American Spy and Pizza

I finished American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson a couple of weeks ago and really struggled with how to review it.   

It is a story of an African American Woman, Marie,  who is a spy for the FBI.  The book flips around the time period between her childhood in NY in the 60's to her work with the FBI and then CIA in the 80's to the 90's where she is writing this letter/journal to her children to tell them what happened.    The book starts with this big action scene and then it settles into this story telling.  I wouldn't call it a spy thriller as much as a political thriller.   

So, here's what I liked: 

    the main character Marie was great.  

    Loved the backstory on her sister and their relationship .  I also like her mom and dad. 

    I had NO idea about any of the West Africa stuff and I had to look it up to see if this was based on reality.  It is!  I learned who Thomas Sankara was and learned a bit about a part of the world that i am blind to.  I need to educate myself on this. 

    I really liked the struggles and talk about how the FBI treated her due to race and gender.  It was and probably still is an old white boys club.  

    I listened to this book on Audio and I really liked the narrator.  She was fantastic 

What I didn't like so much; 

    This book is a bit slow.  I think if I  had been actually reading it, I would have stopped.  There is a LOT of details.  It felt like too much detail on every single thing. 

    I wanted a bit more to happen.  I just kept waiting for it.  

Overall i'm giving it 4 stars mainly because the topic was so interesting and it was the first spy novel I read where the main character is a black woman.  We need more of that.   If you decide to read, I'd encourage you to listen instead .  

I had no idea what food to make.  Once again I am terribly uneducated on African food.  And lately I have been so busy and a bit overwhelmed with work that i decided this book called for a PIZZA.  Not a pizza I made but a good old take out pizza like you might get in NYC.  Of course it taste nothing like the NYC pizza but I can pretend.  Enjoy and keep reading