Book Review MY NAME IS IRIS Brando Skyhorse

Thank you to the author Brando Skyhorse, Avid Reader Press and Simon and Schuster, and as always NetGalley, for an advance digital copy of MY NAME IS IRIS. Thank you also to TLC Book Tours for having me on this tour and arranging for my physical and digital copies. All opinions are mine.



This is the story of Iris Prince. She attempts to pull her family, who immigrated to the US or who are second generation USians, together through their own struggles while resisting racism in their city to varying degrees of intensity, everywhere they go. These repeated experiences of exclusion seem to collect in force and lead up to the ending, which is equal in intensity and opposite in tone and internal logic to this long journey. The ending embraces a surreal form and logic, as if to weird the form of magical realism counter to the very idea and existence of racism.
But before this surreal conclusion, the story unravels its internal logic, as though challenging the very fabric of the racist story world. First there is the wall in the protagonist's yard, which just shows up out of thin air, grows even though it has no builder. And though it doesn't belong to the protagonist, it still causes her harm. There are also the Bands, compulsory digital watches all US citizens must wear, which are violent and horrible, and again, show up out of the blue and impact the protagonist and other characters close to her in a brief and significant way.

The ending is magical realism at its symbolic finest. It perfectly ties off this braided story about family, racism, and belonging.

Rating: ⌚️⌚️⌚️⌚️ / 5 Bands
Recommend? Yes
Finished: July 17 2023 
Format: Advance Digital Copy, NetGalley; Hardback, Goodreads giveaways 
Read this if you like:
🦄 Magical realism
🟰 Social justice
👨‍👩‍👧‍👧 Family stories
🛰 Dystopian 
👧🏽 Strong female characters 

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