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Jacqueline Jay | Book reviews and 📸(@jacquejreads)'s profile avatar HD Profile

Jacqueline Jay | Book reviews and 📸

@jacquejreads

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Lover of all things beautiful. Join me on this journey of taking pictures and reading in nature #booklover
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I have been wanting to reintroduce myself since I hit one year on #bookstagram and so here goes! I still adore reading and sharing the gift of storytelling with others through pictures 📸, cafe visits 🍵 and cozy book chats 🫶🏽💕. You can catch me reading anything from historical fiction, non-fiction, contemporary romance to even a mystery here or there. I am a yoga teacher 🧘🏽‍♀️, CPA 📈, and one heck of a mentor👩🏽‍💼! Swipe for 8 books to get to know me better… 💬 What do you most look forward to when visiting a book influencer page? 🏷️ #gettoknowmechallenge #bookstogettoknowme #bibliophile #diversereads #bookstagrammer #memoirs #blackgirlsread #historicalfiction #contemporary #nonfiction #novels #yoga #bookstack @jacquejreads taken in New York, New York by @jacquejreads
48
a year ago
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I always have a book with me. Can you guess what’s on my kindle? And where are my booksta golfers 🏌🏽‍♀️at? Let me know in the comments Kindle: @amazonkindle Kindle cover: @dearreaderco Golf apparel: @themasters Golf course: @thesagamoreresort 🏷️ #blackbookstagram #Kindle #diversereads #golf #jacquejreads taken in The Sagamore Resort by @jacquejreads
18
8 hours ago
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WHAT NO ONE TOLD US x Dr. Michelle Cooke | the black woman’s guide to menopause For this Thoughtful Thursday, I am showcasing one of THEE most important guides to read and have on deck before, during, and after the transition into menopause. Synopsis: What if everything you were told about menopause was incomplete? Black women enter menopause earlier, experience symptoms longer, and receive less treatment than any other group. Yet somehow, this is the conversation nobody is having…. Until now… Dr. Michelle Cooke — physician, menopause specialist, and Black woman who discovered her own blind spots as both a doctor and a patient — delivers the clear, honest, long-overdue guide Black women deserve. From hot flashes to heart health, hormones to self-advocacy, every chapter is a conversation your doctor should have started years ago. — Your symptoms are real. Your experience is valid. And you were never meant to suffer through this in silence. 🫀“She walked away with something she hadn’t had before: an explanation… And sometimes that is where healing begins.” 👸🏾“Menopause is not the season to carry more. It is the season to begin putting some things down” 🌟“The challenge is that menopause does not happen one organ at a time. It affects the entire body. It can show up in your joints, your heart, your brain, your bones, your bladder, your sleep, your mood, and your relationships. When those symptoms are viewed in isolation, opportunities to recognize the bigger picture can be missed.” 💭 Special shoutout to @browngirlcollective for putting this 5⭐️ guide to menopause on our radar. Please keep sharing our stories and showcasing new authors. @drmichellecooke, through her poignant text, lets us know that “It’s time to look at the whole woman.” Hope you can pick this one up and let me know all that you learn. What was the last non-fiction book you read? 🏷️ #whatnoonetoldus #DrMichelleCooke #menopause #womenswellness #medstorystudios taken in Pendry Baltimore by @jacquejreads
9
3 days ago
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BOOKMAIL MONDAY 📬 Check out a few new and one upcoming book from @summitbooks. We love book mail so I hope you can dive into these: 🧡 jaded x Anne Meredith | OUT 1/12/27 ❤️ I CHOOSE MY BEGINNING: a story of courage and activism x Nadia Murad 💙 Children of Wolves x Lawrence Osborne 💭Which of these are on your radar? What are you reading this week? Let me know in the comments by @jacquejreads
8
6 days ago
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Ghalen x Walter Mosley | a romance in black an unexpected and beautiful portrayal of love, devotion, and the ways of humanity. I fully concur with @whatisqreading that this was one of the most unique works I have read this year. There was no way not to be drawn into the magic of Ghalen and all the transpired in his life. Synopsis: Ghalen, a brilliant young Black man, is the son of two seemingly mismatched parents. His mother, a gifted scientist, whose own mother expected her to exceed all the achievements in her family, and his father, a gentle cook at a small vegan restaurant, whose idiosyncratic nature shows the young woman a radically different love and understanding of life, despite his inexperience and lack of education. His parents’ grand love story starts it all off, setting us up to follow Ghalen and his family so deeply, that each new twist and turn feels personal. The journey through Ghalen’s coming-of-age tale, as he ventures out into the world, is marked with peaks and valleys and such a drive that you can’t help but strap in for it all, while not wanting it to end. 🖤“Most of the time most people see what they want to see. They see things that remind them of other things, and they mix it all up together until the world they think is there wouldn’t make sense to anybody else. But you see what’s in front’a you and accept it, you don’t waste time wishing for something else.” ❤️‍🩹“You can’t lose love by dyin’,… Once it happens it’s always there. She can’t say it and we can’t hear, but we feel it, we know it.” 🖤“But I think it is that we live in a world where people do not believe in themselves and so they can’t believe in each other. It’s easier to distrust than to believe. That’s America, maybe the whole world, maybe it’s all the people that ever lived.” ❤️‍🩹“There was no understanding when it came to love, only happiness and sometimes pain” 💭This was another carefully curated read with the ladies of @the_lit_circle_bookclub. How do you define romance? Is it just romantic or does it span and cover much more? Let me know in the comments. by @jacquejreads
26
8 days ago
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#ARC BAD BOY FOR LIFE x Cheyenne Roundtree | The Rise and Fall of Sean Combs | OUT 9/29 ‘Can’t stop won’t stop’ is literally showcased throughout this shocking portrait of Hip Hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs. The story behind an empire….A review of character, ambition, and the rise to power…. Investigative journalism at its best. Synopsis: If not for Sean “Diddy” Combs’ ability to harness the voice of hip-hop and package it via artists like Mary J. Blige and the Notorious B.I.G., the landscape of American—and world—music would look and sound entirely different. For decades, mainstream performers clamored to be close to Combs; his charisma, vision, and brand of cool transformed hip-hop culture into a multibillion-dollar powerhouse. While his acumen built an empire that reflected the biggest names in not only music but also fashion, business, and the bright lights of Hollywood, another side of Combs was hidden from public view. In Bad Boy for Life, journalist Cheyenne Roundtree vividly brings to life Combs’ early days and his rise to power. She also excavates the disturbing history of his alleged abuse. Through cultural insights, meticulous reporting, and in-depth interviews with more than one hundred sources, she examines Combs’ misuse of power that led to the criminal trial in 2025 that caused his kingdom to unravel. 💰“There were a thousand plates spinning at once, yet he didn’t let that stop him from enjoying his favorite pastime: being Puff Daddy” ❤️‍🩹“A self- contained culture of silence” 💰“The desire to control was present in almost all his romanic relationships… His control ran deeper than just money.” ❤️‍🩹”American society has yet to contront its fawning relationship to celebrity and power, two forces that so often move hand in hand. These two forces are a dangerous combination…” 💭 You will stay up all night to read this study of the character of man. @cheyenneroundtree did an amazing job detailing this account of the many stages of Combs’ life and those in his pathway to success and ultimately his downfall. Thank you to @henryholtbooks for this #ARC that hits the shelves this Tuesday 9/29. What was the last story that shocked you to your core? taken in RH Rooftop Restaurant by @jacquejreads
13
10 days ago
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SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER x Vincent Yu Fun fact: I’m still thinking about this book. Propulsive with a set of Unforgettable characters in the midst of everyday struggles…this book begs the important question… do our true selves come out in the wake of disaster. How do we come back once we tip the threshold? Synopsis: On an otherwise unremarkable morning, the residents of a small town in Massachusetts all receive the same BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. Confronted with the options of fight or flight, planning or panicking, the people of Beckitt are stripped to their basest instincts and revealed as their truest selves. Russ squeezes his family into the bathtub, leaving his own survival in question; Nina sends an unforgivable text to her daughter; Milly confesses her unrequited love; and David hits the gas, speeding away from his wife and child. Then the second message comes FALSE ALARM. PLEASE DISREGARD. ALL CLEAR. First comes relief, then comes the reckoning, as each person is forced to face the unforeseen aftermath of decisions they thought might be their last. 🏡“And who knew if any of it was true? It was reality. Reality had always been enough…As if a life could be reduced to its essence in chaotic moments of high consequence.” ❤️‍🩹“If only she’d known then that life was recapitulation. That, as you grew older, you revisited the same memories, the same unpredictable loci to which your soul oriented itself. All you came to know about living was born from those handfuls of moments.” 🏡“How strange, how inconceivable, certain situations might seem, until you were alive in them. Each phase of life was so alienated from the others.” ❤️‍🩹“What a shame, he thought, that happiness so often depended on a continuum.” 🏡“What a shame that you could bring previous perspectives to bear upon the present, but never the opposite. If only you could do the opposite.” 💬I could see the book winning all the awards. @vinyu12 broke my heart with each story as he expertly and vividly showcased how we seek immediate shelter in the tender moments of each other. What was the last book a friend recommended? by @jacquejreads
22
11 days ago
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#ARC FRIENDS AND FAMILY x Natalie Baszile | OUT 10/6 a MUST read….a prolific and introspective look at the minds of two women, one black, one white and the community surrounding them… The start of a VERY important conversation… a bold look at race, the limits of privilege, and what friendship means in the wake of disaster and in the world as it stands now…THEE BEST buddy read I’ve had this year. Synopsis: Babs and Nora have spent a decade’s worth of morning walks sharing family secrets, local drama, and advice—everything from tips on lingerie choices to Babs’s suggestions to Nora, a white woman, on how to raise Nathan, her adopted Black son. But their worlds are turned upside down when the cops are called on their kids while they’re home alone, leading to a traumatic police encounter for Nathan. In the aftermath, Babs and Nora find themselves divided as never before, and Nathan looks for refuge with Babs and her family, where, unlike in his own home, race, identity, and culture are always up for discussion. Babs can see that Nathan is a young Black man without community trying to find himself. Torn between respecting Nora’s boundaries and embodying the values so important to her own family, Babs will make a choice that will shape their lives forever. 💛“Explaining meant telling [her] about the “invisible suitcase”—the one filled with all our hopes and dreams, our fears and memories; the one peculiar to being Black in America.” 🧡“24 hours ago, [he] was a teenager, aware of the world but not afraid of it. From now on, life would be filtered through a lens of fear, every decision informed by the potential for peril.” ❤️“Love is important, but… this world can be an ugly, unloving place…the world doesn’t care that you are trying to raise him with love.” 💭This is a book that will make you uncomfortable. It will stretch your brain to think about little moments and big impacts. @nataliebaszile has an amazing gift and I can’t wait for you to all experience this on 10/6. Thank you to @vikingbooks and @netgalley for the #ARC. What fall releases are you most excited about? by @jacquejreads
45
14 days ago
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UNDER STORY x Chloe Benjamin | a @gmabookclub pick an unforgettable story of love, invention, and second chances .. a scientific journey and thought provoking look at time and its essence.. a book you won’t want to put down. Synopsis: At the end of the world, biologist Laurel Salter is hiding from everything she’s ever known. For ten hours a day, six days per week, she works as a dishwasher at McMurdo Station, an isolated research base in Antarctica. She tells no one that before she arrived, she was a renowned young scientist with a promising career, a husband, and a family. But even in this remote outpost, Laurel can’t outrun her past. When a strange light appears across the ice—and draws a group of physicists to McMurdo—her former husband, Eli, won’t be far behind. Laurel is captivated by the Arc: its surreal glow; the way it seems almost alive. And though Eli is reluctant to test her wildest theory, Laurel is convinced that the Arc leads down a rabbit hole, and into a world, they can barely imagine. Can she persuade him to risk everything to fix the burden that hangs between them—to turn back the clock and live their story a second time? 🍄‍🟫“It’s the laughter of near misses and second chances, of windfall after calamity, a white-knuckled cliff’s-edge laughter—the heart starting, after the heart stopped.” 🇦🇶”It is classic human error…to disregard what we cannot see. But the continuation of life on this planet, just like its beginning, depends on relationships. No organism can function—or be understood—alone. Everywhere, life tangles.” 
🐋 “…how absurd it is, the bargain of life: that we should be gifted love while guaranteed loss, love’s tax.” 🩵“Something unexpected happens when you go through the worst thing..the thing you fear most. Against all odds, life opens up.” 💬 There is no way I am giving away this story’s premise. Go ahead and check out @chloekbenjamin’s latest why don’t you! What was the last book you read that expanded your mind to infinite possibilities? by @jacquejreads
10
16 days ago
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BEGINNING MIDDLE END x Valeria Luiselli a literary journey through Sicily… a mother daughter imaginative story. a tale that read like a collection of poetic essays. Synopsis: This story begins when a mother and her daughter take off on a trip. It is a summer of rapidly changing winds, volcanic rumbles, and sudden tempests. They’ve landed in Sicily, near the ancient ruins where the mother’s grandmother worked long ago on an archaeological dig. The narrator’s marriage has collapsed, her mother is losing her memory, and her daughter is on the threshold of adolescence, starting to ask difficult questions and form complex memories. How do you begin again? the narrator wonders, pondering her family line. How do you begin again if you got the beginning wrong? While the mother tries to figure out how to reconstruct their lives as a duo—cooking meals side by side, reading out loud to each other, playing chess, bickering and making up—her daughter takes the reins of the story, and their journey soon becomes a quest for origins, not just to the familial past across continents, languages, and generations, but also farther back, to a mythical and even geological past. 🌙“What is it, I wonder, that can sour and spoil a person’s memories? Turn an epic life into a tragic one? What is it that can dim the light on things so as to turn them into a shadow version of themselves?” 🌕“Do we have to destroy things in order to see them, sever things in order to know them? And what kind of knowing is that?” 🌙“The middle, then, is a difficult vantage point, where life and death meet, where arriving and leaving come together, where the beginning and the end become visibly and irremediably linked.” 🌕“But maybe there are no beginnings, and no endings, either. Maybe all that there is, is the middle, bending, sinuous, constantly flowing back into itself.” 💬 Let me know if you have read this book! This was a buddy read with @maria.needs.to.read and as always we had a lot of commentary. What was your last buddy read? by @jacquejreads
8
19 days ago
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WHERE I’M FROM x Ebony Walden | 🇬🇹🇨🇭🇰🇪🇵🇪🇿🇦🇮🇳 The goal: to capture the beauty and brokenness of the world—to highlight the voices of the overlooked and unseen The result: MUCH more… You’ll have to read to see how a world tour transformed one woman and those around her. Synopsis: In 2010, twenty-nine-year-old poet Ebony Walden quits her job to go to on an eight-month solo journey across fifteen countries and five continents. Propelled by a sense of purpose and adventure, she moves from teaching English and volunteering in places like Guatemala and India to conducting poetry workshops in Kenya, walking the ruins of Machu Picchu, and paragliding over the Swiss Alps. Along the way, Ebony writes “Where I’m From” poems with the people she meets—intimate reflections that capture family, identity and culture, weaving their voices into her own unfolding journey. But each destination also challenges her in unexpected ways, forcing her to reckon with the hardships of growing up in New York in the ’80s and ’90s. Through breathtaking landscapes, unexpected setbacks, and profound encounters with strangers, Ebony begins to understand that travel is not just about seeing the world—it is about allowing the world to change you. 🌍“I was amazed at what continued to happen to me: Id just ask, and people would willingly give me their life stories. It was as if they had been waiting to be listened to, for their voices and perspectives to be honored and cherished.“ 🇺🇸“When I was alone, the sky kept me company; the moon, sun, and stars were familiar. They helped me remember that one could be in the midst of so much beauty and also be struggling to breathe.” 🌍“I was learning and being changed much more than I was teaching and changing lives.” 💭Thank you to @booksparks + EbonyWalden80 for the #gifted ARC and having me on the #WhereImFromReviewTour. Is this book on your radar? What was the last place you traveled? Would you go on a world tour and where? Let me know in the comments by @jacquejreads
4
19 days ago
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OUR SISTER’S KEEPER x Jasmine Holmes 🫶🏽“It’s my pleasure to bear your burdens…” a MUST read… Historical fiction blending perfectly with black horror… a look at the Gifted, talented, and gutted women of a town built and sustained by the use of black women’s power. Synopsis: No town is perfect, but East Cobb comes close. It’s a wealthy all-Black Free Town—untouched by white oppression—where ambitious Thea Elliot and her husband plan to make good on their big dreams. Little do they know that the idyllic town teems with ghoulish, walking nightmares . . . that only the women can see. Marah knows the groanings well. She is one of the carriers—women with the ability to pull traumatic memories from men. Populated by men entirely freed of their pain, East Cobb has flourished, even as the remnants of their memories haunt the town’s women. When an unexpected death drives Marah to discover more about her own power, Thea’s and Marah’s worlds collide. The sisters must confront the rotten core at the heart of East Cobb’s prosperity and choose what—and who—will survive the reckoning. 💜“I think there’s some empathy to it… as much as she wants us to be empty vessels, there’s something in us knowing pain.” ❤️‍🩹“What if I told you I see ghosts here…If I told you I hear them screaming. That the women who carry your burdens die painful deaths. That they come back and haunt us all.” 💜”I know how folks have a funny little trick of saying that we Black women are strong and expecting our strength to rise to every occasion where convenience demands it.” 💭I’m in my black girl horror era thanks to the talents of @jasminelholmes. This was an amazing read with the ladies of @the_lit_circle_bookclub and I cannot even express how well this was written, how mind shifting this text was and the emotions it evoked. Hands down this will be one of my favorite horror books of the year. What was your last 5⭐️ read? taken in Pendry Natirar by @jacquejreads
20
20 days ago
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