Book shade: a review

All my friends said it was really cool, so I finally joined Goodreads. Apparently, I've only read four books since I've joined, which is kind of disappointing - though not as disappointing as setting a book target of 40 for the end of the year, then realising a few weeks later that I REALLY had to lower my expectations...

While writing my first review, it hit me how hard it was going to be to review this book without major spoilers. Luckily, I had figured out how to do the codes to hide spoilers and then went to town on them, because well! I had some intense feelings about this book.

Something I didn't mention in my review but probably should have: A Darker Shade of Magic ticks all the checkpoints for diversity, so if you're looking for a fantasy book that's not just straight white men, you might like this.

My natural hair journey

This is me before I discovered the love for natural hair that's becoming a movement among black women. I had been relaxing my hair for about eight years and it was damaged as a result. It was dry, I had split ends up to here and it was basically falling out with each stroke of the brush. Seeing people around me embrace their natural curls encouraged me to take that step too. My friend Sarah A played a big role in convincing me to get my 'fro back, assuring me we'd do it together. So at the age of eighteen, I stopped relaxing my hair in preparation of my big chop. A couple of days before my nineteenth birthday, I went to a hairdresser and asked for my hair to be cut off.

The hairdresser chopped my straight bits off and that was when I realised I actually wasn't ready. But it was too late: there was no going back. I had to make the best of it, getting to know the texture of my hair I used to have as a child.