Customer 5 Star Favs

September 14, 2023

Ta’ Nehisi Coates’ book Between the World and Me (2015) was one of the most beautiful yet gut wrenching books I have ever read. If you’ve not read it, read it. The next book of his I read was The Water Dancer (2019), and that is the book I’m writing about today! It is our Customer 5 Star Fav read this month!

Here is what Cayla said about it: “You nailed it. It was so beautifully written and I loved the story. It definitely reminded me of Toni Morrison like you had mentioned in your card.”

As much as possible, we try to write a note explaining why we picked a book. I picked this book for Cayla. Here is some of what she put in her survey that made me choose it. First, she said Toni Morrison is her favorite writer.

Toni Morrison is above and beyond most authors, maybe all authors. She is dazzling. She tackles intense societal, familial and historical topics with magic and beauty and anger and love and poetry. To say what genre a Morrison book is is nearly impossible. She does it all.

Okay, right this is about The Water Dancer. Coates is a beautiful writer. His sentences dazzle. Like Morrison, he writes sentences one can get lost in. Also like Morrison’s books, The Water Dancer has a historical setting with characters based in reality and even truth (Harriet Tubman is a character), but there are ghosts or magic or both and it is all perfectly normal.

Here is another thing Cayla said that made me choose this book for her: “I like books where there is good character development or growth. I also like books involving overcoming. I've also loved every dystopian book I've read and books relating to race, gender, etc.”

This book is not dystopian, but the rest of her list: ✅✅✅✅

Cayla and I highly recommend this one!