February 2021 Reading Challenge

February is a short month, but I still managed to read a few books in honor of Black History Month. One of those books was as long as the month is short--A Promised Land, by Barack Obama. In it, President Obama details some of the time in his youth and leading up to his run for President, and he covers part of his presidency. It's a fascinating look into one of the most powerful positions in the world, and a fascinating look into the mind of one of the most brilliant people to hold the position. At times it can be tedious, and I think anyone interested in delving deeply into politics will enjoy every sentence, but on the whole it's a good read.

The Girl Who Smiled Beads by Clemantine Wamariya is a memoir of a woman who fled Rwanda with her older sister when she was six years old. For the next six years they moved from one refugee camp to another, lived for a while with her sister's husband's family, until they finally found themselves in the U.S. with a foster family. This is beautifully written, and the prose is absolutely magical, and so it makes the horrific parts all that much worse. This one really stayed with me, and I continue to think about Clemantine often.

The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna is a YA fantasy novel about ostracized young women who bleed gold, have superhuman strength and speed, and are trained to fight against Deathshrieks. This novel was just plain fun, and I can't wait for the second in the series.

I rounded out the month with The Killing Moon by N.K. Jemisin. Holy wow, can that woman write. I found the novel a little dense at first, but once I got the hang of the world and the religion, I tore through the story. This one had been sitting in my TBR pile for a while, in part because I wasn't sure I was in the mood to read something about sleep and dreaming. But oh, this is so much more than that. Jemisin never pulls any punches in her stories, which is what makes me read them with one hand over my eyes, peeking through my fingers, hoping against hope that her poor characters will make it through unscathed. Reader, they never do.