The following post includes affiliate links. More details here.  As you’re doing your Amazon shopping, we’d be ever so grateful if you’d use our affiliate link to do so as it helps pay the bills around here!

Unlike Ashley who longs for Cassian’s style of training, I much prefer yoga.  Actually, maybe I do want some of his training, because the breath work is my favorite part of yoga.  Breathing in, noticing, and breathing out, all without judgement.  Some days (like this week), focusing on my breath is what’s keeping me from overthinking even more than I’m already overthinking.  Because of this, and because we adore Anne Bogel, I’m excited to read her newest book,  Don’t Overthink It: Make Easier Decisions, Stop Second-Guessing, and Bring More Joy To Your Life with all you lovely readers who sign up here to join us Friday, March 26th at 7:30 p.m. CST.  We’ll chat about life, the book, and hopefully to how we’re overthinking less and moving forward with more joy!

You know what else doesn’t need overthinking?  High school, even by those still in it.  You can’t tell them that, because they won’t listen because they can’t get it, not yet.  When I started reading Not So Pure and Simple by Lamar Giles, I knew nothing about it (except darling Anne was my source, via an episode with the author himself), and then I quickly realized the protagonist was in high school and I was concerned about how it’d land with me, as someone twice the age of a high schooler.  Fast forward to 3% into this quick read, and I spied what drew me in – darling Del, our protagonist is going to take a purity pledge to pursue a girl, and he agreed to the pledge without realizing what he was doing.  In case you missed it, I LOVE a good train wreck in a book.  It draws me in like no other.  Combine that with Lamar Giles amazing writing and I consumed those 398 pages in less than 24 hours, while loving every moment!  

Within the pages of Not So Pure and Simple is a complicated tale of how a group of friends comes from vastly different places in their small town to become a ragtag bunch who are invested in each other.  We don’t dig in with all the characters, as the story is entirely from Del’s perspective, but we get to know those he’s closest with and we get reminded how rough high school can be, especially in an area where everyone knows everyone, and their business.  Here’s the thing readers, even as an adult, sometimes we need reminders, ones so strong you can’t avoid them, that we don’t know the rest of the story.  We need reminders that everyone wears masks sometimes and you can’t know what lies on or in the heart of another person without having a soul-baring conversation with them. Judgement lands and hurts, assumptions cause problems, and even using the typical quip can leave pain in its wake, but friendship, true friendship and kindness is an amazing form of love, a form of love that can forgive past hurts.  

As Ashley is rolling her eyes, I need to say there are story lines I wanted more from in Not So Pure and Simple, but it’s complete, and has a thoughtful ending that fits.  As an adult, I wanted more about the parents’ lives, and that of the teacher who relates to the kids and the woman who leads the purity class. I want to know more about them and how and why they ended up where they are. Glimpses of that come through as they guide these young people, but there’s much more to the story, which is perhaps the message overall, there’s always more to the story, below the surface, and you never know what it is or what scars it has left behind. 

As much as Not So Pure and Simple is about love (romantic, friends, and family), it does not promote purity culture and it does highlight the struggles of teenage parents. Just like the dedicated teacher, it’s seeking a middle ground through conversation, kindness, and general care and consideration for and of other people as Del guides us through his own high school struggles, which, though they sit on his shoulders like the weight of the world, are really a fun time, filled with a variety of learning.  This title is a solid four star read.  I considered five because of how much I adore it, as well as how appealing it is to adult and YA readers alike, but I am not likely to reread it, which factors into my categorization of a five star read.  I am likely to recommend it and to dig into Giles’s backlist!

What fun things have you learned from a recent fiction read?

~Nikki 

I, too, first heard of Lamar Giles on that same episode of Anne Bogel’s What Should I Read Next Podcast, back in 2020 when I was listening to the podcast on a more consistent basis. My first MO, and my current, is that Nikki listens to Anne and lets me know what books I need to know about. Me, I continually use the majority of my podcast time for real estate education. But, I digress. You know what was not necessarily difficult but a challenge nonetheless, dear readers? Finding a Black author on our TBR that was NOT female. So, yes we here at Heart.Wants.Books. strive to include diverse authors, including the intersectionality of diversity so we can bring you diversity within a theme. Lamar Giles helped us crush that goal today. I want to say something meaningful and concise about this author of 8 published works that span multiple genres (contemporary YA, thriller, middle grade) but this direct quotation from his website is the most powerful thing I think could be said, and sums up Giles’ MO:

“I write books primarily to entertain readers. I like to imagine them gasping in a thrilling moment, or cracking up at the funny parts. My books are the kind that anybody can enjoy. But, while anybody can enjoy them, they’re not about generic avatars; my books are about Black kids. They may be in strange situations, or have talents you don’t expect, but they are Black. They’re the characters I was advised not to write. The characters I was told no one would read. The characters I always wanted to read. So the most interesting thing about me might be how stubborn I am because while I’m here to entertain I’m also here to prove wrong the people who said it couldn’t–or worse, shouldn’t–be done.”

Giles is a founding member of We Need Diverse Books and lives in Virginia with his wife. His 2014 debut title, Fake ID, was nominated for three awards including the Edgar Award for Best Young Adult which is given by the Mystery Writers of America. Not So Pure and Simple was chosen as A Project LIT YA Selection for the ‘20-’21 school year and is on The Brown Bookshelf Generations Book Club list. In scrolling through both of these organizations’ projects, which bring Black voices and stories to the forefront, I want to spend more time deep-diving the rabbit holes of titles to add to my TBR. Maybe you’ll get to those rabbit holes before I do and I’ll do what I do with Nikki and let you, dear readers, decide what goes on my TBR – besides the rest of Giles’ backlist!  [Nikki: if you have titles you think we’d like, please let us know in the comments!]

The major theme of Not So Pure and Simple, that Nikki doesn’t mention, but all the marketing copy does is toxic masculinity. What is really amazing is the way Giles, a male author, takes this theme and, from my female perspective, treats it properly from the points of view of both the male AND female characters in the story. Even though the entire book is from the perspective of Delbert Rainey, Jr., he has some deep and real conversations with the women in his life, his mother, his college-aged sister, and his friend Shiane. Shiane especially did not spare Del’s feelings when discussing what it means to be a ‘nice guy’ from the girl’s perspective. There are so many nuances to the toxic masculinity traits that Del and his male friends were taught by their elders and society that I can’t list even one without writing a small essay on it, for reasons. But, Giles allows Del and his male peers to be slowly and subtly shown and educated that the way they treat girls and women can be dangerous, not for the guy but for the girl, and the lessons finally hit home for Del in the wrap up of the book. Giles, as an author and more likely as a man, has done the hard work in himself to change the way he was taught to treat women and girls and is now doing his part to write the characters and stories he needed as a young reader, a young man even, to educate the next generation.

What recent read has you wishing the book was available when you were the age of the protagonist so that you could have learned the lesson sooner?

~Ashley

PLEASE SUPPORT US WHEN YOU SHOP BY FIRST CLICKING ON THE IMAGES BELOW: