April Staff Picks

Lee says:

“If you enjoyed the movie Sin­ners, you’ll love this book! Ring Shout is a grip­ping novel­la set in an alter­na­tive ear­ly 1900s where mem­bers of the Ku Klux Klan are lit­er­al demons. With a beau­ti­ful­ly descrip­tive nar­ra­tion, Clark gives us folk­lore, music, and the ever-rag­ing bat­tle between good and evil. I read it in one sit­ting; the pac­ing is fast, almost furi­ous, and the book is so hard to put down. If you’re look­ing for a quick read to help you face the ugli­ness of the world and feel some hope, I can’t rec­om­mend this book enough!”

Mary says:

“Is this a pre­quel to the 1999 nov­el Choco­lat? Yes. Is it more vibes than plot? Yes. Was I com­plete­ly entranced by this book? Yes. If you’ve read Choco­lat or seen the 2000 movie with Juli­ette Binoche, you under­stand the kind of vibes I’m talk­ing about here. (But — good news — it’s not at all nec­es­sary to have read or watched the orig­i­nal sto­ry.) Vianne, 21 and preg­nant and hav­ing just lost her moth­er, arrives in Mar­seille intend­ing not to stay long. She charms her way into a wait­ress­ing job and dis­cov­ers her gift for cook­ing. A chance run-in with two choco­latiers sparks her inter­est in choco­late. She cooks, she wan­ders the city, she gets too involved with the lives of the towns­peo­ple, she deals with the com­pli­cat­ed grief of los­ing her moth­er. Lush descrip­tions of French cook­ing, the sea breeze of Mar­seille, and brush­es of mag­ic real­ism abound. I found this book a per­fect escape. Just make sure you have some­thing good to eat on hand.”

Eeon says:

“This felt less like fin­ish­ing a book and more like step­ping back into a famil­iar mem­o­ry I didn’t real­ize I’d been miss­ing. I’ve read it three times now, and each time it res­onates even deep­er with me — espe­cial­ly mem­o­ries of my col­lege days, hav­ing won­der­ful diverse friend­ships with room­mates, run­ning around Los Ange­les, stum­bling into young adult­hood, and com­fort­ing one anoth­er through the chaos of dat­ing and the rit­u­al care of our afro hair. The sto­ries cap­ture that sacred soft­ness between Black women: the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, the humor, the vent ses­sions that turn into heal­ing. What makes the book spe­cial is how ordi­nary moments become mean­ing­ful — wash day becomes sur­vival, and girl­hood stretch­es gen­tly into wom­an­hood. It’s nos­tal­gic, ground­ing, and warm in a way that feels lived-in rather than per­formed, like some­one final­ly doc­u­ment­ed the emo­tion­al lan­guage we all qui­et­ly shared.”