UPstate- Kalisha Buckhanon

UPSTATE-Kalisha Buckhanon

 Upstate by Kalsiha Buckhanon was my first choice for the summer reading assignment but I ended up changing it to the Fault in our stars for multiple reasons including the fact that according to my peers it was a really good book and I could read it and get homework done at the same time. I took that opportunity. It wasn't that Upstate wasn't interesting but it was a little to simple for me and could be described as an "artsy" book which I'm usually into. Upstate is about a teenager named Antonio who lives in 1990s Harlem and is going through the Prison system in Upstate New York for killing his father in order to protect his mother. His girlfriend Natasha still stands by him but will their relationship be able to survive the distance as Natasha becomes more and more successful in school, and Antonio is struggling to stay alive in prison? 

I wouldn't recommend this book  because of the unnecessary "foul" language which makes the characters sound almost stupid. Also I feel as if the book reinforces stereotypes of African Americans of that time. Besides that it's a very simple read. Easy language and no between-the-lines analysis. But the book is written in an interesting way. The story is told through letters sent back and forth from Antonio  to Natasha. It was probably put on the summer's reading list because of the "raw emotion" (whatever that means) that are present in the letters. It's not a bad book and I'll definitely try to pick it up again later. But for now I'll try to pick up a book on the opposite side of the book spectrum. Something a little more complex and insightful, but still artsy.

                                                 The House Girl (Continued)...

              It usually doesn't take that long for me to read a book, but I feel like this book is really intermittent in pace, the way some parts are really action-packed, exciting and make you want to read really fast, but other parts are kinda slow, which makes it hard to move through. But overall the plot is moving along. Lina, the 21st century lawyer, is finally getting closer to proving Josephine, the slave, is the true owner and creator of the famous Lu Anne Bell paintings. The author writes to book in way where one chapter is told in the perspective of Lina and others in the point of view of Josephine. But now in the book, there is a new character named Dorothea who lives in the same time period as Josephine, except she's white and her father is a conductor on the underground railroad. Dorothea is a key character because I think she will somehow connect Josephine to Lina because there are documents of letters written by Dorothea to her sister, telling her about every day life, almost like a diary. And I predict that Josephine will eventually meet Dorothea and it will be recorded in Dorothea's letters.