Who says you shouldn’t Treat yourself to new books!?

Their scorching, sensual affair ended in heartbreak and recrimination, but Christian Grey cannot get Anastasia Steele out of his mind, or his blood. Determined to win her back, he tries to suppress his darkest desires and his need for complete control, and to love Ana on her own terms.

But the horrors of his childhood still haunt him, and Ana’s scheming boss, Jack Hyde, clearly wants her for himself. Can Christian’s confidant and therapist, Dr. Flynn, help him face down his demons? Or will the possessiveness of Elena, his seducer, and the deranged devotion of Leila, his former submissive, drag Christian down into the past?

And if Christian does win Ana back, can a man so dark and damaged ever hope to keep her?

Dana, a modern black woman, is celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. Rufus, the white son of a plantation owner, is drowning, and Dana has been summoned to save him. Dana is drawn back repeatedly through time to the slave quarters, and each time the stay grows longer, more arduous, and more dangerous until it is uncertain whether or not Dana's life will end, long before it has a chance to begin.

***I had the privilege of reading Kindred a few months ago as a graphic novel. I reallt couldn’t resist the price of the paperback.***

I am looking forward to reading both of these as soon as possible.

The Bookbabe Reviews: Kindred: A Graphic novel adaptation by Octavia Butler

First impressions mean a lot; they can set the tone for interactions to come. This is true in both our everyday lives from business to friendships to dating. So it gains to reason that this is the same when we open books for the first time and experience authors we've never read. This was my first interaction with Octavia Butler and this introduction was completely marvelous. Kindred is the story of a young African American woman named Dana who unknown to her is supernaturally linked to her young slave owning ancestor. She ends up traveling back in time to save him, over and over again. First she saves him from drowning, then from burning down his home and then she tries to save from his times; save him from himself.
The young man, Rufus, is very much a product of his environment and the times. He sees slaves as property and himself as the master of his small part of the world as he grows. Dana is just there to help him, to serve him. The graphic novel covers everything that you can imagine when it comes to the topic of slavery. From tearing apart families, to treating human beings as chattel, to the back breaking and sometimes demeaning work that slaves had do. The book didn't prepare me for hoping that Dana would succeed in changing her ancestor. I rooted for both of them and while I think she made some difference it surely was not enough. I am very much looking forward to reading more of Butler's work. This book left me hungry for more and I promise to read the full length novel this book was adapted from during the summer.

Here's what I learned: I learned from Butler's work that it takes courage to confront inhumanity in the way Dana did. It takes courage and a strong stomach to write about a past so painful that as Claudia Rankine teaches us "the body has memory of". Butler wrote of a topic I myself rarely want to think about let alone write about. It takes a great writer to make the past comes alive and jump off the page. Sadly, I feel just from this brief introduction that Butler is not as appreciated as she should be in American literary circles and culture.

I would suggest this book to anyone interested in historical fiction and sci fi. I gave this book 5/5 stars on Goodreads.com.

*I read this book as a part of The Lemonade Syllabus*

Below are a few quotes/images from the book.