A Book Is Pulled by the Publisher and New Releases for Your Tuesday

I remember seeing Viola Davis here and there in supporting roles in movies and TV shows before I noticed people recognizing her as one of the great actors of our time. She calls these roles “best friends to white women roles” in this memoir and tells how she had to do a string of them at one point due to a lack of other roles. Before she was even able to act, though, she was a child born on the South Carolinian plantation on which her grandparents were sharecroppers, and one who grew up poor in Rhode Island. She gets real about all that entailed. Really real. Like, abusive, alcoholic father and wetting the bed so much that you went to school smelling of urine real. She was a traumatized, misunderstood girl who suffered the effects of dire poverty as well as racism, but who was also inspired to pursue a dream by seeing someone who looked like her on TV. Through her memoir, Davis shows the importance of rejecting the narrative others paint around you, being honest, and letting go of shame in order to live authentically.

Also, if you follow Oprah’s book club, she’s made it a book club pick.

This is another retelling that reimagines the motivations for certain figures in mythology a la Circe. Although I’m not as familiar with the Indian mythology from the epic poem the Ramayana as I was with Ancient Greek mythology when I read Circe, I’m always here for female characters being reexamined. Here, Kaikeyi is raised on stories of gods and their benevolence only to have that dashed by the reality of her father banishing her mother and her own reduction to a thing to be married off and bear children. One day she learns of a magic she has that allows her to transforms herself into a warrior, thereby creating a space for independence for herself and hopefully other women in the kingdom.

She decides to become the third wife of King Dasharath’s on the promise that her son will inherit the throne instead of the rightful heir. Now, Kaikeyi isn’t really known as a hero in the epic poem, as she was the one to encourage the king to exile his son, the true heir Rama, for fourteen years. Instead of her reasons being to keep her own son on the throne, Patel shows that Kaikeyi, whom Rama addresses affectionally, only wished to teach the young prince the downfalls of patriarchy and was trying to establish balance for her kingdom to benefit all citizens.

I just finished reading all of the manga that the Demon Slayer anime hasn’t adapted yet *sobs in book hangover*, and I’m caught up on the Jujutsu Kaisen manga. I say all that to say that I’m super into Japanese folklore, especially as it relates to demons, or the yokai, as this book does. Instead of taking place in Japan, as the manga I mentioned do, The Fervor takes place in the U.S. in 1944 as the U.S. government is imprisoning citizens of Japanese descent for simply being Japanese. Meiko and her daughter Aiko are forcibly removed from Seattle and sent to one of the internment camps in the Midwest. There, a mysterious disease starts to take hold. Suddenly, simple colds turn into aggression that can become lethal. The group of doctors that arrive to investigate provide the opposite of comfort and assurance, so Meiko and her daughter join forces with a reporter and a widower to find out exactly what is happening around them. There is a demon that Meiko learned about from childhood stories clawing its way onto her plane of existence, but there is also the already existing evils of racism and anti-Asian discrimination that the U.S. government displays on its own.

Fevered Star by Rebecca Roanhorse

Forbidden City by Vanessa Hua

Part of Your World by Abby Jimenez

Never Cross a Highlander by Lisa Rayne 

Such Big Dreams by Reema Patel

When We Fell Apart by Soon Wiley