FIYAH

“So I have many stories in my head to explain the world.” There’s a lot to be said about taking the plunge to write an autobiographical piece laced with sexual violence, abuse, drugs, and all the tragedies that plague black girls and women from a young girl’s perspective. There’s more to be said for this Read more

Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi is refreshingly relevant, painfully recognizable yet unequivocally original. The swift story pacing and gritty character development wrap its stark themes up in magic, mayhem, and the collective memory. This is a supernatural dystopian hellscape deeply rooted in a contemporary America. Blackness, in its many forms and the never-ending necessity to Read more

Kacen Callender didn’t write a historical fantasy novel. They didn’t write a slavery-centered novel for the sake of it. They wrote, in my humble opinion, a compelling, unprecedented tragic hero’s journey. If you’re going into this expecting a more generic fantasy that happens to take place in a slavery-centric world, then you’ll be discrediting your Read more

The Deep is a novella that I can easily hold in one hand, yet feels like a megaton. It’s laden with the weight of the past, the burden of memories, and the heaviness of emotional isolation. And that’s just part of the weightiness of its journey. I haven’t even mentioned the satisfying devastation of reading Read more