Author: India

Hi, my name is India! Welcome to basically the back cover flap of this blog. I'm born and raised in Atlanta and have a passion for reading and travel. I love all things tech and photography though I'm not very good at either. Please make sure to follow my blog as well as my social media accounts to learn more about me!!
Book Reviews

The Poet X, Elizabeth Acevedo

India
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The Poet X by Elixabeth Acevedo
Xiomara came into this world fighting and she’s going to keep fighting through out it. She’s learned now when to use her fists and when not to, but she’s starting to learn how to use her words. X has always had a lot to say, but often would never say it. She had to please her mother and the Catholic church, she had to look out for her twin, and she had to be a best friend. X wanted to experience more and be more, but with her mom believing that God would send her to the depths of hell with just a word to a boy she couldn’t do much. Her twin gave her a leather bound notebook for one of her birthdays and X has always written her thoughts and feelings in it, including some poems. When she meets her english teacher for the year and she suggests that X joins the Poetry Club, X isn’t quite convinced and plus it’s another thing that she has to hide from her mom. What if this is what Xiomara needs to spread her wings and speak her truth. Maybe this is where she can find and use her voice.
This book was really good. To me it wasn’t great, but I also think that it was because I couldn’t relate to a large part of the book and it took me awhile to get into it. I started off by listening to it on Audible, but I felt like I was missing some formatting of the book. Then I decided to read it on my Kindle, it was then that I understood that everything was written as a poem.  It all clicked! I definitely felt like the book could be relatable to the Latinx and Catholic communities and brought some amazing points on family dynamics. I guess the reason this book wasn’t great to me was because I was also looking for resolve with Xiomara’s brother, Xavier. I loved what happened between Xiomara and her mom. I’ve been lucky because I’ve always felt like my mom is my best friend, and I don’t mean that in a way that she gives me everything I want, but she has always been supportive of me and I can spend all day with her. I loved talking about what it’s like to go from a body of a girl to a body of a woman and how the rest of the world starts to perceive you. Some good topics were brought up and I loved how they were expressed in poems, but I just didn’t feel completely fulfilled at the end. I would still recommend this book though. Have you read The Poet X? What did you think? Until next time,
Keep turning the Pages
India
Book Reviews

Let’s Talk About Love, Claire Kann

India
Let’s Talk About Love by Claire Kann
Let’s Talk About Love by Claire Kann is definitely a book that the world needs. Is it my favorite book probably not, but definitely a book the world needs and young ones in high school and in college need. Let’s Talk About Love is about a 19 year-old black woman who has partially come to terms with her sexuality or lack of sexuality. Alice considers herself to be biromantic and asexual. Only a few people in her life know those terms when it comes to her and that makes her hold a lot of emotions in. Of course you would never know it because she is still an expressive person. With her experiences in relationships she has found that people don’t understand what she needs and what she wants and that they don’t see her. She was even nicknamed “The Corpse” because sex doesn’t mean anything to her. It doesn’t give her a thrill, but romance does. This book follows Alice as she suffers through one breakup, but finds support and comfort in her long time friends and a new man who has come into her life that is breaking her Cutie Code and turning her ideas upside down on if she can have a stable relationship or not. Alice has a lot to work through and a lot to come to terms with herself and she takes the strides to do it.
I enjoyed Let’s Talk About Love, but I’m not going to say that I loved it. I believe that it is a book that some people in the LGBTQ+ community might need in their lives. I think it dives into a realm of the LGBTQ community that is not often talked about and is often overlooked. For me it was a side I often wondered about, but never had anyone to ask, so I’m glad that this book discusses what it means to be asexual. I enjoyed the friendship dynamic because sometimes it is hard to be the third wheel of someone in a relations, but I think that it was awesome for them to talk about and discuss what was going on, and to be able to remain friends. I do believe that it is rare to stay friends with your high school friends through college, but that it can happen. That’s why I also thought that that was something good to be discussed in this book because friendships matter. Not just romantic endeavors. I talk some more about it in my review on my Booktube channel, which you can find here and down below. Let me know what you think about Let’s Talk About Love in the comments! Until next time
Keep turning the Pages
India
Bookish

BLACKATHON TBR!!

India
Hi everyone and welcome back to my channel. My name is India and today we are going to be doing my TBR for Blackathon, which started at the beginning of the month, but that I’m finally getting up now. If you’ve been following me on twitter then you know that I had a difficult time getting some of these books and went ahead and started reading some other books. Let me know what you’re  reading during this challenge!
I’m really excited about this read a thon because it is centered around books written by black authors and/or books with black main characters. This read a thon is hosted by Francina Simone over at Francina Simone, Lauren over at The Novel Lush, and Jessie over at Bowties and Books. They have decided to do this with reading challenges to help pick out your books and to force you to try to read more diversely, which I think is awesome! I know that I’ve picked way too many books for this read a thon and probably won’t get to a lot of them, but I decided to aim high. It also gives me a lot of variety to read, so I can go from book to book. What are some of the books that you’re reading? Below are some of the books that I have chosen as well as a couple that I have read and loved that fit into the categories
1. FEEL THE LOVE. Read a book (any genre) featuring romance between two black people (or one black person + a person of color).
An American Marriage, Tayari Jones
Recommend A Princess Theory, by Alyssa Cole
2. WAKANDA FOREVER Read a graphic novel or comic series with a black or African MC
Kindred, Octavia Butler
3. HEAR US ANY work by a Black or African author
Dread Nation, by Justina Ireland
Monday’s Not Coming by Tiffany Jacksonn
Let’s Talk About Love, Claire Kann
Black Enough, Anthology by multiple authors
Well Read Black Girl, Anthology by multiple authors
4. FEEL THE BEAT. Spoken word: listen to these 4 poems and share your favorite on social media or with a friend. Discuss what this poem means to you and why it matters.
Balaenoptera by Joshua Brandon Bennett https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9TWj…
What I’ve Learned by Aja Monet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8byI7…
“Waiting” by Jasmine Mans, Alysia Harris, and Jennah Bell https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgxU7…
Cuz He’s Black by Javon Johnson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9Wf8…
5. MORE THAN A COLOR. We house complexity within us. Read a book starring an intersectional black character (black & LGBT, black & neurodivergent, black & disabled, etc)
Let’s Talk About Love, Claire Kann
Recommend: Odd One Out by Nic Stone, Little and Lion by Brandy Colbert
6. IN THIS TOGETHER Read the group book with us! Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo
Bookish

Favorite Reads of 2018!!

India

This post is a long time coming and for some reason I just haven’t put it up on my blog. It has been placed on my youtube channel and you can also watch it down below. These books were some of my favorite reads from 2018. I tried to only pick 5 because I read a lot of good books last year and I didn’t just want to gush about all of the books I read during the year. I still kind of cheated though as I made it into two videos. One video for favorites and one video for favorite romance and contemporaries. As someone who self proclaimed as a fantasy reader, I was surprised at the amount of romance and contemporary that I read during 2018, especially towards the end of the year. Anyway, let’s get down to this list, starting with my favorite reads of 2018! None of these books are in any particular order.

My Favorite YA Fantasy books of 2018:

  1.  Three Dark Crowns, Kendare Blake
  2. Children of Blood and Bone, Tomi Adeyemi
  3. Tower of Dawn, Sarah J Maas
  4. Kingdom of Ash, Sarah J Maas
  5. An Ember in the Ashes, Sabaa Tahir

A lot of these books I’ve talked about through out the year, and some of them I have reviews up on my youtube channel of. I will link those above, and I talk about some of these books a lot more in the video!

Next up are my favorite my favorite Contemporaries of 2018:

  1. The Kiss Quotient, Helen Hoang
  2. The Proposal, Jasmine Guillroy
  3. Dumplin, Julie Murphy
  4. Intercepted, Alexa Martin
  5. Curing Doctor Vincent, Renea Mason
  6. Odd One Out, Nic Stone

I kind of cheated on this list and added in a sixth just because I felt like all of these needed to be talked about.

 

What were some of your favorite books of 2018, or maybe you’ve already read some books in 2019 that have blown your mind! Let me know what you’ve been reading because I’m always looking for something new to add to my shelves! Until next time,

Keep Turning the Pages

India

Coffee Break

Kelly Moore Wearable Wallet and Gadget Clutch

India

I did it. I bought another Kelly Moore bag. I believe that it is going to be my last one for awhile. I bought the two smallest bags and most affordable ones on the website.  Let’s get into it and talk about the Gadget Clutch first.

First, let’s talk about price. The Gadget Clutch comes in at $69. I definitely believe that there are cheaper and better options out there, like the one here, but if you have a Kelly Moore problem like I do you might want to buy it.

The Gadget Clutch

The Gadget Clutch, GC, can be carried by itself as a clutch, for a night out or an afternoon walking around, but its main purpose is to organize your items. It is best for your extra cords, hard drives, and other items. I don’t really like the loop aspect of the cords, it doesn’t keep them in well when moving it around.

Inside of the Gadget Clutch

If you start to add too much stuff in it, it does get hard to close. It is a good size though to slide into any other bags or backpacks that you might carry around. Because I don’t use it as a wallet I only put business cards in the card slots mainly because I don’t see me just carrying this around on a day to day basis. As one of the more affordable items I couldn’t pass up getting them to try and add to my organization because I do love pouches.

How I stuff my gadget clutch

I’m not very good at looping the cords around those snaps and I haven’t figured out a better way, so everything still seems like a mess to me and doesn’t hold as many cords as I need it to. On top of having my Apple Mouse on one side I often times have my external hard drive on the other. You can see my battery pack hiding in the back that I keep on me as well. It is a good place to store extra memory cards and filters for your lenses as well. As I mentioned earlier I do believe that there are better alternatives that fit my needs that I linked above.

 

Other organizational alternatives found on Amazon

If you like Kelly Moore bags then this might be a great present for yourself or for a loved one. It gets the job done and fits the Kelly Moore aesthetic completely. With its leather and canvas material it is sure to last for a long time.

Now moving on the to the Wearable Wallet. The Wearable Wallet is in essence a fanny pack, an $89 fanny pack. I very nice fanny pack, but could possibly even not be as practical as a fanny pack because you can’t dump nearly as much stuff into it. It looks almost like the Gadget Clutch, but it has a strap that you can either wear cross body or around your waist. I like to wear it around my waist and slide it into one of my belt loops if I’m wearing jeans. The strap is adjustable, so that it can fit any size waist.

Kelly Moore Wearable Wallet

It is made with leather and canvas just like the Gadget Clutch, but it doesn’t open all the way, so that you can keep whatever contents inside of the bag. It just has the top flap and a zipper with an outside pocket that you can slide small thing in as well.

The front of the Wearable Wallet by Kelly Moore

The inside of the fanny pack also has the card slots that we see in so many Kelly Moore bags. There’s a small mesh pocket with a zipper that I have kept chapstick and lipstick in before. The inside is large enough for me to carry my phone and an external battery pack as well as my GoPro and a kindle. If you have any sort of point and shoot camera like a Sony RX100 or a Canon G7X those will fit nicely inside as well.

The inside of the Wearable Wallet by Kelly Moore

Both of these bags would be great gifts for anyone. They’re a good introduction to the Kelly Moore brand and their quality of bags. I would definitely recommend these as gifts or something to treat yourself with. I’m not going to say that they’re the most economically friendly option because they’re not, and there are other options out there, but they are made with great quality and look good while using or wearing them. Below you’ll find an unboxing of these items where you can see them in some more detail. What did you think of these items? Anything to add to your wishlist? Have you tried any other Kelly Moore products? Let me know down in the comments! Until next time,

Keep Turning the Pages

India