Tia Williams you deserve all the Literary Awards for this piece 💐💐💐💐

This story tugged at all emotions and wove together the fabric of being human, being Black, being Black while not fully viewed as human in America means 😮‍💨

This story is art truly. The details, imagery, soulful proses and feelings of magic each line breathes to life 😭 I hold firm to no spoilers so will say trust me you indeed need to read this one for yourself.

Also if you are second guessing audio books I encourage to try audiobook version of this story. The narrators Mela Lee and Preston Butler truly usher you into the story and with every character introduction, plot twist and emotion they hold your hand groundingy you in what is sure to be a story that will be shared for generations to come!

This is my first by Tia Williams, and I look forward to going back now to read Seven Days In June. Williams set vivid scenes, both in present day Harlem and the Harlem of the 1920s, and her banter was funny and fast-paced. Tonally, this felt like reading a fairy tale, with the mysterious opening from a seemingly omniscient narrator, and the fluidly shifting perspectives through scenes. Even the premise felt like a gender-bent fairy tale with a dash of dark magic and curse-breaking. For those who enjoy magical realism, Williams captures the right balance between whimsical and unsettling, bridging eras in a way that thankfully never felt cheesy.

That said, I struggled a bit with the pacing in the first half, as well as the decision to include several scenes with Ricki's family. We assume her family will be a central conflict, given the opening scene, and they even reappear at the height of the third act, but ultimately I don't understand the purpose of their involvement, as these scenes don't really advance the plot in a meaningful way, and don't add much to Ricki's character development (not much that we hadn't already gathered from her own inner monologue). It felt distracting. And while I don't mind the romance beats feeling expected, I was disappointed that the reveals in the magical plot were fairly obvious. I was hoping for a twistier story, given the set-up. 

The epilogue though. The epilogue was absolutely perfect. It was tender and sweeping in a beautifully panoramic way, bringing the story to such a satisfying conclusion.