TAY PERSPECTIVE

Black, Bookish & Funny as Hell: Giving These Women Their Flowers

I’ve been watching Black women in the book community for a minute, and what keeps pulling me back isn’t just what they’re reading. It’s them. It’s the personality behind the book. The humor. The delivery. The way somebody can start talking about a fictional character and five minutes later I’m laughing because she’s explaining this woman’s bad decisions like this bitch is her actual cousin who has been getting on the family’s nerves for years.

That’s the magic I think gets overlooked when people talk about Black women in literary spaces. We always hear about representation, reading more Black authors, supporting Black literature, all of which matters, but I’m talking about the people who give the community its personality. The women who make you stop because of how they said something. The ones who can talk intelligently about a story without making the conversation feel like a damn English class. They can break down a character, clock the bullshit, catch the deeper meaning and still make you laugh while doing it.

And I relate to that.

I’m urban. I’m Black. I cuss. I joke. Sometimes I’m a little hood. I can be all of those things and still love books, write books and have a serious conversation about storytelling. So when I see Black women bringing that same kind of unapologetic energy into the book community, I understand exactly why people connect with them. They aren’t standing outside the culture trying to explain books back to us. They sound like people we actually know.

That’s why I wanted to give flowers to Cherree, Azriana, Eden, Bri and Shauntelle. Not because I needed five women to represent every Black woman who reads. Hell no. I’m talking about these five because there is something about each of their personalities and the way they participate in this community that I enjoy.

They make this shit feel alive.

CHERREE — @ireadblackbooks

Only Tay Books — CHERREE — @ireadblackbooks

Cherree is the one where I immediately understood the assignment. Her space, I Read Black Books, puts real attention on Black horror, fantasy and speculative fiction and on helping readers discover Black authors working inside those worlds. I Read Black Books⁠

What I enjoy about her isn’t simply that she reads those genres. It’s that there is something refreshing about watching a Black woman comfortably geek out over this shit without treating Blackness and fantasy like they’re two separate interests that somehow have to be explained to each other. She can just be a Black woman who loves this stuff. Period.

I love that because that’s how you normalize us being everywhere. You don’t need a conference about whether Black people belong in horror. Just have Cherree over there talking about the shit she likes and putting people onto books. Now somebody who came for her personality discovers an author. Somebody who came for an author discovers another genre. Somebody who thought fantasy wasn’t really their thing realizes they just hadn’t met the right person to put them on yet.

That’s a contribution. Cherree makes curiosity contagious. She makes me want to know what she found, what caught her attention and what Black writer has been cooking somewhere that I haven’t heard about yet. I appreciate anybody who can make their interests feel like an invitation instead of a lecture.

AZRIANA — @azrianareads

Azriana has a quality I really fuck with: she makes book conversation feel social instead of transactional. She’s not giving me the feeling of, “Here is today’s piece of book content.” It feels much closer to somebody pulling you into a conversation because she found something worth talking about.

There’s warmth in that. There’s also generosity in it. Her public book presence includes recommending, collaborating and bringing other readers into the conversation instead of acting like everybody else in the community is competition.

And that’s some Black-ass shit to me in the best possible way.

It’s the digital version of your homegirl saying, “Oh, if you like that, I know somebody you need to follow.” That’s how we move things through our communities. We put each other on. We send shit to the group chat. We tag somebody because “this made me think about you.” We tell somebody, “Nah, listen to her because she be knowing what she talking about.”

Azriana brings that spirit into books. I enjoy her because the personality doesn’t stop at herself. Her energy makes room for other people, and somebody who can make a room feel bigger without making themselves smaller is valuable to any community.

EDEN — @bookednpressed

Eden feels like the woman who can say one little thing about a book and suddenly everybody got something to say.

That’s a talent.

Some people are naturally good at turning their thoughts into our conversation, and that’s what I enjoy about her. The book doesn’t stay in her hands. It becomes a question, an opinion, a reaction, something everybody else can jump into.

And her name, Booked & Pressed, tells you there’s personality before we even get started. Because anybody who really reads understands being pressed over people who aren’t fucking real. An author can ruin your whole mood with somebody they made up while sitting at a laptop. Now you’re walking around the house irritated because somebody fictional cheated.

I love a person who understands the ridiculousness of being a reader and leans into it.

Eden contributes that conversational spark. She reminds me that books don’t have to be discussed with our pinkies in the air. We can laugh about this shit. We can clown a character. We can disagree. We can say, “Girl, you lost me with that one,” and keep talking. She makes the discussion itself part of the entertainment, and that’s exactly the kind of personality that keeps a community from becoming stale.

BRI — @briisbooked

What I appreciate about Bri is that she lets herself have an actual reaction.

That sounds simple, but it isn’t. A lot of people get online and start sounding like they work for the damn publisher. Everything becomes polished and careful. Bri’s public discussions and reviews show somebody willing to get into what a story actually did for her emotionally, including where characters or storytelling choices did and didn’t connect.

I like that because I want to know what you thought. Not what you think you’re supposed to say about the book.

There’s something culturally familiar about that kind of honesty too. Black women can tell you something wasn’t working with one look before a word comes out. So when that same observational energy gets applied to characters, relationships and storytelling, the conversation gets good. We’re not just discussing what somebody did. Now we’re discussing why they did it, what they should’ve done, what we would’ve done and how everybody involved should’ve known better.

That’s where Bri shines for me. She treats emotional response like part of the reading, not something that needs to be edited out of the review. That makes her commentary feel human. And human is always more interesting than perfect.

SHAUNTELLE — @shauntellereads

Shauntelle gives me somebody who genuinely enjoys being in this world.

Not around books. In it.

Her public reading and review history reflects somebody who spends real time with stories, but what makes that meaningful to me is that she hasn’t allowed reading to drain the personality out of her response. There is still excitement. There is still humor. There is still that personal connection where a character can remind her of herself or a story can meet her exactly where she is.

I love seasoned readers who can still be impressed.

Because after you’ve seen a million versions of the same relationship, the same plot twist and the same character who refuses to communicate like a normal human being, you could easily become cynical as hell. Yet the right story can still come along and get you.

Shauntelle brings that genuine reader’s spirit. There isn’t a need to make loving books look sophisticated. She just loves this shit, and you can feel that.

That type of authenticity is infectious.

THIS IS WHY I’M GIVING THEM THEIR FLOWERS

What I enjoy about these women isn’t that they’re teaching the world that Black people read. We know Black people fucking read.

What I enjoy is that they’re showing how much personality Black women bring to reading culture.

Cherree doesn’t sound like Azriana. Azriana doesn’t move like Eden. Eden isn’t Bri. Bri isn’t Shauntelle. That’s the beauty of it. They’re not five examples of one type of “Black book girl.” They’re five Black women bringing five different energies into the same cultural space.

And I think that variety matters, especially for Black kids watching.

A little Black girl shouldn’t have to see herself as one type of intelligent woman. She should be able to see the funny one, the loud one, the nerdy one, the hood one, the emotional one, the horror-loving one, the one who talks with her hands, the one who cusses, the one who will analyze the hell out of something and then immediately crack a joke.

A little Black boy needs to see that too. He needs to grow up seeing Black women as people with interests, humor, intellect, imagination and opinions worth listening to. He should see women who can command attention because they’re interesting, not because they’re performing for somebody else’s approval.

And I think there’s another piece we don’t talk about enough: sometimes the person is the bridge to the book.

A kid may not care about some adult telling them they need to read more. But they might care about a funny Black woman who has them cracking up for two minutes and then realize, “Wait, what book was she talking about?” That’s different. Nobody sold them education. Nobody gave them homework. Somebody entertained them enough to make them curious.

That’s power.

These women can talk with the cadence we recognize, use the humor we recognize, bring the cultural references we recognize and still have thoughtful conversations about literature without separating the two. That’s the shit I find inspirational.

Because that’s me too.

I don’t believe loving books requires putting on a literary costume. I don’t believe intelligence has a vocabulary requirement. I don’t believe somebody needs to stop sounding like where they came from before their opinion becomes valuable.

And when I watch women like Cherree, Azriana, Eden, Bri and Shauntelle, I see five different reminders of that.

They’re funny because they’re funny—not because somebody told them Black book content needed to be entertaining. They’re interesting because they have actual personalities. They contribute because people remember how somebody made them feel long after they forget the title of whatever post they were watching.

So this ain’t me handing out awards or deciding who represents the Black book community.

This is simply me saying:

I see y’all. I enjoy y’all. I appreciate what y’all bring to this space.

Keep talking your shit. Keep laughing. Keep putting people onto books. Keep being nerdy. Keep being a little hood. Keep being emotional. Keep being loud when you feel like being loud. Keep showing people that somebody can love literature without sanding every culturally Black thing off themselves first.

Because the books matter.

But the Black women giving this community its flavor matter too.

👀 TAY’S PERSPECTIVE

Only Tay Books