My fav stories from this year‘s collection are “The Stamp Collector” “Lucky Dragon” “Queen Elizabeth” and “An Amount of Discretion”

“He had enslaved his own family, given them weakness when they needed strength, made them powerless before an enemy that stood beyond him. Now when they thought of “the enemy” their own father would straddle their vision”

This book was so hard to read and the ending didn‘t feel “finished”. It was sad but I can appreciate the character development in Ruth‘s grandfather even if his actions alone started the downwards spiral of his entire family.

“Scars are proof of survival, they shouldn‘t be hidden - it‘s a story someone may need to see in order to believe that beyond their pain and suffering, there is healing”

“Never give up if your heart and your head tell you are right. People can disappoint you, but your heart and your head will never. Make them your best friends”

”Bathing correctly was one lesson, but I also learned how tenderness and violence, care and harm, are strange bedfellows”

“And because love, real love, is not so easily shed”

“I never did wabrvto be no sharecropper, never did want to work for nobody else, never did want to have white folks where they could poke themselves right into my life and me have nothing to do with it”