Speedy quick update

This is going to be a rushed post because school starts Monday (aka TOMORROW since I’m writing this after midnight), and I am already behind on everything. Also, my D key keeps sticking, so it’s making writing a hassle. Sigh.

Here’s what I still need to do to be ready for Monday:

• Figure out if I’m going to have my 1C students blog or not
• Finish my syllabus for 1C
• Add the first week documents and assignments to Canvas for my MW 1A and 1C class
• Revise my first day slides (at least one is out of order)
• Update the index card questions for my 1C class
• Prep the index cards with stickers (to put students into groups)

And that’s just my classes that start on Monday! I need to do the same for my Tuesday/Thursday classes!

So yeah, I need to go to bed.

I finished a book:

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book gave me a lot of feelings, which is good because this is a book club book so we’ll have a lot to talk about.

Okay, so Tayari Jones is the queen of writing stories about people who are the architects of their own unhappiness, and even though this story touches on–very specifically–the effects of mass incarceration on black families, it also still manages to be about people who are skillful architects of their own unhappiness.

That is to say I spent the last third (? fourth?) of the book INFURIATED by the choices the characters were making while also pitying them at the same time. Like, at one point, I wasn’t even sure I was going to read the actual ending because I was so angry at these fictional characters. (This is also in large part because Jones exposes how it’s the job of black women to put these broken black men back together–that it’s expected and to not do so is a crime against the culture because of what society does to them/us. So yeah. This had me in my feelings.)

The actual ending didn’t infuriate me, however. You know, just to be clear.

I also spent a large part of this book unsure how I felt about it, but I realized it’s because the character of Celestial was hard for me to figure out and since I couldn’t figure out how I felt about her that crept into the rest of the book. I found myself both wanting less and more of her voice at the same time because in some ways, she was just as inscrutable to me as she was to Roy.

(view spoiler)[Also, I really do wish that Jones had allowed Celestial to actually reflect on the fact that Roy was an actual shitty husband to her before he went to prison. That’s what I mean about Celestial being inscrutable. I had no idea what she was thinking or what was important to her most of the time, which is weird in a first-person narrative. (hide spoiler)]

Also, I wish there had been more Aunt Sylvia. ACTUAL BEST.

Plus also, Tayari Jones and loyalty, y’all. I mean, Andre is up there with Raleigh from Silver Sparrow.

A note on the audiobook: So I started this on audio but wound up returning it to the library and getting the paper book instead. Mostly, it’s because I *hated* the way the male narrator read the voice of Celestial and also because there’s an entire section from Roy’s POV that includes letters from Celestial, and I just couldn’t believe the book producers wouldn’t have the female narrator read those letters. Because the way the male narrator read her voice was annoying, see? Anyway, YMMV, but I just couldn’t imagine listening to that for the rest of the book. (To be fair, that’s the only section with the back and forth, so probably I could have made it through the rest of the book on audio.) (Also, to be clear, his Roy was very good–perfect, even.)

3.5 stars, rounding up

View all my reviews

And I’m currently reading #murdertrending by Gretchen McNeil.

It’s dark, y’all.

Okay, off to bed I go. Fingers crossed for a productive day tomorrow. And a super special thank you to all of my teacher peeps who have put up with the insane amount of texts I’ve sent as I try to figure out just what I’m doing in my classes this fall.