I’m Tired of Pretending

…that it wasn’t hard, that my heart didn’t break a million times, that my heart doesn’t break every time I heard a friend can have a baby with ease, that I should feel happy. I’m tired of the guilt of not being happy for them, of being sad, of not appreciating that I got to have one, as if that should be consolation. Infertility is grueling, not just during, but after, forever.

Belle Boggs tackles these feelings and more in her new collection of essays, The Art of Waiting. From essays called Baby Fever, Imaginary Children, to Just Adopt and wrapping up with Paying for It, a perfect essay title for families that pay more than just money when things don’t go as they planned, these essays are like looking in a mirror and at the same time knowing you are not alone. Belle Boggs is a voice to be heard, and in it, she speaks with the voice of many who have faced what she has in struggling with fertility with a blend of history and personal experience. If you have been through it you will devour it. If you haven’t, read it even more closely, because someone you love has and is.

About Belle Boggs

Interview with NPR

Belle Boggs article in The Atlantic

Follow her on twitter @belleboggs

It Looks Like This

itlookslikethisIt looks like desire. It looks like fear. It looks like life beginning. It looks like the end. It looks like love. It looks like heartbreak.

Mike has just moved to a new town. A new school. Freshman year. Mike meets someone. Mike falls in love. With a boy. Mike’s conservative parents can’t know. Mike’s world is about to turn upside down. In a tragedy worthy of Romeo and Juliet, young love and family strife are center stage.  A classic love story for our time. Whether you want the rush of young love, or the tears of that often come with it, this book is for you. Continue reading “It Looks Like This” →

The Past Never Sleeps

Esa Khattak and Rachel Getty are partners in the Community Policing Section of the Canadian Police, theunquietdeada special division that handles cases that might affect minority communities. They are surprised when they are called to a beautiful lake-side home where a man appears to have simply fallen to his death.

As the case builds, Esa and Rachel realize there is nothing simple about this crime, or about the way we deal with the past. With flashbacks to Bosnia during genocide, this book is a deep look at revenge, forgiveness, community, and family.

Ausma Zehanat Khan has created complex characters and a gritty, multi-layered mystery that spans the globe and time. A wonderful debut, this the first in a series of three mysteries with Esa and Rachel. The third novel in this series will be available February 14, 2017.

Ausma graciously agreed to answer some questions for me here at Book Club Advisor.

You’ve mentioned this in other interviews, but do you mind briefly telling my readers about the inspiration for this book?

The Unquiet Dead arose out of research I had done for my dissertation on military intervention and war crimes in the Balkans. I’d studied the Bosnian genocide for many years, and I felt the tragedy of it was slipping away without any of its lessons being learned. I wanted to tell a story that reflected the criminality of the genocide, and the unimaginable loss. There’s a line in The Unquiet Dead: “how quickly the violent ideals of ultra-nationalism led to hate, how quickly hate to blood.” I think that’s a lesson for us now. Continue reading “The Past Never Sleeps” →

All-American Girl

muslimgirlAmani Al-Khatahtbeh was nine years old and living in New Jersey when her whole life changed. On September 11, 2001 terrorists attacked New York City. After that day, Amani’s life was filled with terror as well, wondering when the next attack on her religion would be, where she could walk without fear, and what might come next. Amani’s book is both a powerful autobiography of a woman who is changing the world, and a political and sociological text.

Amani is an all-American girl which should go without saying, and her book explores that idea as well as being a woman of color in America aside from religion. Proud of her heritage, instead of hiding when fear came calling, she created a vibrant online community to support other Muslim girls who might be scared or need support. Initially an online diary, it became the incredible professional website it is today.  http://muslimgirl.com/ Amani’s website is a American dream story even when surrounded by nightmare. She took the risk to start something small that became something huge and important.

Amani has been invited to speak at prestigious events and on television as the voice of Muslim-American girls and women. Her message is strong and passionate. This book should be required reading in understanding the power of casual and aggressive racism and the strength of those who resist and fight against it.

 

The Drug of Amnesia

the-angel-of-history“AIDS was a river with no bed that ran soundlessly and inexorably through my life, flooded everything, drowned all I knew, soaked my soul, but then a soaking, a drenching, was not dying, and I swam, floated when I could, and I though I had triumphed, only to discover years later that the river’s persistence, its restlessness, trickled into tiny rivulets that reach every remote corner of my being…” p. 182 Continue reading “The Drug of Amnesia” →

Fierce Friendship

myatibbsMya Tibbs is a nine-year-old full of sprit, which is good because it’s almost Spirit Week, and she and her popular best friend Naomi are ready to win the week full of competition.

But what happens when Mya and Naomi don’t get to be partners? Instead Mya is stuck with Mean Connie Tate, the biggest bully at her school. Will she sneak information to Naomi and her partner to help them win? Or will she learn there might be more to Connie Tate than meets the eye?

A touching, rollicking look at friendship in elementary school. Sometimes the person we think is being mean isn’t. And sometimes when we don’t intend to, we become the mean one. And what do you do then? Fast-paced with a satisfying ending, including someone getting lassoed in the hall, The Magnificent Mya Tibbs will leave you smiling and thinking. Mya’s creator, Crystal Allen, talks with me about Mya, friendship, and her own experiences in elementary school.

crystal-allen-220

Christine at Book Club Advisor: Thanks for talking with us today, Crystal! Mya Tibbs loves having Naomi as a new best friend. What did you know about Naomi when you began to write her?

Crystal Allen: I knew that Naomi was a beautiful, but bratty, nine-year-old girl.  The more she developed in my mind, the more I began to see her as a child who was the product of beauty pageants that emphasized outward beauty. Continue reading “Fierce Friendship” →

Alone in a Hurricane

It’s how many of us feel right now. There is no relief, there are no clear answers, and we cannot see clearly through the lashing rain and flying debris of anger, hopelessness, and despair. In reviewing books that deal with the raw issues that brought our country to this point, and how parents and teachers can address them through literature, Beth Kephart, National Book Award Finalist, has honored us with a video interview about her new young adult novel, This is the Story of You.

thisisthestoryofyou(Click cover to buy indie)

Mira lives on Haven, a small town on a barrier island, with her mother and chronically ill brother. Winds begin to blow as a storm forms over the water, but the town assumes the storm will fall apart, or at least not be a major event. In an intense, short period of time the storm becomes deadly, and the town is torn apart. Mira will face the storm, and the revelations that come with life after devastating destruction alone, until she decides to let someone in, someone who will help her understand the winds of change that have been blowing through her own life. Continue reading “Alone in a Hurricane” →