Blanche’s Book Club: ‘Concrete Rose’.

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I’m happy to report that things are slowly getting back to normal — the pandemic normal — here in Austin. The water came back in my apartment late Friday night. The entire city is still experiencing low water pressure (for those who do have water; it’s still not fully restored yet) and we are under a city-wide boil notice, but it’s better than collecting snow for a water supply.

Speaking of snow, all of it has MELTED! It started getting warmer outside Saturday, but on Sunday it got up to 72 degrees and there’s officially no more snow. I don’t think anyone has ever been more excited to see the snow disappear.

I was feeling very exhausted Friday night and Saturday and decided that I was just going to focus on recovering over the weekend. I had a busy week of work last week, on top of dealing with all of the snowstorm stuff and the pandemic. It was a lot. So, when I turned on Andy Cohen Live on Sirius XM this morning and John Mayer was the surprise co-host, I almost cried tears of happiness.

But, mostly what I did this weekend was read. I think a lot of locals were reading during the snowstorm because ALL of the books I had on hold at the library became available, including “Concrete Rose” by Angie Thomas — and I read it in one sitting.

“Concrete Rose” is the prequel to “The Hate U Give,” which is phenomenal. Not to be dramatic, but Angie Thomas can do no wrong. I have read all of her books as soon as I could, and they are all so good!

While “The Hate U Give” focuses on Starr, “Concrete Rose” is the story of Starr’s dad, Maverick Carter. You definitely don’t have to read “The Hate U Give” to understand or appreciate it. Actually, I’m a bit jealous of people that can read it in the proper order.

But, this story adds a lot of context to the book and the movie for “The Hate U Give,” which makes me hope for a “Concrete Rose” movie.

I’d definitely recommend this book for YA lovers, or anyone looking to diversify their reading list this year 🙂 I just started reading “A Promised Land” by Barack Obama, and I’m hoping I’ll finish it this week, so I can promptly report back.

Hope you all are having a good Monday!

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