by Ashley Dickson-Ellison (@teachingtheapocalypse) Oh, friends, this is such a hard decision! A lot of my reading was less than fully focused during the second half of 2021 as I spent it on the go and building up a business... so while I read a lot of books I really enjoyed, I also read differently than I have in many other years. I shared more about that on our Unabridged Awards for 2021 episode that recently came out. But these five were all five-star reads for me, and I lo

by Ashley Dickson-Ellison (@teachingtheapocalypse) Friends, this one, Jennifer Saint's Ariadne (Amazon | Bookshop.org), was another five-star read for me, and it's one I absolutely wanted to share on here. I think what I found so captivating about this one is the way that through exploration of several of the Greek myths, Jennifer Saint highlights the way that women in the stories pay for the faults of men, be they mortals or gods. Although this one does not spare the reader

Thanks to Partner NetGalley for the digital ARC of Kwame Mbalia’s Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky in exchange for an honest review. The book released Tuesday, October 15. Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky begins with Rick Riordan’s introduction asking “Can you imagine what it would be like if you could find a book that wove the whole brilliant, beautiful tapestry of West African and African American legend into one magical world?” (loc. 48). This, of course, i