was fine for what it was. The story also dealt with grief a bit as well. Again, it wasn't really explored much, in my opinion, the same way anti fatness wasn't. But again, not that type of romance book. I'll live with that. This book got a 3.5 out of five for me. 3.5 leaning towards four, not three. Our next book, Sweetness in the Skin. Okay, now that we got the niceties out the way, let's get nasty. The next book I read that started edging me off a cliff into the depths of my reading slump. Sweetness in the Skin by Ishi Robinson. This story is set in Jamaica and is about a poor young biracial Jamaican, Pumkin, who lives with her aunt Sophie, her absentee mother named Paulette, and her grandmother. Aunt Sophie is offered an opportunity to move to France for work and promises to send for Pumkin a year later. All Pumkin has to do to get there is pass an expensive ass French exam. When her grandma passes away, however and Pumkin is left in the hands of her deadbeat mama and her estranged father. things turn for the worse. Somehow, Pumkin must find a way to raise the funds for the exam herself. So she turns towards baking, selling treats wherever she can. Including school. Which is illegal. When her school and her mother catch on to what she's doing, they threaten to snatch everything Pumkin’s work towards out of her hands. Off the synopsis, The book sounded like it'd TEAR. Y’all, I was foaming at the mouth and rubbing my hands together, ready to finally crack this bad boy open. But alas, this book. This book pissed me clean off for two reasons. One, it had the potential to be such a great historical fiction read and flopped, and two, colorism. When will we be free? When will we be free? This should be self-explanatory, but I'm going to say it anyway, because I just feel like I need to. There is a difference between colorism being inserted functionally into a narrative, and colorism being inserted into a narrative due to an author's inherent prejudice. I repeat. There is a difference between colorism being inserted functionally into a narrative and colorism being inserted into a narrative due to an author's prejudice. This goes for every other -ism and -phobia, by the way. While the book contains the former, it suffers terribly. TURRIBLY, from the latter, which results in a main theme in the book colorism being explored miserably and impacting my overall enjoyment of the book. All shade. If you're going to explore colorism poorly, please just leave it out of the book. Like spare me. Y’all publishing houses need to get sensitivity readers for this - because I'm over it. And sensitivity readers belonging to the discriminated group in question. I don't even know why I'm suggesting this like they give a damn in the first place. And it also low key shouldn't be the job of people suffering from -isms to facilitate the thematic exploration or removal of -isms from these stories, truly. So never mind actually. Just do better. It actually pisses me off even more that colorism was put into this book the way it was. The author hints and explicitly indicates colorism is a main factor for why Paulette, Pumkin's mother, is the way that she is. She was neglected and can be argued, abused as a child due to her dark complexion, which manifested in her seeking out love wherever she could find it - wayward men despising her sister Aunt Sophie, and abusing and neglecting her own daughter, Pumkin. Okay, cute. But the lens at which the narrative dissects the impact of colorism on Paulette’s, actions and critiques her actions - rightly so - compared to the lens the narrative dissect the impact of colorism on Sophies lightbright, biracial actions is abysmal at best, and indicative of the author's own prejudices. To me. Aunt Sophie is a classist, colorist biracial who is afforded opportunities, affection and care from her mother due to her skin tone and racial status, and who disparages those she perceived as being beneath her, aka anyone with a darker hue or of a lower class. Ironic, given where she lays her head at night. Paulette and her actions are held to the proverbial fire the entirety of the book, as they should, while Aunt Sophie's actions, are given about maybe a couple paragraphs total of actual critique and accountability in relation to colorism. And I suppose you could argue this in itself could be a means of further highlighting colorism in the narrative, but that little colorist extension me and the overall handling of colorism in the narrative, plot and character dynamics is telling me it's nothing of the sort. Listen, I know the colorism is colorismning when I'm reading a book and can tell you the complexion of the author without knowing what the hell they look like. This book got 2 out of five for me. And that’s me Being the generous queen. Book three Can't Let Her Go. Oh, father God. Next up on the trial block for charges of reading slump material: Can't Let Her Go by Kianna Alexander. This book was a calculated attack against black lesbians. Okay, maybe I'm being overdramatic, but I'm in no way being overdramatic when I say this is one of the worst books I've read in the past decade. it's up there with Summer in Savannah. There I go again doing too much because there's nothing I've read that's topping that hot mess that was Summer- One Summer in Savannah. But being so serious, this book was a disaster. There are multiple gripes I had with this story, but at least I can say I was neither excited nor dreading this book. So it didn't shatter any high expectations I had of it. This book is just a story about two black women, Peaches and Jamie. Honestly, I should have dropped the book after reading one of them lady's names was Peaches. No shade to any Peaches out there. But if you know, you know. Peaches and Jamie are two 20- or 30-something year old women. See, I don't even care to even- I don't even care enough to fact check ages. That's when, you know, a book blew the fuck out of me. When I don't care enough to fact check. Let me focus. Peaches and Jamie belong to the same close knit friend group. They have feelings for each other and decide to act on their feelings at the risk of blowing up said friend group. First issue with the book. I hate... scratch, scratch that. I absolutely loathe when characters in a romance have pre-established feelings for each other, and absolutely no window into how or why these feelings came to be, outside a brief mention, is shown in the story. Boring. Sloppy. Lazy. How the hell are we starting off this book and they already got feelings for each other. And you mention the exact moment they started feeling each other, yet you refused to write and flesh out the scene on them pages... Once again. Lazy. I hate it so bad. Y'all, like, don't piss me off. 99% of the fun in romance to me is reading how people catch feelings for each other and watching them navigate these feelings until they inevitably get together right? Right. How the hell are you snatching the cake out of my plate before I even get a chance to take a nibble? Second issue. Okay. Cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool. You skimp out on showing me the events that led to the initial attraction between the two mains. Fine. I'll take that on the chin and keep it pushin. But no, snatching the cake out my plate wasn't enough. Nah, you got to snatch that shit. Spit on it with all the nasty ass phlegm you got built up in the back of your throat. Set that - down back in front of me and tell me to dig in. You got to make sure you give me abysmal relationship development as well. No... these are crimes. These are crimes. Peaches and Jamie belong to a close knit friend group. A friend group that is essentially a found family. Let the record show. These are not my words. These are the author's words. Let the record also show that that little close knit friend group is nothing of the sort. How the hell are you trying to tell me that they're a found family if half of them in the friend group don't even speak with the other half like that? Like Peaches and Jamie don't even hang out with each other unless other people are there. Sorry., ain't that just you a friend of a friend? Or am I missing something? Anyway, Peaches and Jamie developed an attraction for each other (off page) and decide to start seeing each other. And when I tell y'all for the majority of this story it’s giving, they're just friends with benefits. Where one party has feelings that they want to explore, while the other says“F that”, dismisses their feelings because all they want is some cooch. Not even with any underlying feelings or anything. What the actual hell? It wasn't nothing romantic going on in this book. I'm actually going to be sick. Black lesbians down 500 points. Third issue with the book. Take away showing how the feelings or initial attraction arose. Take away good development of the relationship. But at least. At the bare minimum. Make the sex scenes good if you're going to throw them in. Y’all... I speak with not an iota of hyperbole when I tell you that shit knocked me out. I was reading a sex scene in this book MID-day, and next thing I knew, I was waking up at one in the goddamn morning. Call that - NyQuil because that's what it's giving. I ain't ever had a sex scene knock me out like that. I just- oh, my God, I just did not have a good time reading this. And the only reason I gave it half a star on Storygraph is because the leads are black lesbians. Pathetic? Maybe so. Our next book and our last book - Thank God - Savvy Sheldon Feels Good As Hell. This is the last book I read that put the final nail in the coffin and buried me into my reading slump. Savvy Sheldon Feels Good As Hell by Taj McCoy. I mean this so disrespectfully when I say if I wanted to see Sheila's plotline, I’d just put on Why Did I Get Married. Disrespectfully. If I wanted to consume a Tyler Perry production, I'd go put one on babes. Please don't DARE. Don't you EVER subject me to reading no Tyler Perry ass scripT in a novel. Have I not suffered enough in this life? Y'all, this was my first DNF of 2024. I didn't even make it past chapter three, I think. Who knows? Maybe the book actually was a chew, but the way those early chapters were shaping up... I had to put me first. I just I had to put me first. I'm even more pissed off because one of my New Year's resolutions for 2024 was to not DNF books. But what is a New Year's resolution if not broken promises and bad habits persisting? So what did this string of consecutive reads teach me? I need to take a break from romance. I need to take a little hiatus from romantic love because if this is love shoot. I don't want it. The straights ain't gagging. The lesbians putting me to sleep. Do I need to pick the gays up? I got to put the romance on pause, y'all. At best, it can be a second or third plot in a novel, but I just got to take a break.
Side note:I mentioned in a previous episode that a high key got burnt out, putting out weekly episodes. If I want to delve into the literature the way I want to and editing an episode every week while being a slave to capitalism, I'm going to be shifting to bi weekly episodes to give me more time to chew on a text. But low key. I enjoyed doing this little wrap up, so I might do more in the future. If you enjoyed this episode, please drop a like or a comment. Please don't have me looking like the lady that be up here talking to herself. Till next time. Buh bye.
