About us
**WARNING: A scammer is sending emails to authors pretending to represent this group by offering author spotlights or other favors in exchange for money. Please ignore these messages. Contact the group organizer, Alysia Allen, via direct message on Meetup if you have any questions.
We are a group of black women who love to read, want to read more, and meet like-minded women. We are here to inspire women to read, share literature, fellowship, and encourage others in the joy of reading. We meet in Tempe at Changing Hands Bookstore every month. We are an eclectic group of Black women, and so are our reading selections. Find out more on our website www.mochagirlsread.com
For Authors and Publishers, please email Mocha Girl Classy at [classy@mochagirlsread.com](mailto:classy@mochagirlsread.com)
Featured event
Watch Party & BookChat for The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tam
In November, we will take a literary journey to China—The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan is our official November 2026 Monthly Book Selection.
We will be doing something a little different for this upcoming book discussion.. I will host a watch party in my home for the film, followed by a movie/book chat.
Feel free to join for the movie and refreshments -OR- you may come for just the book discussion portion.
- Movie Start: 1:00pm (you may arrive up to 20 min prior)
- Book Chat: 3:30pm
This meeting is for existing MGR members only, so please RSVP if you plan to attend. I will send out more details for confirmed attendees.
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About Book:
In 1949, four Chinese immigrant women living in San Francisco begin gathering regularly to play mahjong, share stories, enjoy food, and find comfort in one another’s company. United by memories of their lives in China, personal losses, and hopes for their futures, they call their gathering the Joy Luck Club.
Each woman carries a history shaped by hardship, sacrifice, tradition, and survival. As they build new lives in America, they hope to give their daughters opportunities they themselves never had. But their American-born daughters, raised between two cultures, often struggle to understand their mothers’ expectations, beliefs, and seemingly endless advice.
Through sixteen interconnected stories, Amy Tan takes readers between China and the United States, revealing the experiences that shaped these women and the secrets that continue to influence their families. As mothers reflect on the lives they left behind and daughters confront their own challenges, both generations begin to discover how deeply their identities are connected.
First published in 1989, The Joy Luck Club is a moving exploration of the bonds between mothers and daughters, the importance of family history, and the ways love, memory, and cultural traditions are passed from one generation to the next.
Upcoming events
17
- Network event
(ONLINE) Book Club Meeting: "The Color Line" by Igiaba Scego
·OnlineOnline15 attendees from 14 groupsGreetings Mocha Girls,
I hope this message finds everyone well.
Please join us on Google Meet where we will have our discussion virtually.Google Meet joining info:
Video call link: https://meet.google.com/tyi-vyfn-adh
Or dial: (US) +1 434-362-0922 PIN: 448 371 185#
More phone numbers: https://tel.meet/tyi-vyfn-adh?pin=2155830972647Warmly,
Mocha Girl LeannaOur October 2026 monthly book selection is "The Color Line" by Igiaba Scego.
Remember, if you don't finish the book, you are still welcome, so come anyway!
R.S.V.P. Etiquette:
Please make sure to RSVP to an event or book club meeting ONLY if you are going. Do not RSVP if you are thinking about going or would like to go.
Thanks in advance and I can't wait to see you all!REMEMBER:
Support a Black-owned Bookstore called RESIST BOOKSELLERS and get 15% off when you use the code MGR22.About the Book:
It was the middle of the nineteenth century when Lafanu Brown audaciously decided to become an artist. In the wake of the American Civil War, life was especially tough for Black women, but she didn’t let that stop her. The daughter of a Native American woman and an African-Haitian man, Lafanu had the rare opportunity to study, travel, and follow her dreams, thanks to her indomitable spirit, but not without facing intolerance and violence. Now, in 1887, living in Rome as one of the city’s most established painters, she is ready to tell her fiancé about her difficult life, which began in a poor family forty years earlier.In 2019, an Italian art curator of Somali origin is desperately trying to bring to Europe her younger cousin, who is only sixteen and has already tried to reach Italy on a long, treacherous journey. While organizing an art exhibition that will combine the paintings of Lafanu Brown with the artworks of young migrants, the curator becomes more and more obsessed with the life and secrets of the nineteenth-century painter.
Weaving together these two vibrant voices, Igiaba Scego has crafted a powerful exploration of what it means to be “other,” to be a woman, and particularly a Black woman, in a foreign country, yesterday and today.
About the Author:
Igiaba Scego is an Italian writer and journalist who was born in Rome in 1974 to Somali parents. She holds a PhD in education focused on postcolonial subjects and has conducted extensive academic work in Italy and internationally.Her writing explores Italian and Somali histories and identities, colonial memory, migration, racism, and belonging. Through her fiction, nonfiction, and journalism, Scego has examined the connections between Italy and Africa as well as the experiences of the African diaspora in Italy.
Her works include Beyond Babylon, Adua, and La mia casa è dove sono. The latter received Italy’s Mondello Prize, while La linea del colore, published in English as The Color Line, received the Premio Napoli.
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Past events
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