About us
Black Girls Read Book Club (also known as Black Girls Read Chicago) is a monthly Chicago-based book club that celebrates Black women writers. This is a book club for Black women interested in reading and discussing books written by Black women from the United States and around the world. We read fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, and our book discussions take place at various locations in the city. By collectively elevating and celebrating the work of Black women writers, we affirm that our stories matter.
Featured event
#115: Leave Your Mess at Home by Tolani Akinola
Our May book selection is Leave Your Mess at Home by Tolani Akinola! This meeting is now VIRTUAL, since Tolani will join us for the second half for a Q&A!
About the book: The Longe siblings are really botching their parents’ American Dream.
Sola Longe, eldest daughter, estranged from the family, is secretly back home in Chicago for the first time in a decade. She’s a newly single and recently disgraced influencer trying to quietly put her life back together again. The other three Longe siblings aren’t doing much better.
Anjola is in love with her best friend, who just got engaged to someone else; Karen, a college junior and the baby of the family, is grappling with her sexuality and self-image; and Ola, the golden child with a baby of his own on the way, is questioning his marriage and how to raise a Black son in America.
Sola’s unexpected return sets them on a crash course towards each other, and when the four siblings find themselves together again at their Nigerian immigrant parents’ Thanksgiving table, a decade’s worth of secrets and a lifetime of resentments explode to the fore.
In the wreckage of their fateful reunion, each Longe is forced to reckon with the past, take stock of what really matters, and find a way back to each other. Big-hearted, hilarious, and wise, Leave Your Mess At Home is a poignant exploration of forgiveness, unconditional love, and becoming who you want to be, asking the question: what do we owe to our families, and what do we owe to ourselves?
Purchase Leave Your Mess at Home from our Bookshop or LibroFM affiliate links, or from your favorite independent book store!
Upcoming events
1
#115: Leave Your Mess at Home by Tolani Akinola
·OnlineOnlineOur May book selection is Leave Your Mess at Home by Tolani Akinola! This meeting is now VIRTUAL, since Tolani will join us for the second half for a Q&A!
About the book: The Longe siblings are really botching their parents’ American Dream.
Sola Longe, eldest daughter, estranged from the family, is secretly back home in Chicago for the first time in a decade. She’s a newly single and recently disgraced influencer trying to quietly put her life back together again. The other three Longe siblings aren’t doing much better.
Anjola is in love with her best friend, who just got engaged to someone else; Karen, a college junior and the baby of the family, is grappling with her sexuality and self-image; and Ola, the golden child with a baby of his own on the way, is questioning his marriage and how to raise a Black son in America.
Sola’s unexpected return sets them on a crash course towards each other, and when the four siblings find themselves together again at their Nigerian immigrant parents’ Thanksgiving table, a decade’s worth of secrets and a lifetime of resentments explode to the fore.
In the wreckage of their fateful reunion, each Longe is forced to reckon with the past, take stock of what really matters, and find a way back to each other. Big-hearted, hilarious, and wise, Leave Your Mess At Home is a poignant exploration of forgiveness, unconditional love, and becoming who you want to be, asking the question: what do we owe to our families, and what do we owe to ourselves?
Purchase Leave Your Mess at Home from our Bookshop or LibroFM affiliate links, or from your favorite independent book store!
28 attendees
Past events
198
