Anxious For Some Changes: Walter Mosley’s Bad Boy Brawly Brown

Life has not been easy for Easy Rawlins. After losing a dear friend just a short while early (part of A Little Yellow Dog) he is grappling with a hard-won case of grief and guilt for not doing everything he could to save that friend … So, while he’s dealing with those big feelings (or […]

Negotiating With the Living and the Dead: Justina Ireland’s Ophie’s Ghosts

When young Ophelia “Ophie” Harrison woke in the middle of the night to her father’s warnings about danger coming to her home, she did not realize her mother could not see or hear him. It wasn’t until later, when she learned that he’d been killed earlier in the evening by the very men who then […]

Parable of the Bloodsucker: Octavia E. Butler’s Fledgling

When Shori attains consciousness, she has no memory of who she is, where she is, or what she is. She knows only the unrelenting hunger. It is satisfied at first by a surprisingly docile and self-sacrificing animal. Later, it is a human being who gets too close, who whispers words not of warning or fear […]

Seeing With Eyes Unclouded: Octavia E. Butler’s Kindred

To wrap up Black History Month, why not pick up a heavy hitter of a novel from one of the grandmasters of speculative fiction? Yes, Kindred has a weighty premise and an unflinching gaze at the horrible realities of the African American experience in the antebellum South, but it also has a lot of emotional […]

The Man, The Guy, The Kid, The One, The Only: Jason Reynolds’ Lu

Lu knows he is special. A one in seventeen thousand birth. A miracle baby. He dealt with being teased as a kid, particularly by a fellow student named Kelvin Jefferson, but he fought back … and that bully wound up dropping out of school, maybe moving out to live with other family because of some […]

Here Comes the Bride: Donyae Coles’ Midnight Rooms

Orabella Mumthrope has been sold into marriage by an uncle who needs to pay off his debts. Her new husband, Elias Blakersby, has an estate in the country, far from the hustle and bustle of Bristol. Off to that estate Orabella goes, and there she will discover a house filled with servants and secrets, a […]

I Understand Weakness. I Understand Pain. I Understand Death. I Understand Suffering. And I’m Starting to Understand Peace: The Equalizer 3 (2023)

After encountering some bad men who took something that don’t belong to them, Robert McCall (Denzel Washington) makes his escape into the Italian countryside. However, a moment of overconfidence leads him to catch a bullet in the back. Pushing on as far as he can, Robert eventually surrenders to the pain and blood loss. Luckily, […]

Throwing Your Weight Around: Jason Reynold’s Sunny

Sunny Lancaster is on the track team, and he’s a little … unusual. He talks to himself, he has some crazy ideas, he’s inventive but socially awkward. And it’s all for a very simple reason: before joining the Defenders, Sunny had no real friends in his own age group. He has one friend outside the […]

All The Dog’s Fault: Walter Mosley’s A Little Yellow Dog

As the fifth book in Walter Mosley’s mystery series opens, we find that Easy Rawlins has been living according to the promise he made to himself in the end of Black Betty. No more trouble, no more favors, no more taking money for questionable services, no more getting neck deep into danger. He’s parleyed previous […]

Hiding Your Smiles and Cries: Training Day (2001)

Jake (Ethan Hawke) is on his first day in a new unit, working under hot dog plainclothes cop Alonzo (Denzel Washington) as a key component in his plan to get his Detective’s shield. Where Jake sees an opportunity to shine, Alonzo views this as a trial period. It’s not a day Jake could have predicted […]

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