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Tenelle Ottley-Matthew

Arts and culture writer. Book reviewer.

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Book Review: A Kick in the Belly by Stella Dadzie

#BlackLivesMatter

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How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House by Cheri

How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House by Cherie Jones
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TW: domestic violence, sexual abuse, infant death, murder
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Set in Baxter’s Beach, Barbados, Cherie Jones’ phenomenal debut follows three women; Wilma, Lala and Mira. The book begins with Wilma telling her granddaughter Lala the story of the one-armed sister, a cautionary tale about what happens to girls who disobey their mothers. It's a soul-stirring tale of patriarchal abuse and survival.
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The novel shows how women can enable patriarchal violence against other women, even without meaning to. Women and girls are expected to minimise chances of experiencing violence at the hands of men, yet are often blamed when that violence is inflicted upon them. For the female protagonists, the men in their lives you’d expect to protect and care for them more than anyone else, are the ones who harm them the most.
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Jones’ clear, considered prose and varied sentence composition make this a pleasurable and addictive read. Her writing often exudes a free-flowing, stream of consciousness-like quality that completely immerses you inside the characters’ minds. As the story progresses, we learn more about their pasts and how their lives are interconnected.
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Jones compellingly highlights the contrast between the characters' everyday realities and romanticised notions of paradise that are widely associated with Caribbean islands like Barbados.
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The levels of tension and realism coupled with excellent writing, a fast pace and complex, four-dimensional characters make this a powerful page-turner. It’s uncomfortable but worth the read. It reminds me of Nicole Dennis-Benn’s debut Here Comes the Sun. I adore and highly recommend How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House. It held me captive from start to finish.
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Thank you @antoniabookspr / Tinder Press for the review copy ❤️

Slutever: Dispatches from a Sexually Autonomous Wo

Slutever: Dispatches from a Sexually Autonomous Woman in a Post-Shame World by Karley Sciortino
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Slutever is an entertaining & funny memoir about Sciortino’s journey towards slutty enlightenment. I’ve admired Karley Sciortino’s work for years, religiously reading her blog and watching her Vice TV show. In this book, she's frank and open about her colourful sexual experiences, discussing bisexuality, BDSM, open relationships, sex work, break ups, casual hookups and more. Sciortino notes that being a slut or sexually liberated doesn’t always = promiscuity. (Important as the two are often conflated.)
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For sex-positive feminists, Slutever an enjoyable and thought-provoking read, but I found some parts questionable. At one point Sciortino suggests women need not feel victimised by negative sexual experiences because "there far are worse things in life than bad sex". I understood her point but felt it dismissed the impact of sexual trauma, especially in a world where rape culture is so normalised. Much of this book screams 'Choice Feminism', particularly Sciortino's views on women, porn and 'degrading' sex. I'm all for women being free to have whatever type of sex we want but that doesn't mean we shouldn't question our kinks/turn-ons and what might influence them. Some great points are made throughout but I often wanted to the author to go deeper.
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Personal highlights for me were the chapters discussing disabilities and sex, Sciortino's dominatrix training and her sugar baby adventures. The latter includes an excellent section on the “whorearchy” (the hierarchy that exists within the sex industry) and she acknowledges the privileges that shaped her experiences as a sex worker. I love the way she writes about sex and relationships, especially when she examines the psychology behind her sexual behaviours and desires.
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[continued in the comments] ⬇️

✨ #GetToKnowMeThroughBooks ✨
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These questions were tricky but here goes!
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📖 Favourite books this year:
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Quite a few including
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• Sensuous Knowledge by Minna Salami
• Bad Love by Maame Blue
• I Am Not Your Baby Mother by Candice Brathwaite
• Rainbow Milk by Paul Mendez
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📖 Favourite classic:
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I’m not really into classics but I adore Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston and The Color Purple by Alice Walker
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📖 A book that changed my life:
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Ain’t I A Woman? Black Women and Feminism by bell hooks 🔥
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📖 Books I recommend to everyone:
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• Take It Back by Kia Abdullah
• Here Comes The Sun by Nicole Dennis-Benn
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📖 A book I didn’t really like:
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Honestly I don’t dislike this book but I have conflicting thoughts about Who They Was by Gabriel Krauze
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📖 Books I obsess over:
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• Full Disclosure by Camryn Garrett
• Women Talking by Miriam Toews
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📖 Books I’m looking forward to reading:
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• We Are All Birds of Uganda by Hafsa Zayyan
• Witches Steeped in Gold by Ciannon Smart
• Who’s Loving You: Love Stories by Women of Colour by Sareeta Domingo
• The Interest: How the British Establishment Resisted the Abolition of Slavery by Michael Taylor
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📖 Currently reading:
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Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson (fiction) and Slutever by Karley Sciortino (non-fiction)
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Thank you @aishathebibliophile @readingwithkt @bookedupandbusy & @thebookalert for tagging me in this challenge. I’ve tagged some pals to join in (if they want to) but feel free to have a go regardless 💕

#LastNowNextReads: Translated Fiction ⠀⠀⠀⠀

#LastNowNextReads: Translated Fiction
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I went through a major reading slump last month and for a while, mainly gravitated towards novellas. It’s been ages since my last ‘Last Now Next’ post so I thought I’d share three translated novels on my radar.
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LAST: At Night All Blood Is Black by David Diop [gifted]
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It took me a while to get into this heartbreaking, brutal and intense novel but it was worth sticking with. It follows two friends, Alfa and Mademba, Senegalese soldiers fighting for France during WW1. When Mademba is wounded and begs Alfa to kill him out of mercy, Alfa cannot and is overcome with guilt when his more-than-brother dies. Alfa’s narration chillingly portrays his descent into madness and growing thirst for revenge as he mindlessly slaughters German soldiers and chops off their hands.
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I enjoyed this a lot. It’s beautifully written and starkly portrays the horrors of war and the trenches, while also exploring colonialism, racism, love, grief and familial bonds.
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NOW: The Fallen by Carlos Manuel Álvarez
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This is kinda hard to describe but it's essentially about the disintegration of an ordinary Cuban family. I enjoyed the author's use of multiple perspectives and ambiguity in this story. The pages reveal so much while encouraging readers to draw their own conclusions at the same time. An addictive, unsettling and very smart read with brilliantly written characters.
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NEXT: Hadriana In All My Dreams by René Depestre
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I'm excited to read this magical, erotic, zombie-filled story set during Carnival in Haiti 1938. I haven't read any Haitian literature yet and figured René Depestre is a great author to start with.
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Have you read any of these? What was the last translated novel you read and loved?

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