Blackreadingjoy

February reads included a lot of books by Black authors in honor of Black history month! Remember, celebrating Black history, books, and authors does not stop in March! You can read more stories about Black people and by Black authors any time!

#booksky #Blackbooksky

4✨ This book draws on K. Dunham’s Caribbean expedition but focuses on the women traveling with her Zinzi, Vivian Jean & Othella.

Loved the vivid multi-POV storytelling, though it can be much to track at times. I wanted more about the expedition!

🎧 ALC via NetGalley.
#booksky #Blackbooksky

4.5✨🎧 An author with writer’s block. A friend group falling apart. A new friendship that changes everything.
Remy’s journey through change, identity & what friendship really means felt fresh, honest & beautifully nuanced. A few slow moments.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ALC
#Booksky #Blackbooksky

This is such a great way of explaining it! I didn’t love the HR book but it was such a great storyline. Jacob really did elevate it and the acting was phenomenal! I need Connor and Hudson to get all their flowers! I’m looking forward to seeing what the three of them do with this story.

3.25✨ 🎧 I know I’m in the minority. I love Ilya & Shane (but honestly Hudson & Connor’s portrayal even more), and I’ll watch S2 of HR, but this one didn’t fully land.

Slow until ~75%, wanted way more depth (especially re: mental health). Still a Loon though.
Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️/5

#booksky

4.5✨ 🎧 Casey Black, social media influencer, has her life implode when her husband leaves. In searching for her late father’s family, she starts finding herself too. Packed with rich history, warmth, healing & joy. A bit predictable at times, but I couldn’t put it down.

#booksky #Blackbooksky

4.75✨ This debut follows Nikki Rose, a Black woman fighting to prove herself in the mostly white magazine industry while giving us a front-row seat to the 90’s hip-hop scene.

Zero drag, and the perfect mix of drama, romance, self discovery and sisterhood.
🎧
Spice: 🌶️/5
#Blackbooksky #booksky

4.5✨ Powerful true-crime book about a man, falsely convicted of murder at 17 and imprisoned for 30 years. His exoneration exposed corruption in the police & judicial system.

Excellent narration - a few sections dragged. 🎧
Thanks to NetGalley & Dreamscape Media for the ALC.
#booksky #Blackbooksky

4.75✨🎧
We follow pianist, Hazel Scott from NYC jazz clubs to a U.S. congressman husband, to Paris and back. Music, joy, pain, loss, renewal, and some familiar and surprising names.
Spent the night listening to her music!

Thanks to NetGalley & Harper Audio for the ALC.
#booksky #blackbooksky

My January reads brought to you by @thestorygraph.com !! Which is the best place to organize your current reads as well as your TBR! It’s also NOT owned by Amazon! 💜💜

#booksky #Blackbooksky #bluesky

3.25✨ Didn’t love the audiobook, narrator felt unnatural and distracting, which dulled the emotional impact. Writing felt technical compared to the show (which I loved).

The story is powerful: redefining masculinity and showing love as love. Might retry as a physical book.
🎧 | 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️/5
#booksky

5✨ Most of us are quite familiar with Rev Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s “I have a Dream” speech but how many of us know “Letter from Birmingham Jail”? I reread this book yearly and glean more and more each time I read. I hope you pick it up this year as well.

#booksky #blackbooksky

You will love this book then! Yes, it’s YA but I really enjoyed it and it took me back to high school!

4.25✨ This YA book is giving Back to the Future meets 90’s hip hop vibes! Raheem is using a phone from his friend but is it just a phone? Next thing, he has been teleported to the 1990’s where hip-hop is king and he has to get back home while not changing the future!
#blackbooksky #booksky

5✨ 🎧A short but powerful book told through letters between two friends, one Jewish man in the U.S. & his German friend living in Germany during Hitler’s rise. Eerily relevant to today’s political climate. Don’t skip the foreword or afterword.

Twists: 🌪️
#booksky

4✨ Prudence’s perfect life shatters when a ghost from her past arrives.The story moves between her present day and post-apartheid South Africa (1996), where she worked on apartheid-era cases. A slow-burn thriller & historical fiction with a shocking ending.
Version: 🎧
Twists: 🌪️🌪️/5
#💙📚 #blackbooksky

4.5✨ The Princess Bride is an amazing movie and is one of the few movies that does the book justice.

Listening to Rob Reiner narrate was heart wrenching but also lovely. You can tell he was not a professional narrator, just someone who loved the book and that was enough for me! Enjoy!
#booksky

#booksky #Blackbooksky #bluesky

4.25✨ Nadia, Luke & Aubrey are living life impacted by a secret that won’t stay buried. After losing her mom Nadia searches for love in a fast, doomed romance with Luke and then a friendship with Aubrey.

Deeply human characters, messy choices & so much miscommunication.
🎧 Audiobook
Spice :🌶️/5

Check out my 2025 bookish year in review from @thestorygraph!!! Be sure to follow me there (Robin1b)!

I read books to inspire, educate, and relax me and I hope you do too! Read to grow for yourself and not for others!

#booksky #blackbooksky

4.75✨ 🎧 Erivo’s autobiography is heartfelt & inspiring. More than a performer, she’s a runner, daughter, & friend. From her childhood to Jesus Christ Superstar, she invites us to live boldly & be “simply more.”

“If it is boring the life out of you, it is not your life.”

#booksky #Blackbooksky

4.5✨🎧
Grace and Henry both lost their spouses a year ago. It’s time for the first holiday season without them. A beautiful friendship focused on shared grief blossoms. Full of holiday cheer, a heart wrenching & warming storyline & well developed characters that you will fall in love with!
#booksky

4✨ Speculative fiction that made me 🤔. A “post-racial” America where white people disappear, centered on a bi-racial daughter & her Black father meeting for the first time after his wrongful incarceration. Raises big questions about power, trauma, healing & community.
🎧
#Blackbooksky
#booksky

#booksky #Blackbooksky

3.75✨ Super cute Christmas novella set in the town of Candy Cane Hollow, near London. When Holly Wood arrives a young woman is found dead and Mrs. Clause is the prime suspect! Full of Christmas cheer, a mystery, a few twists & a budding romance!

Version: 🎧
Twists: 🌪️
#booksky

4.25✨ Two business executives used to be childhood friends. Their parents owned a business together but after that went south so did their friendship. Now, they are competing for the same job and end up in the same town in the same hotel room!

Thanks to NetGalley (ALC)

Version: 🎧
Spice: 🌶️🌶️/5

3.75✨ An author who is struggling with inspiration, a firefighter who struggles with his past and a small town called Santa Clause! Good story but lost me a bit in the middle due to focus on the spicy scenes and less on the actual story.

🎧
Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️/5
Holiday: 🎄🎄🎄/5
#booksky #Blackbooksky

3.5✨ Bee and Clover swap apartments as both are looking to get away from home for the holidays and find a fresh start across the country.

This book fell flat and didn’t bring me the Christmas vibes I was looking for.
💪🏾 LGBTQIA+ rep!

Version: 🎧
Spice: 🔥
Holiday cheer: 🎄

#booksky #Blackbooksky

4✨ Christmasy Noel rents out her apartment for the holidays. In walks Kanton, a business man (Scrooge) with a plan. Much to his surprise Noel is home when he arrives and they must coexist for the week.

Predictable but cute!

Version: 🎧
Spice: 🔥🔥.5/5
Holiday Cheer: 🎄🎄🎄🎄/5

#blackbooksky #booksky