Motherhood, trauma, grief, this audiobook had it all! I think it earned its spot on Obama's reading list.

I was super excited to reread one of my fave books of this year on audio. The narrator Julienne Irons was excellent! I absolutely loved BLUE HOUR by Tiffany Clarke Harrison. It’s a super emotional read that made me cry. It features a biracial female narrator who faces a miscarriage and grapples with grief, motherhood, racial injustice, her interracial marriage and love. These heavy themes are written so eloquently within just 160 pages. I loved the biracial representation from a female perspective. I devoured this book in one day in February and I’m still thinking about it now. It’s one of my fave novels of 2023! Upon my second time reading this it’s still one of my fave and great that it works so well in print and on audio!

I really enjoyed Blue Hour. The author powerfully conveyed the complex emotions of motherhood, race, and trauma. Experiences and discussions of infertility and miscarriages were powerful and evoked empathy. The narrator, a bi-racial woman struggling with infertility, begins to question bringing a baby into the world after yet another young black boy is shot by the police. Her relationship with her white husband displays the differing ways we each walk thru the world and perceive events around us. I listened to the book on audio so at times I had to go back to follow the stream of consciousness writing. I don’t think that would be an issue in print. I also did not care for the voice actor reading the book. Very monotone and stiff. The story was well written enough to look past it though. Recommend.

A compelling debut! I am seeing a lot of critiques about this story being told in the second person and while it isn’t typically my first choice, I find that it works here. Our narrator is one we can empathize with, and we can hear her vocalize her fear in her own words of raising a Black child in the US. At the same time, because it is told through her voice and her justifications to her husband and child, it allows us to see how she obfuscates her pull to Noah that crosses boundaries. As she discusses with her therapist that she intellectualizes and doesn’t allow herself to feel her feelings, we see this play out with Noah with her rationalizations and not naming her emotions.

In her narration, the author carefully has the nameless protagonist walk the line being someone we understand and someone who might be a bit unstable.

I will say I felt the characterization of the protagonist’s husband’s Jewish mother and him being a mama’s boy felt a little flat for me given the richness and nuance of the narrator’s identity, but perhaps that is because it’s form her perspective?


Disclaimer: I received an audiobook ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book was really powerful. There is a lot of pain surrounding the idea of motherhood - both the pain of loss and also the pain of bringing a child into a world that feels broken. The story is told in kind of thought snippets, which I think really worked for the story. She sort of bounces around between grief, memories, hope, despair, connection. For such a short book there is really a lot to digest.
Thank you Netgalley and HighBridge Audio for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

did i just read this because barack obama said this was one of his favorite books of the summer? ........

so ........ daddy obama might have taste. this was incredibly moving for being so short and it's a book i'll be thinking about for quite some time.

This was an emotionally charged, stream of consciousness style story about one Black, biracial woman living in America who grapples with profound loss (miscarriage) and racism as she falls in love with a white Jewish man who wants kids even though she's scared to try again and doesn't know that she ever really did want to be a mother. While this wasn't my favorite kind of narrative style, this was definitely a relatable and moving story and great on audio! Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early audio copy in exchange for my honest review!

This is beautiful. I was enthralled and yes a lot of this is in second person but I was okay with it. I was in love with the protagonist.
I wanted her to get her baby and make connections.
I wanted her to be safe and I want her people to be safe. This also broke my heart 93 times. This is an incredibly powerful book.
And the narrator was wonderful!

GOSH. I am so thankful to Highbridge Audio, Tiffany Clarke Harrison, and Netgalley for granting me audio access to this audiobook hits shelves on September 12, 2023.