Tamsen's Picks
A tale of societal truth and injustice. Elwood is driven, kind, smart. He works hard and has a lot going for him. But then he's arrested, essentially for the reason he is black. What follows is a test for his resolve and a necessary gilmpse into race disparity in the justice system.
Shout burns away the cobwebs surrounding the shame and silence that too often accompany sexual assault. Instead, Anderson--using poetry--tells about her own rape, her anger, her healing, and writing her acclaimed novel, Speak.
Zadie Smith forces the reader to look at uncomfortable truths: Friendships can end, we're not always right, and Fred Astaire's blackface performance as Bill "Bojangles" Robinson in the movie Swing Time is racist. Traversing continents and time, this book reels you in.
I love a book that turns an old standard upside down. Circe does that with The Odyssey, telling the story of the title character instead of Odysseus. You see a character arc spanning thousands of years in exquisite prose.
A bold and uncompromising feminist manifesto that shows women and girls how to defy, disrupt, and destroy the patriarchy by embracing the qualities they’ve been trained to avoid.