​Before the Ever After by Jacqueline Woodson
 
ZJ’s dad isn’t just ZJ’s hero, he’s everyone’s hero. As a professional football player, Zachariah Johnson is the star of the team, and at home, he’s the star of the neighborhood. ZJ and all of his friends love to hang out with Zachariah until one day, ZJ’s dad stops remembering things, like his own son’s name. He also becomes angry all the time and has headaches that keep him in bed all day. ZJ’s mom says his dad is sick because he hit his head so much playing football, but it is hard for ZJ to fully understand how his favorite sport, the one that made his dad so happy, could have caused this complete personality change.
 
Taking place in the early 2000’s when CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) was first acknowledged and researched, Before the Ever After shows the impacts of the professional football on the physical and mental health of a young black family. The story is told in verse and explores ZJ’s observations and feelings about how CTE has changed his family’s life. ZJ longs to go back to before his dad’s headaches, and creates several coping mechanisms to deal with his quasi-loss of a father. This book is heart-wrenching but beautiful as ZJ finds his new normal, relying on his friends that stick around even after his dad’s health declines.
 
I would recommend this book to all young readers and their parents. The book’s predominant theme is grief and coping, and may be a helpful tool for children experiencing a form of grief in their own lives. The story is filled with immeasurable love alongside the family’s hardships. Jacqueline Woodson was recently awarded the 2021 Coretta Scott King Book Award, and signed copies of Before the Ever After are currently in stock. 
 
Special Thanks to Libro.fm for allowing me to listen to a free copy of Before the Ever After.
 
-Endya
Follow Endya on Instagram and GoodReads to see more of what she is reading. If you'd like to read Before the Ever After and support Beausoleil Books, use the buttons below to purchase through the Bookshop.org and Libro.fm affiliate programs:

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Intelligent, beautiful, talented Noemi adores her glamorous life in 1950s Mexico City, but misses her cousin, Catalina, who was quickly and scandalously married a few months ago. After Catalina’s marriage, she moved to the countryside to live in her new husband’s family home, High Place, and Noemi hasn’t heard from her since. When Noemi’s father receives a letter from a seemingly psychotic Catalina, he sends Noemi for a visit to check in on Catalina’s health. Although High Place and its residents appear unwelcoming and odd, Noemi is happy to be able to visit Catalina and try to understand why Catalina wanted to marry this mysterious husband. What begins as a simple visit quickly turns into a nightmare for Noemi and all the residents of High Place. Who can Noemi trust? What has made Catalina so ill? And can Noemi and Catalina escape High Place alive?

Although Mexican Gothic begins in an unassuming Gothic way, with a psychotic cousin and a haunted house, the book slowly turns until you are completely snatched from reality and cannot put the book down. Until the end, I couldn’t figure out which of the creepy characters were trustworthy or even which scenes were reality. The atmosphere and setting of this book were remarkably vibrant; I could picture High Place and each of its residents in full disgusting detail. While the book may begin slowly, and some readers may be tempted to put it down after the first 50 pages, this one was worth sticking it out for me and many others.

This is definitely a horror novel, and some readers may need content warnings for sexual assault, suicide, domestic abuse, incest, hallucinations, murder and gore, cannibalism, eugenics, death of a parent and other family members, miscarriages, and racism. It is difficult to provide a full review of this book without delving into spoilers, but it is certainly more than just a haunted house. Readers of fast-paced action-filled horror and readers of beautiful yet devastating prose will find something to enjoy in this story. Despite the plethora of content warnings, I would recommend this book to young adults as well as adults that enjoy horror.

 P.S. Mexican Gothic will be adapted into a mini-series by Hulu. Special thanks to our friends at Libro.fm, who provided a copy of Mexican Gothic for me to listen to.

-Endya
Follow Endya on Instagram to see more of what she is reading. If you'd like to read Mexican Gothic and you're in Lafayette, please come visit us! If you can't make it into the shop, use the buttons below to purchase through the Bookshop.org and Libro.fm affiliate programs:

Luster by Raven Leilani
Edie is a 23-year-old artist living in New York and working a day-job at a publishing company. While struggling to figure out her place in this world and how to co-exist with others, she slips into a romantic relationship with a married digital archivist, Eric, from New Jersey. Eric’s wife, a medical examiner named Rebecca, has consented to an open marriage with certain rules, all of which Edie seems to break. After being fired, Edie finds herself unintentionally living with Eric, Rebecca, and their teenaged daughter, Akila. The remainder of the story examines this phase in Edie’s struggle to build and maintain relationships with those around her and develop her artistic talent.

Although Edie makes questionable choices and seems to have difficulty understanding her sexuality, she unapologetically takes ownership of her body (to the extent she can) and attempts to find pleasure in using her body to make others uncomfortable. Edie is messy, intelligent, complicated, beautiful, disruptive, emotional, and real. Knowing that Edie has an affair with an older white man and knowing that Edie becomes a role model to the white couple’s Black daughter, I was concerned about a potential stereotypical representation of a young Black woman. However, Leilani does not put Edie into any of the stereotypical neatly packaged boxes that perpetuate racism and bore readers. At moments that could arguably be stereotypical, Leilani’s choice to utilize a stream-of-consciousness narration style allows for a deeper exploration of these ideas through Edie’s perspective. Leilani portrays each grotesque and beautiful moment that makes up this phase of Edie’s life with authenticity and without judgment. I was also pleasantly surprised to see the focus not only on the relationship between Edie and Eric, but also between Edie and Rebecca, and between Edie and Akila. However, at its heart, this book is about Edie’s relationship with herself.

The tone of the book involves dark humor, sadness, and loneliness with small moments of joyful escape. The writing style follows Edie’s mental associations and emotions through her memories and her ponderings on the meanings of the events in her life. Edie’s thoughts are matter-of-fact yet poetic. This debut novel is a work of art. It isn’t a story you read; it’s a story you experience. I would especially recommend this book to fans of Alice Walker, as it reminded me of You Can’t Keep A Good Woman Down. Although I would recommend this novel to all contemporary fiction fans, readers may want to be aware of trigger warnings for racism, police brutality, gun violence, physical abuse, abortion, miscarriage, and drug addiction.

Special thanks to our friends at Libro.fm, who provided a copy of Luster for me to listen to.
-Endya

Follow Endya on Instagram to see more of what she is reading. If you'd like to read Luster and support Beausoleil Books, use the buttons below to purchase through the Bookshop.org and Libro.fm affiliate programs: