All This Time is a spicy new adult, romance novel written by sizzling romance author J. Clark. The story is about two college kids, who’ve known each other since middle school, Michelle and Osirion. Their relationship has grown from a friendship, to mutual crushes, and finally to passionate lovers. The conflict here is that there are vast cultural differences between the two, and only one family is open to the cultural differences. Michelle is Black and comes from a strict Christian home. Her father is a pastor, running for public office. Osirion is Japanese and practices Shintoism, but his parents are pretty laid back.

The story takes place in present day Atlanta, predominantly on a college campus. The author drops reminders throughout, how hot and humid Atlanta can be. This contributes to the mood and tone of the story—heat is ever present, physically and emotionally.
 
The tale opens with Michelle and Osirion on the phone discussing a gift that he sent to her. From the gate, it is clear to readers that the lines of their relationship are blurred. They openly discuss being turned on and self-pleasuring, and directly on the heels of that one or both of them will say “we’re just friends.” Friendships between men and women exist where there is a hint of attraction and sometimes blatant attraction. I wonder, though, how often men and women are that open with each other, let alone with the same sex bestie, when it comes to deep sexual desires. As the story plays out, the big question is “will they ever be together?” I kept thinking, “why not?” Michelle seems to be holding on to what her father might think. On one hand she seems fearful, yet and still she has no problem talking dirty to her male “best friend.” She’s a walking contradiction, which made it somewhat hard for me to like her. Osirion was ready to go the entire time, even when he had a different girlfriend. There was never any question about where Osirion’s head was at in the game of love, and I think for that matter I enjoyed his character more.
 
There were a lot of unexpected interactions in this story. As aforementioned, Michelle and Osirion were heavy on the “best friends” narrative as a front, while consistently taking flirting to the next level. Aside from that, some of the conversations that adults and elders had with the young friends were odd an unexpected as well. For example, a particular character has a reputation for not only being well-endowed, but also having no skill or finesse with it, and everyone in the story talks about it, including church elders. An male relative of a victim of this character’s lack of delicacy, warns Michelle of possibly physically destroyed if she was to be intimate with this character. Though I sit and read on my couch, my breath was taken away with that scene. I couldn’t imagine one of my uncles discussing my sex life with a peer, but there are all different types of people in this world and nothing is impossible.
 
While I wasn’t crazy about Michelle’s character, I will say that the characters were very well-developed. Unlikeable, doesn’t mean unlayered, and just because I didn’t like Michelle doesn’t mean no one does (or will). Each character had a distinct personality, which is sometimes hard for authors to pull off because truth be told, there is always a piece of us in all of our characters. The only flaw within each character’s actions, was how everyone explicitly discussed sex, with everyone. No one had boundaries, and I found that a little unrealistic.

J. Clark’s approach to the spicy scenes deserves a round of applause. The scenes had intriguing yet imaginable flows. The language used to create the images was remarkable and spot on. Creating relatable mind-blowing sex scenes is not easy at all. Yet J. Clark made it look like a walk in the park.
 
J. Clark had a lot to share with readers in this story, and I hope I am at least close with the hidden messages I think I deciphered. The most important is that love is boundless. Michelle and Osirion were from vastly different cultures, and still they found love and passion with each other. I also think that J. Clark wanted readers to be comfortable with who they are and believe that if they want to, they can and will find a match. There is someone for everyone and sometimes we find our match in the least expected places. Finally, I also believe that J. Clark wants us to know that when we find that match, it is okay to let your “freak flag” fly, no matter what the colors on it are.
 
On Goodreads, I rated this novel 4/5 stars. I believe this is J. Clark’s second novel, and she did her thing with it. There’s an excerpt at the end of All This Time from an upcoming novel, so expect her to bring it on once again, and I look forward to it.
 

Some members of the BIBC already listened to Davis’s memoir, so I decided to dive in while we were between reads/listens. I am thrilled that I did, when I did. I feel like I will sound cliché saying this but Davis’s story is riveting. Though I never experienced the depths of poverty that she did, I still felt a lot of her emotions. Like a true storyteller, she left no sense untouched. She vividly explained what she saw, what she heard, what she smelled, what she tasted, and how everything felt to touch. As I listened to her stern, clear voice, I was transported to times and places I’d never been—where I still found some familiarity.

First off, I’ve been intrigued by Davis since first seeing her in Antwone Fisher. There was a rawness in her that I could relate to. Her role was short and completely unglamorous, and she reminded me of the women in my family. None of us had ever hit times that hard, to my knowledge, but one thing I was used to seeing around my house was messy hair, oversized t-shirts, no bra to hold up drooping or supersized boobs, and no makeup. In fact, that might’ve been just how I looked when I first watched the film, just add on a pregnant belly.

After Antowne Fisher, whenever I saw Davis’s names in the credits, I was sure to watch. I was elated to see her play the part of Mrs. Miller in Doubt. The film was shot in my “hometown” The Bronx. Her dramatic scene, snots and all, was shot not far from where my family lived in Parkchester. Next, I fell for her no-nonsense, but complying character in The Help. I really related to that character because although I’d never experienced racism directly, on that level, I knew what it was like to get up and push myself every day for people who saw me as a worker ant in their empires.

Years later, Davis starred in the Shondaland hit, How to Get Away With Murder. Every Thursday night I made sure my daughter and I had dinner, we were showered, and she was in bed. Then I would sit up in bed with my snack of choice and allow myself to become part of the world where Prof. Keating spun tales to defend clients and prove innocence on their part. Again, Davis’s character spoke to me, with strength and bravado on the outside and soft vulnerability behind closed doors. Of course, like most Black women, I appreciated the vanity scene. It was my real life. I don’t work with a full face of make up every day, but when I get home at night, I pop off my gold hoops, take a face wipe and clean off the pencil that fills in my brows. Depending what I’m doing with my hair at the moment, I either wrap it, plait it, push it into a bonnet, or tie it down with a du-rag. Who I am and what I look like at work is completely different from who I am and what I look like at home—very much like Annalise Keating.

While BIBC took a mini break, I was happy to hear for myself what so many discussed in Davis’s memoir. The combination of her voice and the stories she told held me captive on my morning commute to work. Many of the women in my family have deep voice. When I was a child, I was told my voice was deep and I went out of my way to make it sound higher because women and girls at school also seemed to have higher voices. Davis’s voice was soothing to me, because her tone is so much like my grandmother’s. One of the first things she tells us is that her family is from South Carolina. My maternal grandmother’s side is from South Carolina as well. She said her mother had a phrase, “And everything like that, like that.” This was hilarious to me because my grandmother uses damn near the same phrase. Her’s is just shorter. She says, “everything like that,” and not nearly as often as Davis’s mother. Still, it was another familiar factor for me.
​I think I was the most speechless as she discussed her childhood. These were the experiences that kept me fighting tears on my drive to work. Though my family was from South Carolina as well, I was raised a certain way that’s hard for me to describe. Like I said before, we are/were known to walk around the house in house clothes, no makeup, etc. but the house had to be spot cleaned daily, thoroughly cleaned weekly, and deep cleaned monthly. Seasonally, my mother and grandmother would make over the house with different curtains and table cloths as well. To hear about the rats eating the faces of her dolls, and literally biting Davis and her siblings broke my heart. Growing up, we didn’t leave the house without a bath, shower, or the minimum—washing up at the sink. Our skin had to be moisturized, clothes had to be clean and ironed. And hair—hair was such a big deal. Let’s just say, if it was straightened a ponytail was unacceptable. Nobody took the time to straighten or paid money to blow out hair just for it to be tied up in a ponytail. Images of a young Viola Davis going to school in sour clothing, with an unclean head and body broke my heart further. I currently work in an elementary school, so children coming to school unkempt is not completely foreign to me, however I know that if I could afford it, no child would go to school like that. Its representative of the parents and I almost can’t believe that Davis’s parents didn’t think about how they were being represented outside of their home, but I had to realize, when you know better, you do better, and they just didn’t know enough at the time.

Naturally, the themes here were hard work pays off and where you come from doesn’t necessarily determine where you’re going. Davis worked hard not only in her career as an actor, but on herself. She made so many inspirational strides in her personal life as well as her career. I loved hearing the love story between her and Julius. It reminded me much of my own. There’s nothing like a man to be direct in his feelings and intentions, willing to share loads with you in life. It was still up to Davis to be intentional and be open about what she wanted in a romantic partnership so that she could receive it. She is fiercely independent and it’s natural for women like that to self sabotage because they’re trying to avoid experiences worse than they’ve already had.
​I think it’s obvious that I enjoyed this memoir from beginning to end. I am a Viola Davis fan through and through. My mother is an appointed family historian on one side and voluntary historian on the other side, so I’m going to ask her to check and see if we’re related to the Davis family in any way (lol). Nah, this was a 10/10 read and I hope you all give it a chance and find inspiration.