More books! Yay!

Okay, so it's official that I SUCK with blog updates. Oh, well. At least, I do them occasionally. Let's just say I'm a super slow reader. Anyway, I have two books for you today.

Daughter-asha bandele
I purposely did not capitalize the letters in the author's name because apparently, that's how she likes her name to be written. Not sure why...maybe it makes her feel special.
Speaking of being special, this book was quite special. It was very well-written and poetic. It was an extremely sad book but it didn't try to get you to feel sorry for it; as in, it wasn't trying to make you burst into tears. The objective of this book is to stir the readers into angry rebellion against the unnecessary police violence against people of colour. The racism that all the characters faced in the book was heartbreaking only because it's true and it's happened. I particularly loved how the main character rises above the consequences of her actions, which she accepts willingly and teaches other women how to rise above. Warning to the guys: this book is about women for women. That's not to say guys can't read it. In fact, I encourage you to read it. After all, the overall theme of the book can be aptly described in a quote from the book. "There'll always be a woman to take care of a man, but there won't always be a man to take care of a woman." Maybe you can learn and spend the rest of your life disproving that theory. Hopefully, you can.
That isn't to say the book was unbelievably amazing. I enjoyed the subject matter because it allowed me to see things from the perspective of an often persecuted race. But the story tended to lag a little at times. I couldn't really connect with characters even though I could empathize with them. So for those reasons I give the book 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Summary of the novel from American Library Association:
A black mother's rage and sorrow drive this passionate first novel about a beloved daughter shot dead by the police on the streets of Brooklyn. The story begins with smart college student Aya Rivers chafing at her controlling, secretive mother, Miriam. Out running one day, Aya is shot dead by a policeman. It's a case of mistaken identity. No one is accountable. Then the story switches to Miriam, alone, remembering her break from her cold, secretive home and her love for Aya's dad, Bird. Aya never knew him, never knew that he survived Vietnam only to be shot dead by the police in the war at home. Bandele, an editor for Essence magazine and author of the memoir The Prisoner's Wife (1999), writes about family grief and bitterness with searing immediacy. Woven into the mother-daughter story, Bird's life of hope and heartbreak is beautifully told, his dreams of college, family, and work destroyed even before his murder. The angry message is sometimes overwhelming, but this powerful story does what the author asks for: it breaks the silence.

Pacific Vortex-Clive Cussler
One thing I have to say for this book is that it is very engrossing. It's an adventure novel; the first in the Dirk Pitt series. The story centers around mysterious disappearances of ships over the 30 years in one area of the Pacific known as the Hawaiian Vortex. The plot was well-thought out even if it was REALLY far-fetched. However, there was one aspect that completely DESTROYED the book for me. In fact, I'm deducting 1 and a half star for it. What ruined it was the author's pathetic attempt at romance. And it really was pathetic. Like, painfully so. I nearly cried at the horror of it all. And I don't know how many times he mentioned she was gorgeous. Seriously, you can tell us a couple of times but after the 25th time, I"m pretty sure we've GOT THE POINT. Dirk Pitt is nearly assasinated by this beautiful woman and he knocks her out (romantic, eh?) and drags her to his hotel room to interrogate her about her motives. She escapes and she isn't mentioned for about 200 pages. That is, until Dirk is nearly killed again and she saves him. It's Romeo and Juliet all over again (yet another retarded romance plot, by the way). When he finally finds her, he TELLS her she's in love with him and they have this 'dramatic' (that was extreme sarcasm) moment where she flings her arms around him and wails that she loves him. God, cry me a river, sugar. We've all been 'in love'; it's also known as HORMONES. I'm not going to give away the ending but seriously, Mr. Cussler? Stick to adventure and leave romance to Candace Bushnell, Meg Cabot and Nicholas Sparks.
The book gets 2 out of 5 for that goddamn romance. (Add 1.5 stars for a rating on the other parts of the book)