Category Archives for Book Spotlights

Dreams Beyond the Shore by Tamika Gibson

by Shivanee Ramlochan, Paper Based Blogger

Dreams Beyond the Shore is the first place winner of the 2016 CODE Burt Award for Caribbean Literature, and it’s not hard to see why. It’s challenging to find #YALit that has its finger on the pulse of contemporary teen life in T&T, but Tamika Gibson’s debut novel serves up a true-to-reality coming of age tale in the 868.

Focusing on precocious yet dutiful Chelsea Marchand, and her nascent romance with star football schoolboy Kyron Grant, Dreams Beyond the Shore examines the grey space between first crushes and family obligations, in prose that’s clever, crisp and on the mark. You can hear the saucy picong fresh from the football field, as Kyron sidles up to greet Chelsea, just like you can taste the sweet-hand flavouring the meals made in Chelsea’s grandmother’s perpetually-bubbling pot. Gibson doesn’t train her sights on an easy emulation of American tropes in YA writing. Instead, she shoots – and scores – in her depiction of the red, white and black: whether she’s talking about food, fetes, or funny business in high office. 

Chelsea and Kyron are relatable protagonists, both as individuals and as a couple coming under fire from authority figures. Their fathers — an aspiring Prime Ministerial candidate, and a shadily prosperous businessman — aren’t spared their children’s scrutiny, with the trajectory of the novel making judicious statements on the price of blind obedience and generational discord. Gibson illustrates this in lucid, compelling streams of consciousnesses that pepper and peer into the storytelling: 

“But even as I practiced in front the mirror, got into character and finessed my cadence and pauses, I promised myself that this was the last time. I would do my father’s bidding this one last time. Then I would no longer be used as a pawn. As for tonight though, I’d give them the best show they’d ever seen, issuing the clarion call on behalf of this bloody impostor.”

Breaths of fresh air in publishing are elusive, but that’s just what Dreams Beyond the Shore is: vibrant, energetic fiction for young adults that’s realistic and romantic, funny and fresh, full of promise, playfulness and perception. I can’t wait to see what Tamika Gibson writes next. 

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The Yard by Aliyyah Eniath

by Shivanee Ramlochan, Paper Based Blogger

Family secrets and feverish passions clash in this lushly envisioned debut novel from Eniath, one that creates a microcosm of Trinidadian Indo-Muslim compound life that rings true in every feud, wedding and ritual. The star-crossed lovers of the tale, Maya and Behrooz, must contend with the expectations of their family; the obligations of their separate social standings, and the hungry desires of their hearts. Here’s a first novel that promises a longstanding career from its author -– the prose is by turns playful, poignant and persuasive, illuminating an enclave of T&T society not frequently found in contemporary fiction.

Love, though embittered and beleaguered by its own woes, retains the capacity to save even those swimmers who struggle the most — this is a truth that Eniath’s novel makes plain. Several of her characters’ impassioned speeches impart this, using language that soars and rejoices in love’s sovereignty:

“Behrooz and I… we don’t come pre-packaged. Apart, we’re damaged. But together, he and I, we know every tree, rock and blade in that orchard. We remember every blackbird that nested there. We’ve chased the frogs and the crickets, and grabbed lizards by their tails… You should see their faces when we disrupt the daily prayer or steal the children’s shoes as they congregate.”

Not only romantic love is afforded such attention in the novel: at its core, The Yard is about the bonds that we strengthen, or weaken, with time and the weight of our human decisions. Whether she’s investigating the constancy of devotion that a mother shows her daughters over decades, or revealing the innermost yearnings between besieged suitors, Eniath signals to the reader that it is our connections, for better or worse, that hew us.

The Yard was one of Paper Based’s Twelve Books of Christmas 2016 selections! We paired it with Sabrina Ramnanan’s Nothing Like Love, because both novels are brimful with a curious, consummate exploration of what goes on behind closed doors. Both novels also show that the best-kept secrets often simmer in the smallest spaces!