Wow this book was so good it took me no time to read it. I'm a huge fan of this author and I recommend taking a pit of time with this book and I really enjoyed the characters. I can't wait to read what she comes with next.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House Dial Press for gifting me a digital ARC of the debut novel by DéLana R. A. Dameron, a Reese's Book Club Pick - 5 stars!

This is a beautifully-written story, told mostly from the POV of Mika Tabor, the baby of this southern Black family living in Columbia, SC. Mika has grown up listening to all the stories of her family, told mostly by her grandparents, Weesie and her beloved Teeta. When doing a school project, she learns that Black family genealogy is different and it's those stories passed down through the generations that are so important. This is a quiet story of family, loyalty, racism intertwined with Mika coming of age in the 1990s. Just like in all of our lives, there are good and hard times, laughter, fellowship, and making memories to pass down.

A very powerful yet gentle book that I will keep me thinking. Hard to believe this is a debut - can't wait to read more from this author. Highly recommended!

Thank you to NetGalley, author DeLana R. A. Dameron, and Random House: The Dial Press for providing me with a free ARC in exchange for my honest opinion!

I LOVED this-- it is so evident that Dameron is a poet because this was an absolutely beautiful story. The writing feels both lyrical and real at the same time, and I was immediately drawn into Redwood Court. This story follows several generations of a family, mainly told from the youngest granddaughter's point of view. My biggest complaint about this novel is simply that I would have wanted to see more from every family member and had it be a longer book! However, for what it is which is a slice of life book, it is pretty much perfectly done. The relationship between Teeta, Weesie, and Mika was so lovely and made me greatly miss my grandparents. I eagerly look forward to Dameron's next novel and will happily read her poetry in the meantime.

This is a gorgeously written saga covering three generations of a Black family living in South Carolina. The narrator is Mika, the youngest daughter. Though during the course of the book the narrative voice experiments with POV, and style, in particular when looking through the eyes of the older characters, especially the grandparents, Teeta and Weesie.

Dameron writes powerfully, bringing these characters to life. Threaded with compassion, and anger, and humor, the narrative skillfully imbues everyone with complexity. I'm far too ignorant about the Black experience to presume any judgments; I finished this book, after a two day nearly non-stop read, feeling as if I'd recognize the characters if I met them on the street, or even heard their voices. I was left with a sharp sense that we need more voices like this in mainstream literature.

𝐓𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐞: 𝐑𝐞𝐝𝐰𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐭
𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫: 𝐃é𝐋𝐚𝐧𝐚 𝐑.𝐀. 𝐃𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐨𝐧
𝐏𝐮𝐛 𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐞: 𝐅𝐞𝐛𝐫𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝟔, 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟒

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you Dial Press for my gifted advanced reading copy of Redwood Court!

I loved everything about this book! Redwood Court is a debut novel written by DéLana R.A. Dameron and was chosen as the February Reese’s Book Club pick! I was immediately drawn to this book by the beautiful cover, but when I read the description, I knew I had to read this coming of age novel set in Columbia, South Carolina. I used to live in Columbia, and I loved reading about familiar places and locations. I must admit, when the restaurant California Dreaming and their amazing rolls were mentioned, I almost purchased a plane ticket to head back to one of my favorite places!

Spanning multiple decades, Redwood Court tells the story of a Southern Black family through the eyes of the youngest daughter, Mika. Spending much of her time with her loved ones, and hearing stories from before her time, we learn more about her family and their time in their house on Redwood Court and beyond. I could not help but love the connection between the family members, and their love for one another. On top of that, Weesie, Mika’s grandmother, plays such an integral role in building a supportive community on Redwood Court and I loved reading about her commitment to her neighbors. While most of the book is from Mika’s POV, I loved how the POV of other characters were included throughout, and felt it really made this book more dynamic.

What I enjoyed most is how character driven this novel was and how there were so many smaller stories that helped to paint the overall picture of the life Mika and her family experienced in South Carolina. I found the writing style to be truly remarkable and the author painted a beautiful portrait through her words.

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This book was a joy to read in its simplicity of relaying true-to-life stories of a Black family living, enduring and growing through the years in Southern America. Told through the eyes and ears of Mika Tabor as she relates the love, heartache, bonds, and community of neighbors caring for each other through the good times and the turbulent times. The humor used throughout the book, especially as Mika "becomes a woman", can bring quick smiles and sympathy from the reader as the descriptive writing pulls you into the situations at hand. Definitely a must-read book to witness a Black family's journey through the generations. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for the opportunity to read and review this advance reader copy. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. #NetGalley #Redwood Court

Thank you @netgalley @randomhouse and @thedialpress for this advance copy.
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I thought Part 1 of this character driven family drama was excellent. I loved the multiple POV chapters from different generations of family members and how they came to find a community in the Redwood Court cul de sac. Part 2 was primarily Mika’s preteen and teenager POV story. It fell a little flat for me after getting to know all the characters in this family in Part 1. I wanted more from grandmother Weezie especially. There is so much to discuss as we see how this family evolves across generations and the multiple challenges they face. It’s no surprise this is the @reesesbookclub February book!

This was a wonderful story, one that many readers will enjoy. I loved the peek into this family's life-living in South Caroline from the 70's through the early 2000's. We mostly focus on Mika's story, which oddly ends when she is turning 16. I was surprised it ended so quickly. Will it be a favorite for me? No, but I'm glad I read this and enjoyed the author's writing a lot!

This novel primarily follows Mika Tabour, and her adventures growing up in her family. Mika is the granddaughter of Wessie, and Teeta who grew up during Jim Crow era, in South Carolina and managed to put down roots and buy a home on Redwood Court where we seen glimpses of their life, their children's lives, and grandchildren's lives over the years in their all-Black working-class suburb.
This novel is full of community, life lessons, growing up, family dynamics, love, among many other realities of growing up and living as a black person in America from the 1960s onwards.

The writing was beautiful in this one, which is not surprising as it is the novel debut of a well known poet. Even though the events throughout the novel spans decades, the timeline feels very cohesive and linear. You can't help but fall in love with and relate to the characters. You end up feeling like part of their family. It truly was such a beautiful insight to the African American experience and the importance of family and community.

Redwood Court is a character-driven memoir-like complicated family drama by a debut and “own voices” author, DéLana R.A. Dameron.

Mika’s family lives in the black working-class suburb of Columbia, South Carolina in the 1990s. Young Mika is a thoughtful observer and careful listener and records her thoughts in a journal. The adults in the family work long hours at multiple jobs to provide for the family and take a yearly vacation. Grandparents hold the family and community together. This is the story of a hardworking American family chasing their dreams and overcoming challenges.

A theme of family is at the heart of this complicated family drama. We learn about the grandparents who grew up in the Jim Crow South and who had a heart and the dedication for creating a healthy, thriving family and the vision for a close-knit, supportive community. Grandmother took on a leadership role in the community and shaped it into a caring and supportive neighborhood. Later, she helped care for her grandchildren and ensured that they felt a part of this caring community. Love for family is a strong theme that permeates the story.

“Mika, you sit at our feet all these hours and days, hearing us tell our tales, stories everyone in our family tells. You write ’em in your books and show everyone who we are.”

A great deal of this story is told from Mika’s point of view. She is likable, insightful, smart, and determined. The narrative feels very much like a memoir, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the author didn’t draw from her own childhood experiences and family for this tenderly told story.

This is a character-driven story with the family as an important character. Mika loves her family and we applaud the support she receives. In this heartfelt story, we see how Family can make all the difference. Even though the family is not perfect, Mika feels loved, safe, and seen.

I recommend Redwood Court for fans of “own voices” literature, for readers who appreciate heartfelt and compelling stories of family and community, and for those who want to support “own voices” debut authors.

Thanks #NetGalley @RandomHouse for a complimentary e ARC of #RedwoodCourt upon my request. All opinions are my own.

Really enjoyed the southern setting and the deep history of the family in this one! As a South Carolinian the writing in this felt authentic and like I was speaking to my own grandparents and great aunts and uncles. This is definitely one I'd recommend to anyone!

I really loved spending time with Mika and her family. This book was literary fiction at its best - showcasing a multi-generational family and everything that happens to them.

Things I loved about this book:
Mika’s voice! I loved seeing her grow.
The different perspectives, from Teeta to Weesie to Major to Rhina.
I loved Mika’s relationship with her grandparents. She and her Teeta had such a bond, and after he passed away, she grew into that bond with her grandmother.
I loved the bit where Mika gets her period for the first time. Whoops! Lol
That final bit of the book with the sweet 16! I teared up. What an amazing last line.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

4.25 stars

The best kinds of stories take you on an immersive journey, and Redwood Court does just that. Author DéLana R. A. Dameron brilliantly crafts a quietly epic intergenerational tale interspersed with various points-of-view and narrative voice styles (first, second, and third person). Combined, these voices weave a beautiful tapestry of a family and how this family interacts with itself as a unit and with their community as a whole.

The prose of the novel feels wonderfully poetic, which speaks to Dameron’s poetry background and her deft ability to take her craft and expand it to literary fiction. The words are soft, yet simultaneously powerful, leaping off the page and painting these characters into existence. And I can’t wait to read more from this brilliant writer.

A sincere thank you to Random House for the ARC.

The author of Redwood Court brings her background in storytelling and poetry to tell the story of multiple generations of a Black working class family in the South. She uses Mika and a genealogy assignment to unfold the story of her grandparents, Weezie and Teeta, to Mika’s family. Interwoven between the focus on family members is the story of the neighborhood and its characters. Again, the author’s background brings an artist’s touch to the storytelling.

This story orbits around a black family in the second half of the twentieth century. Their home is in suburban Columbia, South Carolina in a black neighborhood called Redwood Court.
Dameron populates this novel with wonderful, complex characters who make up this proud, hardworking, and caring family. Together we travel through the postwar American dream, the turbulent sixties, the horrors of war for both the men who fight and their families at home. The families of Redwood Court are social, churchgoing people, and they don't seem to care about privacy. Weesie, the matriarch, can most often be found on the phone, checking in with her neighbors. Her spirit of community is what carries this novel, usually told through the eyes of Mika, her granddaughter.
There are many characters in this book--so many that it begins with not only a family tree, but placement and descriptions of all the neighbors, as each person plays a role in rounding out Redwood Court. Through most of the book, we get insight into this close-knit family, and what it is like to live in such a neighborhood.
The book is well written with smooth, albeit dense prose. Dialect slows the flow of the story into a melodious pace, not unlike the warm syrup of Southern summers. There are joyful parts, and painful parts, and an unforgettable sense of time and character.
This is a book told exclusively from the black point of view. The independent memories of this author sometimes clouded the rendition as told by Mika. We remember slavery, Jim Crow, the Civil Rights movement, segregation, integration, and remember that the world painted did not exist in a vacuum. I applaud Dameron’s work at presenting a time in the history of the USA that should be called out, but I wonder if the calling would be more authentic if all non-Black references didn't feel stereotypical.
The book will release on February 6, 2024. Thanks to the Dial Press, Random House, and NetGalley for this advanced reader’s copy.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for this early read. This was a nice coming of age story that was so easy to read. What I loved about it was that it was so drama free that I had to really think about where the drama was. So nice and sweet.

REDWOOD COURT, debut novel by Délana R. A. Dameron, is the story of a Southern Black family living in a working-class Black suburb of Columbia, South Carolina in the 1990s. It is told primarily from the point of view of Mika Tabor, the youngest daughter of the family, as she comes of age, surrounded by her parents, grandparents and siblings, as well as plentiful neighbors and friends in their cul-de-sac on Redwood Court. Mika’s grandparents, Weesie and Teeta move into Redwood Court just after the Korean War. Despite the Jim Crow laws in effect, the members of this community support one another and try to find joy in their lives when Black people were not given many opportunities. The story continues over several more decades. I enjoyed the warmth and charm of this story as well as the nostalgic look at the past. REDWOOD COURT has happy, sad and humorous moments, but some important messages are also shared. This book would be a good book club selection, with plenty of topics to discuss. Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the chance to read and review an advance reader’s copy.

This debut novel is the story of a black working-class family in South Carolina - their history, their relationships, their neighborhood, and their dreams told through several points of view, but mostly through young Mika's eyes in the 1990s.

Description:
“Mika, you sit at our feet all these hours and days, hearing us tell our tales. You have all these stories inside all the stories everyone in our family knows and all the stories everyone in our family tells. You write ’em in your books and show everyone who we are.”

So begins award-winning poet DéLana R. A. Dameron’s debut novel, Redwood Court . The baby of the family, Mika Tabor spends much of her time in the care of loved ones, listening to their stories and witnessing their struggles. On Redwood Court, the cul-de-sac in the all-Black working-class suburb of Columbia, South Carolina, where her grandparents live, Mika learns important lessons from the people who raise her exhausted parents, who work long hours at multiple jobs while still making sure their kids experience the adventure of family vacations; her older sister, who in a house filled with Motown would rather listen to Alanis Morrisette; her retired grandparents, children of Jim Crow, who realized their own vision of success when they bought their house on the Court in the 1960s, imagining it filled with future generations; and the many neighbors who hold tight to the community they’ve built, committed to fostering joy and love in an America so insistent on seeing Black people stumble and fall.

With visceral clarity and powerful prose, Dameron reveals the devastation of being made to feel invisible and the transformative power of being seen. Redwood Court is a celebration of extraordinary, ordinary people striving to achieve their own American dreams.

My thoughts:
I thought Weesie was phenomenal the way she tried to pull the neighborhood community together and make sure everyone was included and felt cared for. The neighborhood was friendly and looked after their families, who were close, and I really liked that. It was sad the family couldn't trace their roots which was a result of slavery where so many were disbursed and didn't know their families. However, this is not a book about slavery, but of the love of a family and their day to day lives. The characters in the story are central and drive the plot. The writing is beautiful and I enjoyed reading it.

Thanks to Random House, The Dial Press through Netgalley for an advance copy.

Congratulations to DeLana R. A. Dameron for helping me see the world and the complexity of growing up through another pair of eyes. I lived in a very rural area of CT that had absolutely no diversity and raised our three daughters about 30 minutes away in another rural town with very little diversity. I also taught elementary school for 38 years. Although I never gave an assignment like the one Mika was assigned, reading the passages about her conversations with Teeta about the assignment made my jaw drop and sent me reeling. It is so very hard to imagine what it was like, as well as what it still must be like, to grow up under different circumstances.
I loved how tight knit the family was, and how they supported each other. I especially loved the relationship between Mika and Teeta. I knew three grandparents growing up but unfortunately none of them were anything like Teeta and Weesie. I barely knew them and they barely knew me.
The list and explanations of the characters at the beginning was helpful and I wish I had printed it out for easy reference as I was reading - one of the only drawbacks of reading this book on a kindle which I can’t navigate easily. I have to admit that the many points of view were confusing at times but then again, they added so much color to this character driven story.
There must be many Redwood Courts throughout this country but I doubt that any of them come close to the magical place depicted by Dameron.
One passage, when Mr. Mosby was in the hospital, spoke so loudly to me, “…I understood he was teaching me to leave this world on your own terms - a soldier’s death.” Dameron’s interspersed passages truly brought laughter and tears to my eyes throughout this read, but most of all she helped open my eyes to the reality that racial biases and barriers still exist and the battles faced by others to overcome those barriers. Powerful writing indeed.
Many many thanks to DeLana R. A. Dameron, the Dial Press, and NetGalley for affording me the privilege of reading an arc of this soon to be published gem.

Great read about an African American family in South Carolina.

The story is told from multiple points of view and at times I found it hard to keep up with who was related to whom.

The strength of this book lies in the small events are monumental. It shows about love between family members. It leaves you feeling nostalgic and warm.

Would highly recommend this book.