I would recommend this book for someone who want to read something different from the normal setting of YA romance book but let me warn you, this book will leave you dumbfounded. Cuts Both Ways is a riveting mixture of contemporary, romance and mystery that completely captures your mind. With rare exceptions such as bank holidays, the book group meets on the first Wednesday of every month at 7. We were thrilled to welcome Sunday Times bestselling author, journalist and TV presenter Candice Brathwaite to the Women’s Prize podcast to find out about the five books that have shaped her, from Oprah Winfrey to Harper Lee.

Another book ticked off my 20 Books of Summer books list (intro post here) and one that Ali kindly passed to me in July last year (she read it for her book group and you can see her review here).The following extract comes from Candice Brathwaite's highly anticipated second book, Sista Sister, a compilation of essays about all the things Candice wishes someone had talked to her about when she was a young Black girl growing up in London. It is accepted by you that Daunt Books has no control over additional charges in relation to customs clearance. com/2021/11/29/book-review-buchi-emecheta-second-class-citizen/ but thank you for taking the time to give me the recommendation. There was so much that Candice echoed in my own experiences that yet again, I just felt incredibly validated.

But to keep ourselves on our toes, we have a rule that author gender is alternated, girl-boy-girl-boy, and the continents always rotated (with occasional glitches). Candice Brathwaite’s much-anticipated second book about all the things she wishes she’d been told when she was young and needed guidance. I’ve seen the stats about the higher mortality rates among Black mothers and infants before but this really brings it home; like Kendi’s wife in “ How to Raise an Anti-Racist“, Braithwaite has serious complications around the birth of her first child which are negated and downplayed until it’s almost too late. I had chosen to free her from the tyranny of a white world’s expectations about how a Black woman’s hair should be – had in another way become a form of bondage, a security blanket.

Along with this, her explorations on grief, relationships and young love make this a well rounded novel and a great first step into fiction for her. all in all, this book really highlights just one of the many realities that not only take place in London but in the country as a whole. I wanted to learn about issues black and asian women face within the UK and in structural systems like the NHS, Criminal Prosecution Service and so on. There she is met with microagressions straight away—from teachers who do not bother learning to pronounce her name, to students gossiping about 'gangs killing each other in London' and desribing her natural afro hair as 'unkempt'. She is a contributing editor at Grazia and a presenter on Lorraine , and her writing has appeared in the Guardian , Harper's Bazaar , Stylist , Metro and Huffington Post .

As she reckons with race, class, love, knife crime, prejudice and racism she handles every page in her stunning way. And if you didn’t get the new house, or your child didn’t make it to university, or you still had cancer? I thought I knew racism ‘theory’ but seeing it this way you get to realize how pervasive it is (and also how dismissive Black people are of white ‘experts’).But I vividly remember girls in my school who would talk of boyfriends involved in certain activities. Unfortunately, the pacing felt a little off, and the last few chapters happened way too quickly - it seemed a bit rushed and as a result, the closure/ ambiguity was less effective than it could have been, in my opinion. Hearst UK is the trading name of the National Magazine Company Ltd, 30 Panton Street, Leicester Square, London, SW1Y 4AJ. Through her grandfather to her husband, she details how difficult it was for her to understand it and most importantly, accept it. Candice is a Contributing Editor to Grazia and regularly appears on national radio and television news channels.