I am so sorry to say that this was a miss for me. I was really excited about it from what I had seen in it's launch and I love a short read to break things up but I was so disengaged and disappointed in the writing. It had a lot of potential but the characters fell so flat for me. It reminded me of another debut that I similarly felt was written without enough depth and connection to the characters, The Kindest Lie. I tried desperately to get into both of these books but found both of their lead characters so utterly disaffected I just couldn't get there, despite all of the interesting plot devices. I will not be publishing this review but appreciate the advanced e-galley.

This book had everything I could possible love! A gay college drama with a tense dinner party against a backdrop of possible crime, thoughtful introspection, complicated romantic entanglements, you name it. Every word has its utility. Just a wonderful book!

This novel didn't keep my attention. I feel bad about it, but I was put off in the beginning by the epigraph--I was thinking, is it really ok to compare Paul Celan with James Taylor and the Isley Brothers? Claudia Rankine, ok. But I just couldn't remember a poem of Celan's and frankly couldn't imagine him writing "Don't let me be lonely," or saying it. Maybe. But what is the point of quoting 4 people who apparently said the same thing, according to Solomon? What is the purpose? Do I need to read something else to find out? So, all right, my god, how small of me and can I get on to reviewing a novel already. Onward. The novel itself didn't engage me.The dialog felt stilted, and there was a lot of it. There was a lot of narrative summary that felt heavy-handed and not very interesting. I will stop now.

This intense character study focuses on two middle-aged women, Liselle and Selena. Liselle is hosting a dinner party for her husband, Winn, who has just lost an election to be a state legislator in Pennsylvania. Liselle, a Black woman, is recollecting comments made by her outspoken mother, Verity, about how Liselle lives the life of a rich, privileged woman, with a big house, white husband, and housemaid. Liselle is shocked to learn that her husband is under investigation by the FBI. While dealing with these realities, she remembers her life as a student at Bryn Mawr College, where she was in a relationship with Selena, another Black woman. While there, the two were open about their love and their fierce determination to live their lives on their own terms.

Selena, plagued by hyper-anxiety about all of the world's ills, has been in-and-out of mental hospitals in the years since she's seen Liselle. After a chance meeting in a grocery store, the two end up thinking about each other and the book chronicles their lives leading up to a defining moment and the issues that affect them, including racism, sexuality, and love/marriage.

I always enjoy a book that is laser-focused on a strong character, and while this one is that in regards to Liselle, I was interested but not gripped by her story. As her dinner party progresses, she starts questioning her life choices, especially her marriage to a man that she's not sure she truly knows and the lost love she regrets. Her backstory reveals a woman who lived an unabashed lesbian lifestyle, so to see her so settled in a life she's not fully comfortable with, is a shock. Selena's storyline is not as detailed, yet the despair that plagues her is relatable. When in college and in a relationship with Liselle, Selena wasn't as outspoken as Liselle, but seemed to be able to keep some of her anxiety at bay by feeling happy in love. I still felt like her story wasn't as detailed as it needed to be for the reader to become completely immersed in her rebirth.

A short 208 pages, this novel felt unfinished to me. There are allusions to the work of poet Audre Lord (the Afrekete in the title) and similar story beats to Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. I did enjoy this look at two complex, middle-aged women who reassessed their lives and their relationship with each other, but I was left wanting more background on Selena and more closure at the end.

With echos of Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, this short novel focuses mostly on a single day, with musings of the past. As Liselle prepares for a stuffy dinner party on the evening that her husband’s political ambitions have been dashed and an FBI corruption investigation are underway, she looks back at a significant affair with Selena, a woman from her past. Steeped in sharp observations on race, sexuality and politics, it’s a well written story, let down by its rather abrupt ending.

Quite reminiscent of Woolf with a modern, queerer twist! Really enjoyed the length of the chapters and the writing style!

Set in Philadelphia, the new book by Asali Solomon features three main characters (in addition to the city): Liselle - a black woman from Philadelphia who was a lesbian but is married to Winn and they have a son, Patrice. Winn’s white and comes from a very different background (old money in Connecticut). And then there’s Selena. She met Liselle in college and has had perhaps the most challenging life since then. The supporting cast of characters is interesting as well, and one of my favorites was Verity, Liselle’s mother.
As the book opens, Liselle is getting ready to host a dinner party for key donors and staff from her husband’s failed primary campaign to unseat a firmly entrenched incumbent state representative. But she also has a secret - the knowledge that her husband is under investigation by the FBI for something related to the campaign.
In trying to make sense of what her life is like now, and how the FBI investigation will impact her, Liselle finds herself going back and forth to her childhood and college years, when her brief but impactful relationship with Selena began in 1994.
The characters in the book were wonderful and strengthened as Solomon tackled the different forces that shaped their lives: family, class, racial identity and sexuality. One favorite example illustrating the differences between Winn and Liselle was around a piece of furniture: “The thought of the sideboard tugged at Liselle. Ever since she was a girl and heard someone on one of Verity’s soap operas say “sideboard,” she had wanted one. This piece of furniture had been in Winn’s family since the 1700’s, though the family had come close, several times, to selling it or burning it for firewood.”
While I didn’t love the ending, the rest of the book with its strong sense of place, well-developed characters, and interesting story made it a strong read for me. Thanks to Netgalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the opportunity to read The Days of Afrekete in exchange for an honest review.

I didn’t enjoy this and kept reading only because it was so short. I’m regret that I didn’t stop when I first had the impulse to do so. Liselle was so cold, self-absorbed and unpleasant I couldn’t think of any plausible reason why Winn would have married her. He will regret it. I don’t really want to think about this book enough to write a review. It definitely was not for me.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

The Days of Afrekete by Asali Solomon was a surprisingly addictive book. I picked this one up with the intent of reading a few pages before diving into my next Toni Morrison read... my plans changed quickly. I could not put it down!!! I was drawn into the story pretty quickly and the character exploration was intriguing.

The story follows Liselle as she is getting ready to host a dinner party for her husband’s failed political run. In the back of her mind however is a recent conversation with an FBI agent that implied her husband was soon to be indicted for something having to do with his campaign. As she begins to imagine a future without her husband and the comfortable life they have built together, her mind begins to wonder to her college romances. A brief 3 month relationship with a younger classmate, Selena, stands out and begins to consume her thoughts as Liselle goes through the motions of hosting their family and friends. Selena is on the other side of town also wondering what would have been if she hadn’t pushed Liselle away. She is living an unfulfilling existence as she deals with her mental health.

This book does a nice job of exploring LGBTQ relationships and stereotypes, mental health, and the trappings of achieving the American dream. There were also so many bookish references that I really enjoyed. Thank you @netgalley and @fsgbooks for the ARC.

The story starts off on an interesting premise, in fact almost an intriguing premise, but doesn't quite know how to keep that promise, or that pace, for that matter.

Following the footsteps of recent chartbusters with similar characterizations, The Days of Afrekete tries hard, but never really too much, to carry the baton of gender and racial awareness, interspersed with social justice, and sprinkled with sexual libertarianism. IMHO, the problem here is not a shortage of ideas, but really a shortage of strong storyline, to carry such heavy-hitter subjects to the finish line.

Liselle and Selena are close friends, one-time lovers, who don't really know what to do with their lives, once they realize they are growing out of their teen years, and later on as they are growing out of their college years. Nothing unusual there, and yet there are glimpses of a searing flame, that becomes visible only intermittently and fleetingly when reading this novel. There are clear instances where the story could have been taken in a direction to become a tinderbox, or to have a blowout, or to at least have a strong confrontation - alas, none of the characters, especially the two somewhat- and sometimes-pretentious leads who seem to not have been given enough leeway to spread their wings and soar.

The blurb reference to an FBI angle is never really allowed to flesh out. That, if perhaps let flow out, could have been a good parallel anchor to the social satire that this story had the potential to become. As it is, the political plot elements seem futile, there only to be mocked at, and don't play into the storyline. Clearly, the main storyline is of the two young (and then not-so-young) women, but there too I felt there were not enough anchors to pull them to each other. Sure there are instances and glimpses, but didn't come across as compelling.

Overall, a good premise, with reasonably interesting characters, but not enough of a story.

Thanks to NetGalley and FSG for providing a digital eARC for this true review.

Liselle and Selena were lovers at Bryn Mawr but their lives have been very different since, Now, Liselle is preparing for a dinner party when she learns that her politician husband Winn may have committed crimes and she finds herself reflecting on their live, as well as her relationship with Selena. Selena for her part has struggled with mental health. She's actually the more increasing character but she gets a short shrift, I think in the novel. I wanted to like this more than I did but I appreciated it for Solomon's writing and for the way she addressed a variety of topics. Thanks to netgalley for the ARC. For fans of literary fiction.

This was fantastic. Much like Solomon's earlier work 'Disgruntled' this captured what it feels like to be in a specific stage in life. While it's been too long since I read Mrs. Dalloway I could sense its echoes. Excellent.

Overall, I enjoyed this! It was a little hard to get into—I didn’t care too much for the “dinner party” scene, to be honest, which took up the first third of the book approximately. Ultimately I think I don’t really care to read about the lives of people in politics, even if it’s tackled from a critical standpoint. So I was happy when we went from the dinner party to Liselle’s story for a good portion of the book. Then the sudden shift to Selena’s story was a little awkward, in my opinion.

Also, this is another one of those books where despite reading about a certain character for pages and pages, I feel like I end up not really knowing anything about them as a person. It reads more like a bullet-point list of events that tells me very little about their character, their nature. The fact that the chapters were very short, each one corresponding to an important event in Liselle or Selina’s life or a specific moment during the night of the dinner party, contributed to that effect.

Solomon’s writing was really good—and I did truly enjoy “Liselle’s section”, which in fact happened to be most of the book. If we got to know her better, and if the book hadn’t focused as much on the party at the beginning (introducing all of those characters that we wouldn’t see much of in the end), I would have liked this a lot. This is all personal preference, and you should give it a try if the synopsis piques your interest.

A book I could not put down.A story of two women who have a brief intense love affair.Years have passed and they are adults living their lives.I was drawn in by the story the beautiful writing by this wonderful author.#netgalley#fsg

The host of a dinner party, Liselle, reminiscences about a very brief collegiate affair with Selena and pines for those blissful but emotionally packed days with the one she considers her true love. The majority of the book is centered on Liselle’s preparation and suffering through this rather dismal party to address her husband’s lost political campaign with a few of his key (and very eccentric) donors and supporters.

This is a character-driven novel and unfortunately, it did not work for me. I was not captivated by the plot/story or interested in the characters -- it was one in which I kept reading only to get through the book to write a fair review. Sadly, Liselle’s choices and “trials” just weren’t compelling enough for me to become vested in her story. Selena seemed a tad bit more interesting, but the story was a bit lopsided in that more time was spent with Liselle early in the novel. Selena’s story came much later and by then I was ready for the novel to end.

Perhaps others will enjoy or appreciate this offering more than I did. It’s not a “bad” story, it just wasn’t for me.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to review.

I’m judging the L.A. Times 2020 and 2021 fiction contest. It’d be generous to call what I’m doing upon my first cursory glance—reading. I also don’t take this task lightly. As a fellow writer and lover of words and books, I took this position—in hopes of being a good literary citizen. My heart aches for all the writers who have a debut at this time. What I can share now is the thing that held my attention and got this book from the perspective pile into the read further pile.

“Liselle’s forty-one years of research suggested that no matter how distant, abusive, judgemental, unloving and useless one’s mother was, one called her when things fell apart. One called one’s mother and told her things no one else knew, even if all she said in response was It is what it is/All I can do is pray for you/Just be glad you have a roof over your head/I told you so but you wouldn't listen/ Oh please, he was always like that. You make your choice/ You know my money is tied up in this house right now.”

This wasn’t a bad read, it just was not fulfilling for me.
This is a story about a woman, really 2 women, who have struggled with their identity all throughout their lives. They met and fell in love but then had a really bad breakup. It’s like they were meant fur each other but not at the time that they met.
But later in life they become each other’s anchors in a world that neither is truly happy with.

A compelling, if somewhat disjointed, story of two women who had a short bit intense love affair in college and where their lives took them afterward.

compulsively readable account of two women's love story: they met in college, but now in midlife, Liselle is a married society wife and Selena is struggling. As Liselle prepares for a change in fortune, she thinks back to what things might have been without her rich, white husband on her arm.

A really witty book, only disappointing if you're comparing it to Solomon's first novel DISGRUNTLED (one of the best debuts of the last decade). Covering in June column