In Every Mirror Shes Black, Lola Akinmade Akerstrom
In Every Mirror Shes Black, Lola Akinmade Akerstrom
7 Rating(s)
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In Every Mirror She's Black
A Novel

Author: Lolá Ákínmádé Åkerström

Narrator: Sara Powell, Rosemarie Akwafo

Unabridged: 11 hr 43 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 01/04/2022


Synopsis

Three Black women are linked in unexpected ways to the same influential white man in Stockholm as they build their new lives in the most open society run by the most private people.

Successful marketing executive Kemi Adeyemi is lured from the US to Sweden by Jonny von Lundin, CEO of the nation's largest marketing firm, to help fix a PR fiasco involving a racially tone-deaf campaign. A killer at work but a failure in love, Kemi's move is a last-ditch effort to reclaim her social life.

A chance meeting with Jonny in business class en route to the US propels former model-turned-flight-attendant Brittany-Rae Johnson into a life of wealth, luxury, and privilege as the object of his unhealthy obsession.

And refugee Muna Saheed finds a job cleaning the toilets at Jonny's office as she works to establish her residency in Sweden and, more importantly, seeks connection and a place she can call home.

Told through the perspectives of each of the three women, In Every Mirror She's Black is a fast-paced, richly nuanced novel that touches on important social issues of racism, classism, fetishization, and tokenism, and what it means to be a Black woman navigating a white-dominated society.

About Lolá Ákínmádé Åkerström

Nigerian American and based in Sweden, Lola Ákinmade Åkerstrom is an award-winning author, speaker, and photographer. Her work has appeared in National Geographic Traveler, BBC, CNN, the Guardian, Sunday Times Travel, the Telegraph, New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Slate, Travel Channel, Adventure Magazine, and Lonely Planet, amongst others. In addition to contributing to several books, she is the author of the following books: Due North, a 2018 Lowell Thomas Award winner for best travel book, and the bestselling LAGOM: Swedish Secret of Living Well, available in eighteen foreign language editions. She has been recognized with multiple awards for her work, including the 2018 Travel Photographer of the Year Bill Muster Award, and she was honored with a MIPAD 100 (Most Influential People of African Descent) Award within media and culture in 2018. Her photography is represented by National Geographic Image Collection. Lola is also the editor of Slow Travel Stockholm, an online magazine dedicated to exploring Sweden's capital city in depth.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Lola

One of many reasons why I wrote IN EVERY MIRROR SHE'S BLACK is that I wanted each of the women – Kemi, Brittany, Muna – to be free of having to carry the weight of society or their individual cultures simply because they are Black. Even though they are strong, I wanted to give them space to make mis......more

Goodreads review by Kezia

It’s Kemi, Brittany, and Muna’s show! Three black women whose only connection is a man named Jonny von Lundin. Kemi and Muna work for him and Brittany is in a relationship with him. They all get arguably equal parts in this book as we explore who they are and why they do the things they do. So what......more

Goodreads review by Lara

I found this novel slightly uneven - of the three almost-intersecting stories, one is considerably weaker than the other two and unfortunately comes to somewhat dominate the narrative. The relationship between Jonny and Brittany is highly unconvincing and there is no attempt to understand Brittany’s......more

Sigh, another book that i was really looking forward to that let me down. I know this was a debut so I try to give debut books grace; however, i think this book was overhyped. The concept was novel (no pun intended) but it was also over ambitious. That is not an insult to the author but a fact regar......more