If your spouse was wrongly accused of rape and went to prison for five years but gets released, would you remain married? That was the question An American Marriage by Tayari Jones attempted to answer in her popular novel. An American Marriage was selected for...
Wisdom From Kammbia Book Review 57: Signs Preceding the End of the World by Yuri Herrera
Signs Preceding The End of The World by Yuri Herrera is the first novel about the US-Mexico Border I can remember reading. I read Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy years ago but it did not deal directly with the current issues about the border. This book came to my...
Wisdom From Kammbia Book Review 42: Face of an Angel by Denise Chavez
Rereading a novel can bring different expectations from when you first read it over twenty-five years ago. This is the case with Face of An Angel by Denise Chavez. Face of an Angel tells the story of Soveida Dosamantes, a waitress at El Farol Restaurant in the...
Wisdom From Kammbia Book Review 36: Binti Home by Nnedi Okorafor
Can you ever go home again? Binti Home by Nnedi Okorafor attempts to answer that question. Binti returns home after a year away on a spaceship at Oozma University. She brings her friend, Okwu, for support. However, the homecoming does not go as expected and the family...
Wisdom From Kammbia Book Review 23: Go, Went, Gone by Jenny Erpenbeck
"Sometimes a journey can take you far away from home. It can take you far away from what you believe. From the only world you have ever known. And make you realize how much we are connected to each other. Also,...
Book Review 128: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Can a novel you read in your early 20s effect you in the same manner when you re-read it in your mid-40s? Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison gives this reviewer a split verdict to the aforementioned question. It is the story of an unnamed protagonist who leaves the...
Book Review 88: Independence Day by Richard Ford
Does living through your "existence period" mean you are truly an independent human being? Richard Ford attempted to answer that question in Independence Day, the second novel in the critically acclaimed Frank Bascombe series. Last year, I reviewed The Sportswriter,...
Book Review 65: The Sportswriter by Richard Ford
The Sportswriter by Richard Ford chronicles an Easter Weekend in the life of Frank Bascombe, a failed novelist turned sportswriter. Ford's breakout third novel grapples with the themes of grief, a failed career, and unhealthy relationships. Bascombe's story is told...
Book Review 58: Discoverability by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
The Indie Publishing movement of the past half-dozen years has changed the course of the publishing industry. Publishing books have become a lot easier thanks to eBooks, Amazon, and other Print-on-Demand (POD) publishers. Would-be-novelists (like myself) that have...
Book Review 54: Stone of Fire by JF Penn
What happens you read a novel that combines an Indiana Jones style of adventure with a well-detailed and chronicled history of early Christianity and mixed with a female protagonist that is a combination of Lara...