STATUS: Oi. Lot of things in crisis today.
What’s playing on the iPod right now? (I LOVE YOU) FOR SENTIMENTAL REASONS by Nat King Cole
Wow. Take a look at this Booklist review. It makes me want to buy it and I represented the book!
This book hits shelves tomorrow, Sept. 29th.
From Booklist
Part mystery thriller, part coming-of-age story, and part civil-rights history, this gripping memoir is set at the time of the horrific Atlanta child murders and told through the eyes of a young African American teen whose mom is a cop on the task force searching for the serial killer. Just after the first two bodies are found in 1979, Kim, 13, enters a white private school in the suburbs, far from her inner-city neighborhood. Over the next two years, a total of 29 black boys are found dead. Is the killer a Klansman type? Could he be a black man? The racism at school is ugly. No one there cares about the murdered inner-city kids. So why does Kim stay in the fancy school? Is she playing white? Is she running for safety? As the climax builds, and her mom brings home more and more details of the murder investigation, Kim’s personal conflicts are as intense for her as the terror outside.
–Rochman, Hazel
Wow, Kristin. This makes two of your author’s books I’ll be picking up in the next few days. The review on this one is amazing! I was drawn in from the first few lines.
So congrats on No Safe Place and Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy. You’ve got lots to celebrate.
That’s a great review. Very enticing.
When I read your first blog post about the book, I went and pre-ordered it. Amazon just emailed that it’s in the mail! Now I really can’t wait to read it.
Carolyn
Just ordered it. I’ve been hearing a lot about this one and I expect it will be an excellent read.
This just goes to show how different people’s tastes are. I found I couldn’t even stay focused on this blurb without my mind wandering away. I had to force myself to read each word. Totally not a book I’d buy, and if I were an agent, it’d be a book I’d pass on right away.
I love diversity! Something for everyone!
That does sound interesting. I’ll put it on my list of books to order. I have so many books….
Uh, I think the world of you, and I love this blog, but I wouldn’t touch that book with a ten-foot pole. Guess that says a lot about me. But YUCK!
Amazing. I’ll be ordering this one. And it’s true, all books don’t appeal to everyone. That’s okay. It’d be a very dull world without differences.
I’ll say this though, for anyone who remembers that era, it was horrible for people of color. I think this book speaks volumes of truth and hopefully at the same time showing we’ve come along way from then yet in some ways still have a long journey ahead.
Thanks for representing her and not giving up on selling the book.
This has been on my list since you first mentioned it. It seems to take the memoir into a new and exciting direction. I’m really looking forward to it.
I love this book! I devoured the ARC that I Kim gave me at BEA. She is a consummate story teller and the subject is riveting. Congratulations Kim and Kristen.
Having met Kim and hearing some of her story, this will be a fantastic book and I can’t wait to read it. Great job and great review.
OMG, that must’ve been hell living through all that.
I remember following the news on that as a teenager, and thinking how frightening it must be; I mean, it could’ve been a next-door neighbor.
~jerseygirl
Um, that is, it could’ve been a next-door neighbor who was doing the killing.
Must. Remember. To. Finish. Thought. Before. Hitting. Publish.
~jerseygirl
Yuck? What in heaven’s good name is “yuck” about a woman telling her story about living through a poignant — and yes — sometimes totally “ugly” period in our nation’s history for race relations?
I personally, can’t wait to get my hands on this book, and can only thank Kim Reid for writing it.
Yuck?? Ashamed of *yourself* and *your* own individual mindsets, perhaps? Clearly then, you truly SHOULD be — and the “yuck” factor , strongly applies here.
Congratulations, Kim!
Got mine in the mail from Amazon yesterday! Kim will be have a chat on my blog on Monday. Hope you’ll take a look.
Looking forward to this one.
Anon 7:38, I wondered the same thing.
Mine came from Amazon yesterday (I too ordered it when you blogged about it). I have it on the top of my to read pile (right after a big stack of 8th grade essays and tests about the American Revolution — can you guess which one I am looking forward to most? Right, but work before pleasure.
Thank you for supporting me and my book. Today I saw it in a store for the first time. It’s an amazing thing. After writing three books that won’t see light of day, and years at the keyboard wondering if it would ever happen, it was surreal to see it on a shelf. I hope all the writers here on the query-go-round or in submission hell get a chance to experience it.
Kim
[[Yuck?? Ashamed of *yourself* and *your* own individual mindsets, perhaps? Clearly then, you truly SHOULD be — and the “yuck” factor , strongly applies here.]]
Puh-LEEZE. This is unnecessarily meanspirited, and condescending to boot.
The aforementioned writer merely expressed her aversion to a particular book, period. Many more of us also took one look at the blurb and said, “Thanks, no thanks.” And it has nothing to do with our “own individual mindsets” being somehow “faulty.” It’s simply a matter of what we prefer, or don’t prefer, to read. Sort of like my Mom, who was a young adult during WWII, didn’t particularly like war movies!
Merely because a few of us don’t jump on the “me too” bandwagon about any particular book doesn’t mean we have some deep secret “attitude” or “shame” about the issue that may be involved. Some of us lived through difficult racial times, riots, unrest, and fear in our own towns as well…and some of us would just prefer not to relive that, thanks. And some of us just plain don’t care for “issue” books, fiction or nonfiction. That’s just taste. Not secret bigotry.
And the fact that we seem to have to point this out is the saddest part of all.
Janny
“Puh-LEEZE. This is unnecessarily meanspirited, and condescending to boot.”
But what the original poster said wasn’t?
Puh-LEEZE, indeed.
I was in high school during that time, like some of the others who posted about this. Many at my school (in California) wore yellow ribbons for the victims.
Merely because a few of us don’t jump on the “me too” bandwagon about any particular book doesn’t mean we have some deep secret “attitude” or “shame” about the issue that may be involved. Some of us lived through difficult racial times, riots, unrest, and fear in our own towns as well…and some of us would just prefer not to relive that, thanks. And some of us just plain don’t care for “issue” books, fiction or nonfiction. That’s just taste. Not secret bigotry.
Secret? Clearly, the original poster’s “yuck” comment was anything but a “secret.” And this would most probably have applied, even if this poster had been the first poster — or the fiftieth — which would also dispel the “me too” sentiment or theory.
Additionally, and just for the record — there’s a “surefire” and effective way for expressing one’s aversion to the “reliving” of the “issues” they choose not to relive through written word…. It’s not called “trashing” the book — it’s simply called “not buying” the book.