The Stars and the Blackness Between Them by Junauda Petrus

The Stars and the Blackness Between Them by Junauda Petrus (Dutton Books for Young Readers, 2019)

★★★★★

Two queer black girls, one from Trinidad and the other from Minneapolis, find radical love and magic despite tragic circumstances.

I had to process my feelings about this book through a review because it was the most healing reading experience I’d had all year. Junauda Petrus has so much love for these characters, and I felt connected to that love in a way that made me cry buckets. While the story depicts Black realities and complexities that are not my own, Petrus’s tender offering to her grief-stricken characters—to recall their own light and their ancestors who are still present with them—felt like an invitation to me as well.

Remember that you are from the stars and that you can return to them.

Remember you are a sacred being of love, no matter the darkness of an earthly life.

Remember you come from light and return to freedom.

Remember you are the healing of your ancestors, that you are Chiron the wounded healer.

You heal through the compassion you give to yourself.

Remember you are an astronaut of the soul.

May you find solace in your travel to another star.

This poem/affirmation/prayer, recited by an incarcerated character to other men on death row as they go to their executions, surprised me: they felt like words my mom would have said if she were still alive. I felt the pain of her absence all over again—realized I’m still holding grief about her death 10 years ago—even as I understood the release of this pain and grief to be a healing the book encourages.

“As you lie in the dirt, imagine that the land can hold all of the feelings. All of the sickness and hurt. Confusion. The earth can take it all. Don’t feel like you is too much. You are okay and loved by creation.”

I shared these feelings with my partner and of course ended up ugly crying. He held me and told me I was beloved and man did it feel hard to completely receive those words. At the same time that I felt appreciation for both of my partners’ love and all the other love that I do have in my life, there was a part of me that felt blocked from love, and blocked from fully embracing what the author assures her characters is accessible to them.

So I’m probably going to need to work that out in therapy, but in the meantime I feel grateful to Junauda Petrus for this gift of a book. Though it was not written for me, it attuned me to emotions I didn’t realize I was carrying, and offered me a balm in dark times.

Sweetness is here. Kissing at all things. Broken or confused.

The Book of Koli by M. R. Carey

The Book of Koli by M. R. Carey (Orbit, 2020)

★★★☆☆

A young boy, living in a post-apocalyptic world where carnivorous trees eat people, is forced to leave the safety of his village.

Another beloved of The Bookstore. I enjoyed the storytelling voice Carey spun: the reflections of present-Koli on the life of past-Koli, and (surprisingly) the Huckleberry Finn-ish vernacular style as well. But I wasn’t especially moved by the story or worldbuilding. Plot-wise, Koli kind of feels like an aged-up version of Beyond the Deepwoods; indeed, it doesn’t seem to be marketed as YA, but it is extremely YA-like.

I do think the characters are interesting. The villagers in Mythen Rood feel fleshed out, and the conflict there compelling. But once we leave the village, all the development from the first half is suspended—even if the messianic antagonist who figures into the second half is another compelling choice. I get that it’s the first installment of a trilogy, so I’m probably invested enough to keep reading, but most of it does feel like setup.