Reading With Kaye

Hello and welcome back to Reading with Kaye, you know, where I talk about the books I love and help you diversify your bookshelf, one recommendation at a time.

Last article before the school year ends, and what better way to end the semester than telling you about my summer hopefuls?

Let’s get started, shall we?

Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley

Eighteen-year-old Daunis Fontaine: a biracial, unenrolled tribal member and the product of a scandal, has never felt like she fit in, in either her hometown or on the Ojibwe reservation nearby. She dreams of being able to study medicine someday, but after a family tragedy, she must put these dreams on hold to take care of her mother.  

One good thing throughout all of this is meeting the charming new recruit on her brother, Levi’s, hockey team, Jamie. However, while she is falling for him, Daunis has this feeling that the new hockey star is hiding something. When everything comes to light after Daunis witnesses a shocking murder, she finds herself in the middle of a criminal investigation.  

While she reluctantly agrees to go undercover, Daunis decides to secretly pursue her own investigation of tracking down the criminals, using her chemistry and traditional medicine knowledge. But soon enough, the deception and deaths keep piling up, and the threat strikes too close to home.

Daunis must now learn what it means to be a strong Anishinaabe kwe (Ojibwe woman) and just how far she’s willing to go to protect her community, even if it tears apart the only world she’s ever known.

This book has been all over my TikTok and bookstagram – all the reviews I’ve read for it have been nothing but positive. I feel like I haven’t seen many fictional books with Indigenous representation, and I’m excited to add this one to my tbr (to be read) for the summer. The summary did a great job of capturing my interest because now I really want to know how all of these events unfold. I’ll let you know what I think when we come back :)

Seven Days in June by Tia Williams

When they meet at a literary event unexpectedly, sparks fly between Shane and Eva, raising not only their past buried traumas but every eyebrow of New York’s Black literati. What nobody knows is that teenage Eva and Shane spent one crazy week madly in love twenty years ago. While they may be pretending that everything is fine now, they can’t deny the chemistry between them - or the fact that they’ve been secretly writing to each other in their books since.

Over the next seven days, in the middle of a Brooklyn summer, they reconnect, but Eva is unsure how she will be able to trust the man who broke her heart. She wants him out of New York so her life can go back to normal, but not before she gets the answers to the questions circulating in her mind since he disappeared the first time.

This is my most anticipated read for the summer. This is the book that is giving me the motivation to make it past exam season. I’ve heard nothing but wonderful things from friends (and strangers on the internet) who have read this book. It’s been described as “humorous, warm, and deeply sensual,” with keen observations on Black life and the condition of modern motherhood and the consequences of motherless-ness. Words cannot explain how excited I am to read this one finally.

all about love: new visions by bell hooks

In eleven chapters, bell offers new ways for one to think about love, in showing how it is interconnected in both our private and public lives. She also explains how our everyday notions of what it means to give and receive love have been established in us from early childhood and often fails us. all about love offers a new way to think about self-love (minus the narcissism) that will bring about peace and compassion to our professional and personal lives. hooks notes the tie between love and loss and challenges the notion that the most important love of all is romantic love.

Unfortunately, I heard about bell hooks when she passed earlier this year, Many were talking about how her work was extraordinary and had made quite the impact on them, and I was sad I wasn’t familiar with her work when she was alive. So, I have added one of her most well-known books to my summer hopefuls, and I am really excited to get acquainted with her work.

One thing I’m really looking forward to this summer is being able to have the downtime to be able to read without any guilt! These are a few of the books I hope to tick off my summer reading list. Let me know what books you’re hoping to read, or if you’ve already read these and let me know your thoughts!

Happy end of the semester, and I wish you all the best of luck on exams.

See you all in September <3

-       Keren