Headley, Justina Chen - North of Beautiful

Terra Rose Cooper is gorgeous: tall, thin, blonde-haired and blue-eyed. Or she would be, if it weren't for the port-wine stain covering the entire right side of her face. Her life is also perfect, or it would be, if her father didn't emotionally abuse everyone in the family, if her brothers in China and Seattle would only check in, if her mother didn't fear driving and overeat since her sister (Terra's aunt) died in a car accident.

But Terra can't control any of this, so she channels her energy into controlling her life, her body, and her face, at least until Asian goth-boy Jacob lands in her path.

I was a little disappointed in the first half of this; it reads like most emo white-girl YA, and though I love the genre, I felt Headley was too heavy-handed early on. The map metaphors in the narrative voice, the symbols of Terra's controlling nature, the coolness and rebelliousness of goth Jacob all felt a little rote, as though they were surface characteristics, but not character. Terra's conversations with Jacob felt particularly boring; there was too much banter about her controlling nature and Jacob trying to push her not to be, and it felt like too many other YA books I've read.

Part of the problem is that it reminds me too much of Dessen's Just Listen, and Headley doesn't handle her characters with the same understated finesse.

But then, in the second third of the book, Headley went somewhere I completely hadn't expected, and the book starts to concentrate more of Terra's relationship with her mother, which I very much enjoyed. There's a little about Jacob's angst as well—he's Chinese and adopted by a white family—but the bulk of the book is Terra's. I loved learning more about her two brothers and her aunt, and I really loved watching her mother find herself again.

I still wish we had gotten more of Jacob; by the end of the book, he still felt like a bit of a mystery to me. Some of the ending scenes also didn't work for me, particularly Terra in the orphanage, which I think was meant well, but felt too much like "Nice White Lady" to me. And though I didn't have huge issues with the largely-white cast and China, some bits ("You're more Chinese than the Chinese!") were a bit grating. Still, given Headley's past record, I don't begrudge her much, and I really hope her next book is a bit more racially diverse.

I didn't love this as much as Girl Overboard, but it's still a solid book.

Cunningham, Michael, and Craig Marberry - Crowns: Portraits of Black Women in Church Hats

Thanks to ladyjax for the rec!

This book originated in Michael Cunningham's photography exhibition of black women in church hats; the interviews came later, as did a stage play (which I wish I could see!). The women mostly range from 40-60 in age, with a few over 60 and a few under 40, and very few under 30. Most of them are from the South, although we have several New Yorkers as well.

The hats are gorgeous, as are the stories that go with them. Some women reminisce about watching their mothers don their church hats, they remember being forced to wear a hat or envying the ones they saw, they recall the one hat they let someone else borrow or the one passed down to them from their grandmother. They remember the first hat they bought. Many of the stories take place during the days of Jim Crow and segregation, but even then, the focus is on the church community and the family.

I didn't know very much about church hats or black churches, and I very much didn't know about the Church of God in Christ hats. Yay imperialist documentation of history and "what's important." But it was very good finding out about it via the book, and hopefully it's nostalgic and brings up fond memories for people, like it seemed to for the interviewees.

Check out some of the portraits at his website; they're gorgeous, and I can't decide which one I like best.