Books I Didn't Understand

[00:00:00]I feel like because I get on here and I speak so passionately about books that y'all think that I just read everything and understand everything. And baby, that's a lie. I'm being here confused.

[00:00:17][laughter] So, here are some books that I did not at all understand.

[00:00:22][music] Hi friends, welcome to or welcome back to Shelby and the Book Club. I am Shelby Monae and the videos that I'm going to talk about in this video are books that I have either read once or read multiple times.

[00:00:39]So now I understand them. But the first time I read them, baby, I was in here confusion.

[00:00:45]Do you hear me? Confused.

[00:00:49]So all these books will be linked down below. And I'm very curious to see what books you guys may have read or are interested in reading that may be a little bit intimidating. Um because maybe we can read them together. Maybe I can say something that'll help you understand the plot a little bit better or you could say something to me that'll help me understand a little bit better.

[00:01:12]Because I think that's ultimately what the reading community is about, right?

[00:01:17]We talk about the literacy crisis, right? And the the the comprehension issues of it all, but we don't talk about how important it is to do these things in community because someone else's perspective can help shift yours in a positive way or give you something to think about or give you um a different way to see things so that you can understand better. So, let's get into it. Don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe. We are building our family here. I'm officially at 18K.

[00:01:53]I think I'm going to do a YouTube live, like my first YouTube live in celebration of 18K. So, let me know in the comments what y'all think about that. And yeah, let's get into it. So, all the books I am going to post on the screen um because I just didn't feel like [sighs and gasps] going through these book carts because I really need to organize my books in a way that makes sense to somebody cuz it don't even make sense to me anymore. So, anyway, first up we have hermatin season. and Hermat season tells the story of a magical world set in Africa and I didn't really understand the magic system but we meet the main character and he is a detective that obviously has some military background.

[00:02:54]he is doing this detective business um to get some money, but there's an obvious recession. Like there are issues with the economy that are very evident. Um and this woman uh shows up and disappears and he don't know how that happens and he's trying to figure out who is this woman? How can she show up and disappear and do all of this? It's a very tiny book. Um, the audio book was very, very good. I cannot for the life of me explain how the woman and the and her showing up and disappearing and all of these other characters play into the conversation that is trying to be had about the economy. like there is like action, there are some illegal characters, there's definitely a conversation about the military and the police force. I just could not I it wasn't it wasn't clicking. And I think this is one of those situations where um it made me realize that all genres are not built the same. There are levels to each genre. And I think sometimes we see someone else talking about a book, not realizing that, well, maybe they read uh like traditional fantasy all the time, so all the other fantasy comes to them very easily, right? Which may happen for you. You may the wheel of time, you may go into the wheel of time and just get it, right?

[00:04:37]But for someone else that has never read high fantasy or maybe never watched high fantasy like a Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones or something like that, it may be hard for you to get into the book, right?

[00:04:51]Hermatan season was a lesson in that for me. That although I can read very elevated books that I also have to be conscious that not every genre is built the same and that some genres I need to go into with baby steps because I'm not as familiar with the lay of the land and how the worlds are built or the style and the technique in which things are talked about. So, I had a good time, but it was one of those ones where I was like, I don't know what's going on, but it's provocative.

[00:05:30]Next, we have The Giny Waits 100 years.

[00:05:34]So, this one was a book club pick, if not last year, the year before, and it tells the story of this house that's a bit haunted and by this jin. And we are meeting all of the people in this house.

[00:05:48]We learn the story of this house and how like all of these people are interconnected.

[00:05:53]Um, and [sighs and gasps] I think it was a story about found family. Um, it made me realize that I have no idea what a gin actually is. It also made me realize that reading diversely means being open to the style and technique of other cultures. Other cultures tell stories very differently.

[00:06:23]Um, and with that has to be a learning curve. So, like I got the gist of it.

[00:06:30]Um, there was a lot of it that I couldn't necessarily tell like were these characters alive? Were they ghost?

[00:06:37]um what was happening. There also is a conversation there of class as well. Um so it's something that I'm I'm I'm gonna want to reread. I I sometimes have to be really far removed from the things that I don't understand in order to reread them again because I will second guess myself a lot if I try to reread it too soon and I'll be like, well, did I miss this? Is this a clue?

[00:07:08]Did did I was I not paying attention to this? Whatever. And I don't want to um go into books like that. Um, I want to give myself space to be open and flow with the story because I feel like when I'm able to just go into it and flow a little bit, things start to click.

[00:07:29]Next, we have The Man Who Haunted Himself by Ishmail Reed. Now, I am always looking for new authors. I'm always looking for new authors. I'm always looking for new black authors.

[00:07:39]And I understand that Ishmael Reed is one of our greats. um didn't really know where to start with his catalog because I well his backlist because I was looking for like videos and stuff on him didn't really find any. Um so I was winging it and excuse me looking on Audible.

[00:08:03]I know, I know, I know y'all want to stop using Amazon, but as a person that reads a lot, as a person that has a diverse audience, I still use multiple of all the things.

[00:08:15]Okay? And I've told y'all before, I'm not abandoning black independent authors, just because y'all hate Jeff Bezos.

[00:08:21]All right. Anyway, um there was this book, The Man Who Haunted Himself. And when I tell you after I read that, if I if I sat still and I happened to look to my left, I could see where the book flew smooth past me cuz I don't know what the hell I sci-fi, right?

[00:08:49]And this black man put he gets sick like cancer and he dies and then he puts his body into or his soul, excuse me, into this white boy and is living this life as this white boy. That was mediocre at best.

[00:09:22]And okay, wait a second. Now that I'm explaining it to y'all, I think I'm seeing the vision. I think I'm He was mediocre at best. He was um a sports player, but he wasn't very smart.

[00:09:37]He wasn't very whatever. And uh you know the mediocre white man gets all the awards and the accolades whereas the greatest black man, greatest black woman has to do triple the work to get half.

[00:09:51]Okay?

[00:09:53]And he puts himself into his soul into this white boy's body, thinking that he'll be able to live better because he now has this outward, you know, and that's not necessarily how it goes.

[00:10:18]I think where my confusion lied with this was the sci-fi aspect of it. So, like there's a lot about the science of it all of him like um transferring his soul and all of that that I got very caught up in and was very confusing for me. So much so that I couldn't really grasp the whole of the story and that can happen sometimes.

[00:10:46]Again, genres have levels, right?

[00:10:48]Authors have levels, right? you might find their newer work harder than their older work, right? And I don't think that is a bad thing, right?

[00:11:04]It just it depends. So, I don't think that that was a good place to start. I think I was judging based off of, oh, it's a short audio book. Sometimes at the end of the month, I'm always looking for other things that I can read that are short to add to what I read for the month. and I sent me for a loop in the upper country. Oh my goodness.

[00:11:27]This is something that I'm probably going to reread very soon.

[00:11:32]I how the story is told. When we talk about slavery, we talk about um we talk about certain aspects of it. We talk about the American South. Um, we talk about this migration north, but we usually stop at a certain point. And this is a story that takes place in Canada. And these runaway enslaved people end up in Canada. Um, this white slave catcher ends up on this land and a formerly enslaved woman shoots him, which leads her to be imprisoned. And there is a woman on this property that is um [sighs and gasps] a journalist. She works for the newspaper. So she is trying to figure out like who this woman is, what this connection. And there's a big aha moment that smooth over my head at the time that I because of how the story was told, I was I think I was caught up in how poetic the the book is. Um, I wanted to know about black people in Canada. I wanted to know about the enslaved people that ended up in Canada. Um, that I wasn't really picking up on the fact that this was a mystery and I was supposed to be solving like that this woman was more than who she said. The reader that I was then is not the reader that I am now. I think this this is a book that um I need to check and see when I read that because will this um will this count for a Herkit read? Let's pull up my story graph real quick. But it it it was a great book that I just wasn't really understanding. Um and I don't think so. So, I read it in 2023, 3 years ago, so I can't use it for her kit. Oh well, I'll just read it for myself. Um, [gasps] Kai Thomas, I wonder where they are. Do they have another book coming out soon?

[00:13:59]Is there anything on the horizon?

[00:14:05]Because, and at the time, I was still rating books and I gave it a 3.75.

[00:14:11]And it's funny because evolution evolving is understanding that I gave it that rating because I did not understand it, right? Um whereas a lot of the times people are rating things a certain way um thinking that the book was bad when really it was you.

[00:14:37]It was you shook. Um, and that's not a that's not necessarily a bad thing. Um, next, a book that I have read multiple times now and I now understand, but the first time that I read it, The Book of Night Women by Marlon James, no idea what was going on. Um, I knew what was going on. How I understood what I was reading made me feel like uh Marlon James was expressing his hate for black women um because these women go through a lot of different things and the female main character um a great tiein to Greek mythology.

[00:15:18]We're going to see uh the Odyssey later today. And all of the characters in this book are named after uh Greek gods.

[00:15:29]And [sighs and gasps] so the female main character is raised on a plantation that she was born on. her father is her owner and she ends up in a very precarious situation because she murders someone that was trying to sexually assault her.

[00:15:54]Um, not trying to, that was sexually assaulting her. And this leads to a group of women trying to protect her.

[00:16:03]And she is very [sighs and gasps] feisty.

[00:16:10]um and against these older women trying to protect her, but also they are against her for reasons which we find out. And I think at the time I didn't really understand the intersectionality between the ages of women and and why older women could possibly be mean to younger women. And not that I'm excusing it, but why they see things a certain way because they can almost foretell our futures by the actions that we're doing. And they sometimes don't have the words to explain to us why things shouldn't go a certain way. So, I felt like they were against the main character.

[00:16:58]I also didn't understand why all of the things that she was going through had to happen in so much detail.

[00:17:06]And I didn't recognize it as trauma porn. I understood that it was a part of history. I just wasn't understanding how that played into who she was as a character in the decision she in turn made.

[00:17:20]When you grow, when you're open to to learning, when you're open to learning, when you're open to learning, you should give things a second try. Because the person that you are when you first read something and don't like it and don't understand it is not the same person you'll be when you go to read it again.

[00:17:41]And even when you like things, right, I don't necessarily think that you'll like really enjoy something and go back and read it and completely hate it. I think your perspective will be different. But because of who you become as you grow, your perception of things is always going to change. You're going to understand things better. You're going to relate to characters a little differently. And I think that that's important.

[00:18:11]So, the book of night woman is on there.

[00:18:13]And then last, but certainly not least, These Ghosts Are Family by Macy Card.

[00:18:17]Macy Card is a wonderful woman.

[00:18:20]I met her at multiple book events because she is local um to me and she's awesome.

[00:18:30]I need to give this book a second chance because there is a way that um Caribbean and Caribbean-American authors write their books that I have to adjust to. [sighs] I think that they are very singongy like their language, right?

[00:18:55]Like have you ever actually listened to PWA and depending on who is speaking the PWA there are different uh tones and inflections and I think that's evident in how they tell stories and and the things that they are choosing to share.

[00:19:11]Um so I can't even really tell you what these ghosts or family is about because I had no idea. I closed that book and I was like yeah I don't know sister. I think at the time, if I go backwards, I probably can find the video where I did a review for it and tried to give my best interpretation of what I got from it. But it's definitely a book that I need to reread. And again, trying to read Caribbean literature over the years helped me realize that like, oh, this is a learning curve for me. I need to slow down when I am reading these stories.

[00:19:54]Um, I cannot read them the way that I read American literature. Um, because there's a cultural aspect to it. There are things that you don't know. There's, again, like I said, tone, style, technique, like all of these things that need to be considered.

[00:20:13]So, let me know. [sighs] Have you read any of these books? If you have, [clears throat] which did you really enjoy? Or are any of them books that you did not understand? Let me know in the comments. Um, and what are some books that you read that kind of just went over your head? And if you want to say Tony Morrison, let me know in the comments or send me a DM on Instagram with the books by Tony Morrison that you've read that went over your head. Um because we can get you through that. We we can help you. If nobody has told you today, you are kind, you are smart, you are important. if to no one else to me.

[00:21:02]Bye friends.