AMERICAN AUTHORS CHALLENGE--OCTOBER 2021--ATTICA LOCKE

Charlas75 Books Challenge for 2021

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AMERICAN AUTHORS CHALLENGE--OCTOBER 2021--ATTICA LOCKE

1laytonwoman3rd
Oct 1, 2021, 12:14 pm

Your host is begging your indulgence this month, and suggesting you visit Attica Locke's website for background information and book suggestions. She is definitely an author worth exploring if you enjoy suspense in socially relevant settings. Those of you who may have read some of her work already, please share your impressions. I note that she has been involved in the production of a screen adaptation of Little Fires Everywhere, which was an LT favorite some time back.

2katiekrug
Editado: Oct 1, 2021, 1:03 pm

I have read Black Water Rising, which is excellent, as well as Bluebird, Bluebird and its sequel, Heaven My Home - both are also excellent. I am hoping to read the follow-up to BWR this month, Pleasantville. I love Locke's writing and how she interweaves issues of race and social justice into her very compelling crime novels.

She's written for a few TV shows, and she and her sister, the actress Tembi Locke, are developing a TV series based on Waiting to Exhale for one of the networks. And for anyone on Twitter, she is a great follow - funny and pointed and insightful.

3klobrien2
Oct 1, 2021, 6:53 pm

I've got Black Water Rising in my trembling hands, so I'm glad to read your review, katiekrug! It sounds like it will be a good fit for me.

Karen O.

4cbl_tn
Oct 1, 2021, 7:58 pm

I have The Cutting Season ready to go in my Libby app, as soon as I finish my Howard Norman novel. My September reading plans took a detour so I haven't finished it yet.

5annushka
Oct 1, 2021, 9:00 pm

I read Bluebird, Bluebird a few years back. Planning to read Heaven, My Home this month.

6Caroline_McElwee
Oct 3, 2021, 5:11 pm

I read and enjoyed her first novel when it was first published, and I think I have her second somewhere. I'll go on a hunt.

7annushka
Oct 23, 2021, 11:48 pm

I finished Heaven, My Home today. I was a bit disappointed by this book. I was able to predict the plot and book's ending quite early. I also struggled with the writing style. For some reason, the book did not pull me in and I had to push myself to go back and finish reading. The only motivator was to see if my predictions were correct.

8laytonwoman3rd
Oct 24, 2021, 11:40 am

The month is winding down, and we're not getting too much activity here. Anyone else reading Locke, just not posting? (Like me.)

Here's what I posted on my own thread after finishing Bluebird, Bluebird:
I read Locke's The Cutting Season years ago, and liked it well enough, but had some quibbles. Then I picked up a copy of Pleasantville not realizing it was the second in a sort-of series. The story line in that one didn't grab me, I didn't much care for the protagonist, and I didn't finish it. I had higher hopes for Bluebird, Bluebird when I started it. A good set-up---a black Texas Ranger with some emotional baggage heading back to the countryside where he grew up to investigate a small town murder with racial overtones. An intriguing premise--a black man who has found a path to success with honor, but who chooses to take risks that could threaten his career, his marriage and his life; a man who feels the draw to "home" even though it is a place where living while black is a constant struggle. Unfortunately, I found many of the same problems in this novel that I perceived in the other two Locke works. I never warmed up to Darren Mathews; I felt like I was reading book 3 or 4 in a series, without having read the first few; elements of Darren's back story that are tossed in like seasoning deserved their own full treatment; the author tells us too many things we could have been shown to better effect; awkward switches from a character's point of view to an omniscient narrator threw me out of the story, and other stylistic issues. Ultimately, my biggest gripe was that despite his repeated insistence that East Texas isn't such a bad place, we aren't given evidence of that; we're just asked to accept it, and I can't see why we should. I certainly understand loving the place that was home in your childhood and youth, even if the present You could no longer live there. But there are reasons---happy memories, love of the natural beauty, associations of friendship and family. We just don't get enough of those reasons here to overcome the ingrained perception of rural Texas as nowhere to be a person of color. I finished the novel, because I wanted to see how the murder mystery was resolved; luckily I was not invested in Ranger Mathews' future, because we're left with a ticking time bomb on that point, and I am not inclined to read another book to see when and if it goes off.

9annushka
Oct 24, 2021, 10:38 pm

>8 laytonwoman3rd: I checked how many stars I gave Bluebird, Bluebird and was surprised to see 4. As I mentioned in my previous update, the second book in the series was quite disappointing and some of the flaws you noticed in the first are quite apparent in the second. I did an audiobook for the Bluebird, Bluebird while Heaven, My Home was an e-book. I wonder if different media made such a huge difference for me.

10AnneDC
Oct 25, 2021, 7:47 am

I read Bluebird, Bluebird for this challenge and quite liked it--I had a hard time putting it down, and found myself invested in the characters and story. It's not that I think the criticisms noted above by >8 laytonwoman3rd: are misplaced--I just didn't notice those flaws when reading. Not thrilled about that ticking time bomb though.

I'm sure I'll look for the second in the series, and I have Black Water Rising on a shelf somewhere.

11laytonwoman3rd
Oct 25, 2021, 10:49 am

>9 annushka: I do think the media can make a difference in how a book strikes me. Some things just don't work on audio, and some readers are so much better than others. I have trouble getting immersed in a story on an electronic device, and some print formats irritate me (small or odd font, not enough white space/margin on the page for instance).

>10 AnneDC: There's a strong possibility my mental state was a bit grouchy when I read it, and at a better moment in my life I might have overlooked some of the things I quibbled over. It happens.

12m.belljackson
Oct 25, 2021, 1:07 pm

Crime thrillers rarely draw me except for Nevada Barr and some of The Hillermans, but I had planned to meet all of this year's Challenges.

In BLUEBIRD BLUEBIRD, Attica Locke does not include gruesome details of the four featured murders investigated
by Texas Ranger Darren Mathews as he goes up against everyone, from his boss, the local sheriff, the wife of one of the murdered men,
nearly all of the residents of Lark, and ultimately, his mother.

Plot and character twists are both surprising and unpredictable.

Sure wish the ending/non-ending had been different.