Jesus Boy by Preston L. Allen

In between reading From Cape Town with Love and Jesus Boy, I read Wild Seed by Octavia Butler. It’s so complex, and I’ve read it so many times, that I’m going to go out of order and review Jesus Boy by Preston L. Allen before I review Wild Seed.

Not to say that Jesus Boy isn’t complex, because it is, but it was so…NEW to me. And it was a complete surprise. I wasn’t expecting much. I had never heard of the book or the author before (somehow I feel like I should be ashamed of myself). I was trolling Amazon for something to read and it came up on someone’s list. I really don’t remember how I came across it. I’m just extremely glad that I did.

I really REALLY liked this book. The book started off weird. Well, maybe not weird, I don’t know if it was Elwyn’s (the main character) voice or what, it just took some getting used to. I mean, I downloaded a sample to my Kindle, and almost didn’t buy it. I think it was that, at first, I couldn’t tell if the story was being told in genuine tone or a sarcastic one. After a while, I realized the tone was whatever I wanted it to be. Again, I’m glad I finished it.

We meet the main character, Elwyn, in kindergarten where he refuses to sing Row, Row, Row Your Boat due to the song’s secular nature. Elwyn was a born member of Church of Our Blessed Redeemer Who Walked Upon the Waters. His religion is very strict. There is no drinking, smoking, cursing, wearing of pants by women, listening to secular music, NONE of that. Elywn thrives in this environment, though. His first rebellion is how he fabricates a religious experience to get his first piano. And he MUST get a piano to play like his childhood crush, Peachie. That’s his first act of deception. Other than that, he’s a model, upstanding member of his church. He spends his lunch hour witnessing to other children all through high school.

Until Elywn gets to be about 16, his is the only voice we see in the book. Everything is told from his perspective. Also at this time, the tone of the book changes from the religious one that kind of threw me off in the beginning, to a more wordly one.  Which also coincides with Elywn doing a very worldly thing. Then, we go back in time, to hear the voice of Elwyn’s grandfather and grandmother. And then we hear from Peachie, now also an adult. The story follows Elwyn all the way through college. I feel like I can’t tell the story of everyone else without telling key points of the story, and I want everyone to be as surprised as I was.
Jesus Boy tells completely the destruction of Elwyn’s naiveté. How the experiences in his life, the things he sees and come to learn shape the man he becomes. So many times while I was reading this, I said to myself “’this movie is CRAZY”, and then I remembered I was reading a book, not watching a movie. Everyone’s story (there are many) is told so completely, but so succinctly that it makes you feel like you know everyone intimately. I loved it. It reminded me a little bit of Lost. I’m not a HUGE fan of Lost, but I am of everyone’s back story on Lost. About the lives they lived before they got stranded on that island. That was my favorite part of the series.

Which made me think about what and how the things that have happened in MY life that shape the woman I’ve become. Books that make me think about me and who I am and why I believe what I believe are my favorite. I think that’s what books are for. Great stories started my interest in reading, but books that spur introspection are why I absolutely LOVE to read.

I highly recommend Jesus Boy by Preston Allen. I have to see what else he’s written. My next review will be of Wild Seed.  One of my all-time favorite books by one of my all-time favorite authors.  Have a great week everyone.

From Cape Town with Love

I really liked this book. There was love, action and adventure. I laughed, I cried, I woulda threw my book across the room if the warranty on my Kindle wasn’t up. It was a great read.

I read too fast. It’s one of the things I don’t like about myself. I hurry to read a book because I want to get to the end & then get mad when it’s over. I got this on a Wednesday and was finished by Saturday. It was a fast read.

From Cape Town with Love is the third book in the Tennyson Hardwick series. The first was Casanegra, the second, In the Night of the Heat, and now From Cape Town with Love. All are written by the husband and wife writing team of Tananarive Due and Stephen Barnes (how cool is THAT), with the addition of Blair Underwood. I don’t know where Underwood fits in the team. I saw him on Wendy Williams the other day & he said something about him adding the acting/theatrical perspective to the book. I didn’t hear the whole thing (I was still half asleep), but I can see his influence in the pages.

I don’t think it’s NECESSARY to have read the other books before reading this one, but From Cape Town refers to things that have happened in Tennyson’s past, and they’re definitely worth reading.

SO…We catch up with Ten after his last gig which is detailed in the Night of the Heat. He still has his responsibilities with this teen ward, he’s in a whatever-you-wanna-call-it relationship, his father is still his trusty sidekick, even though he’s still limited physically by age and the stroke he hasn’t fully recovered from (I just LOVE Ten’s father), and he's still trying to make it as an actor.

On a jaunt to Cape Town, South Africa to try to reunite with his girlfriend, Tennyson gets hired by one of the most popular actresses in the movie industry, Sofia Maitlan.  She wants him to act as a body guard to help her on a trip to an orphanage in Cape Town where she’s going to meet with the daughter she's in the process of adopting. She and Tennyson take a liking to one another, but don’t explore their relationship any further than that of bodyguard/client. He’s struck by the orphanage and the child, Nandi, chosen by Sofia, and instantly forms a bond with her. He also takes a liking to another orphan he nicknames Oliver. You don’t know how much I wanted Tennyson to take Oliver home with him. But it didn’t happen. But I really wanted it to. I woulda helped babysit, drop him off at school, kept him a weekend a month. Alla that. But it didn’t happen.

Ten returns home where he receives a strange message from an anonymous emailer. Through clues, he soon links the message to an old high school friend, who’s just as mysterious in person as she was in the email. They begin a crazy sexual relationship, which to me, started off weird. Maybe it’s because I’ve never met a man on a rooftop handcuffed to a lounger. But that’s just me.

Moving right along, Sofia Maitlan contacts Tennyson again, this time ecstatic to celebrate her daughter Nandi’s first birthday, and she wants Ten to help again as a body guard at the party. Throughout the story, Sofia’s helped Ten get some contacts in the movie industry, so he feels somewhat obligated, and part of him really likes Sofia and Nandi, so he agrees.  AND EVERYTHING GOES WRONG. Somebody snatches the poor baby, and the rest of the story pretty much tells about the kidnapping and the efforts to retrieve Nandi.

I like action, I really do, but sometimes, I get confused. Sometimes I find it hard to follow, like one minute somebody’s fighting someone in the house on the edge of a cliff & the next thing I know they’re thrashing around on the water. & I missed the part of how they got from the cliff to the water. & I’m going back tryna figure out HOW THEY GOT FROM THE CLIFF TO THE WATER?!  I HAVE to know. Drives me nuts. But I didn’t have that problem in Cape Town, there aren’t too many characters (although there are a lot), and there’s just enough action that’s easy to follow. & THERE’S A TWIST!! There’s a twist that I ENTIRELY wasn’t expecting because you just have NO CLUE that should even BE a twist. Or maybe I’m just unsuspecting and trusting. And that’s probably part of it, but I talked to my brother (my fellow reader) & he wasn’t expecting it either.

I highly recommend Cape Town, and the other 2 Tennyson Hardwick books. Cape Town has been my favorite so far. I hope they keep up their tradition of doing a book a year.

Sidenote: Tananarive Due is one of my favorite authors. I love ALL of her books. Most are part of the Living Blood series (the first book in the series is My Soul to Keep, but I like saying Living Blood better), and every book in the series is a must read. Whether you like the whole vampire thing or not. She was writing about vampires long before they built shows around them on the CW. But they’re not just about vampires, they’re about love and life and there aren’t enough superlatives to describe how great a writer she is.  The Good House (a book not in the Living Blood series), is one of my all time favorite books.  Scares the crap out of me every time I read it, but I HAVE to read it every now and again.  DEFINITELY check her out if you haven’t.