DAILY DEALS: Stories from the Badlands to Grand Rapids
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Stealing Buddha’s Dinner by Bich Minh Nguyen $ 1.99
From the Jacket Copy:
As a Vietnamese girl coming of age in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Nguyen is filled with a rapacious hunger for American identity, and in the pre-PC-era Midwest (where the Jennifers and Tiffanys reign supreme), the desire to belong transmutes into a passion for American food. More exotic- seeming than her Buddhist grandmother’s traditional specialties, the campy, preservative-filled “delicacies” of mainstream America capture her imagination.
In Stealing Buddha’s Dinner, the glossy branded allure of Pringles, Kit Kats, and Toll House Cookies becomes an ingenious metaphor for Nguyen’s struggle to become a “real” American, a distinction that brings with it the dream of the perfect school lunch, burgers and Jell- O for dinner, and a visit from the Kool-Aid man. Vivid and viscerally powerful, this remarkable memoir about growing up in the 1980s introduces an original new literary voice and an entirely new spin on the classic assimilation story.
The Personal History of Rachel DuPree by Ann Weisgarber $ 1.99
From the Jacket Copy:
An award-winning novel with incredible heart, about life on the prairie as it’s rarely been seen
When Rachel, hired help in a Chicago boardinghouse, falls in love with Isaac, the boardinghouse owner’s son, he makes her a bargain: he’ll marry her, but only if she gives up her 160 acres from the Homestead Act so he can double his share. She agrees, and together they stake their claim in the forebodingly beautiful South Dakota Badlands.
Fourteen years later, in the summer of 1917, the cattle are bellowing with thirst. It hasn’t rained in months, and supplies have dwindled. Pregnant, and struggling to feed her family, Rachel is isolated by more than just geography. She is determined to give her surviving children the life they deserve, but she knows that her husband, a fiercely proud former Buffalo Soldier, will never leave his ranch: black families are rare in the West, and land means a measure of equality with the white man. Somehow Rachel must find the strength to do what is right-for herself, and for her children.
Reminiscent of The Color Purple as well as the frontier novels of Laura Ingalls Wilder and Willa Cather, The Personal History of Rachel DuPree opens a window on the little-known history of African American homesteaders and gives voice to an extraordinary heroine who embodies the spirit that built America.
13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl by Mona Awad $ 1.99
From the Jacket Copy:
Growing up in the suburban hell of Misery Saga (a.k.a. Mississauga), Lizzie has never liked the way she looks—even though her best friend Mel says she’s the pretty one. She starts dating guys online, but she’s afraid to send pictures, even when her skinny friend China does her makeup: she knows no one would want her if they could really see her. So she starts to lose. With punishing drive, she counts almonds consumed, miles logged, pounds dropped. She fights her way into coveted dresses.She grows up and gets thin, navigating double-edged validation from her mother, her friends, her husband, her reflection in the mirror. But no matter how much she loses, will she ever see herself as anything other than a fat girl?
In her brilliant, hilarious, and at times shocking debut, Mona Awad simultaneously skewers the body image-obsessed culture that tells women they have no value outside their physical appearance, and delivers a tender and moving depiction of a lovably difficult young woman whose life is hijacked by her struggle to conform. As caustically funny as it is heartbreaking, 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl introduces a vital new voice in fiction.
WINNER OF THE AMAZON CANADA FIRST NOVEL AWARD
FINALIST FOR THE SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE
FINALIST FOR THE COLORADO BOOK AWARD FOR LITERARY FICTION
LONGLISTED FOR THE DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD
ARAB AMERICAN BOOK AWARD HONORABLE MENTION FOR FICTION
NAMED ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2016 BY ELLE, BUSTLE, AND THE GLOBE AND MAIL
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE MONTH BY THE HUFFINGTON POST, BUSTLE AND BOOKRIOT
My Heart Stood Still by Lynn Kurland $ 1.99
From the Jacket Copy:
New York Times bestselling author Lynn Kurland captures the haunting beauty of England—past and present—and the exquisite tenderness of timeless love in this novel in the MacLeod series…
In a bleak, landlocked keep on the English moors, Iolanthe MacLeod dreams of the sea**—**and of a darkly handsome man to come rescue her. Centuries have passed and she feels she has waited in vain…until now.
Thomas McKinnon is used to attaining impossible heights, both in business and in the mountains he loves. But when the chance to restore a twelfth century castle comes his way, he gamely takes hammer in hand and crosses the Atlantic, expecting to find nothing more interesting inside his new home than cobwebs and weeds.
But in that ancient, crumbling castle, the fierce, restless spirit of a medieval Scottish woman lives on**—**a woman so haunting that he would do anything, go anywhere, risk everything to make her his forever…
The Personal History of Rachel DuPree is/is going to be a movie with Viola Davis.
Lynn Kurland’s magic-based Nine Kingdom series is outstanding. They have never been on sale, sadly, at least since I’ve been tracking them.