More Room: Taking Up Space and the Books That Remind You How

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Hey, beautiful and welcome back to Culture Lit.

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I'm Octavia Marie, your host, and I want

to get into something with you today.

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I've been sitting with this question.

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Is the life I'm living actually big enough

for who I'm becoming, not the life I

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was handed or the one I built by default

while I was too busy to pay attention?

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The one I want, the one that has room in

it, room for creativity, room for joy,

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room for the things that light me up.

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Not just the things that keep the

lights on, because I think a lot

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of us are running lives that used

to fit and they don't anymore.

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You've grown, your vision has grown.

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Your sense of what you actually

deserve has grown and the

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container hasn't kept up.

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That feeling of tightness, that sense

that something is off and you can't quite

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name it, I don't think that's anxiety or

in gratitude or you asking for too much.

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I think that's your spirit saying,

I need more room than this.

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You are here to experience something

meaningful and alive, and if your life

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has stopped feeling that way, that's

information worth paying attention to.

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Taking up space isn't just about

how you move through a room or

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whether you speak up in a meeting.

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It's bigger than that.

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It's about the dreams you actually

let yourself pursue, not the ones

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you've talked yourself out of

because they felt too risky or

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too big, or not practical enough.

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It's about what you say yes to.

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It's about the boundaries you hold

around your time and your energy

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so that the things that matter most

don't get the leftover version of you.

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Your life deserves room to expand, and

you are allowed to create that room now.

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When the world is heavy and

y'all, it has been heavy lately,

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I do what I've always done.

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I go to stories, romance specifically

because romance has this way of

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holding the possibility of love and

joy and wonder, steady even when

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everything outside feels uncertain.

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A slow burn, a second chance.

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Two people finding their

way to each other, despite

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every reason they shouldn't.

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That is not naive.

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That is radical.

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The bravest thing we can do

sometimes is believe in love.

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Anyway, so today I'm sharing

what I've been reading.

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Two books we're going deep on and

a handful more I've been loving.

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Grab Your Tea.

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Let's Go Kin by Tari Jones.

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Friendship can save us.

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It can shape who we become,

and it can break our hearts in

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ways we weren't prepared for.

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Kin by Ari Jones is one of the most

honest explorations of all three of those

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things that I've read in a long time.

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The book center's, nicey and Annie,

two girls who have been close

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since they were so small that

people called them Cradle Friends.

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What binds them from the start

is a shared loss that neither

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of them fully has words for yet.

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Nic's mother is murdered by her father.

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Annie's mother simply leaves and

leaves Annie with her grandmother.

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Two different kinds of abandonment,

but the same hollowness.

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Underneath that shared wound is

where their friendship takes root.

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As they get older, the paths they

take couldn't look more different.

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Niecy gets to Spelman.

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Community wraps around her and

opens a door into a world of

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opportunity she'd only imagine.

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Annie heads to Tennessee chasing the

mother who never came back for her.

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It's uncertain and brave and a

little heartbreaking to watch.

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Physically, they move away from each

other, but the bond doesn't loosen.

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If anything, it deepens and watching both

of them try to figure out who they are

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in these new worlds without the cushion

of the other person nearby, that's

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where the book gets under your skin.

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What Tari Jones does so well is right

the messy, complicated, completely

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human texture of long friendship.

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Niecy and Annie aren't

always kind to each other.

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There's resentment in there.

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Grief.

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Anger, fear, the sadness that comes

from watching someone you love

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change in ways you didn't choose.

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But there's also a love running through

all of it that doesn't have a clean name.

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It's deeper than what

you can say out loud.

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Their friendship is chosen.

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Family built on years of shared

history and a mutual absence.

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They've both been trying to fill their

whole lives and watching them hold onto

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each other through all of it reminded me

of something I believe all the way down.

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Unconditional love isn't just romantic.

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Sometimes it looks like this.

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Two people who have seen each

other at the worst and the most

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lost and the most changed, and who

keep choosing each other anyway.

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My hope for all of us is that we get

to experience that kind of friendship

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where someone has known you long enough

to remember who you were before the

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world started asking things of you

and loves you all the way through.

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Anyway, Ken is that book.

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Read it Slowly.

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Beautiful Broken Love by Shenora Williams.

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Okay, this one, Davina Klein.

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Roberts lost her husband seven

months ago, and the way she's been

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coping is by pouring everything

she has into her beauty business.

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Working constantly, staying busy.

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Keeping the grief at arm's

length by staying in motion.

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A lot of us know that

particular survival strategy.

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Then she agrees to an endorsement deal

with Deek Bishop, an NBA player who is

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cocky and successful and very comfortable

with the life his stardom has bought him.

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She does not want to be attracted to him.

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She tells him flat out that she's

not looking for anything beyond

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a professional arrangement.

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He hears her.

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And then he pursues her anyway, not in an

aggressive way, but in the way of a man

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who has looked at someone and recognized

something he's never encountered before.

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Davina has this combination of

drive and beauty and genuine

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goodness that stops him cold.

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He can't let it go.

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What makes this book worth slowing

down for is that neither of these

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people comes to this love story.

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Whole Deke grew up with parental neglect.

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Domestic violence in his home.

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The loss of a sibling to suicide,

Davina is still raw with grief.

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Their ability to trust has been earned

back slowly over years, and the road to a

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happily ever after is not a straight line.

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They start a friends

with benefit situation.

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Knowing full well neither of them can

actually keep their heart separate, and

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that gap between what they tell themselves

and what they're actually feeling.

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That tension is where

the whole book lives.

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Shenora Williams is known for domestic

thrillers, and she brings that same

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precision to the emotional build here.

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Every scene earns what comes next.

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The characters feel true, their

hesitation, their missteps, their need

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for each other that keeps breaking

through the walls they've built.

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She doesn't shortcut the

grief or rush the tenderness.

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She lets it breathe and

there's a one-on-one basketball

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scene that is everything.

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If you wanna know exactly who these

two people are and what they mean

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to each other, that scene tells you.

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Beautiful.

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Broken love is a sports romance

that takes love seriously.

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All the highs, all the losses, all the

complicated work of letting someone in.

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I loved every page.

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All right, five more books that

belong on your radar right now.

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One more shot by Anis Star.

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Anis, star knows romance,

and one more shot is proof.

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Two years ago, photographer Elliot

Rain and Dane Clark had a near

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miss that she has been perfectly

happy to leave in the past.

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Then he shows up as the

best man at a wedding.

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She's been hired to shoot, and

that plan falls apart entirely.

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Elliot's first move is to

cancel the job and disappear.

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Dane has other ideas.

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She finally tells him the embarrassing

truth behind why their first attempt

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at a night together didn't go anywhere.

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He doesn't run.

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He leans in.

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He wants to try again.

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She's not sold.

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What I love about this one is the slow

shift from tension to a friendship

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that actually means something

before it becomes anything more.

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The question the whole book is

asking is whether these two can

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trust what they've built enough to

actually let it be real charming.

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Warm and genuinely fun to read One

Week In Paradise by Anisa Starr.

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Yes.

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Two Amy Starra books back to back.

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She earns it.

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Bailey Clark is an influencer whose

reputation has taken a serious hit,

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and when she gets an invitation to an

all expenses paid trip to a couple's

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only resort in Jamaica, she sees an

opportunity to rebuild one problem.

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She's single.

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Her brother's best friend Cash Reed

agrees to come along as her fake

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boyfriend, and this is a man who has

never exactly been her biggest fan.

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The arrangement is supposed to be simple,

seven days, some content, a free trip,

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everyone goes home, but Bailey has a past.

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She's been keeping quiet, and the closer

she and cash get to each other, the

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harder that becomes to hold onto the

fake starts feeling very real, very fast.

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The question becomes whether she'll let

that actually mean something or protect

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herself by keeping him at a distance.

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This one is spicy, fun, and genuinely

sweet underneath all the heat.

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If I don't have you by Sarita Domingo Ren

is an Afro-Brazilian filmmaker recovering

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from a romantic betrayal and doing

his best to stay focused on his work.

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Kayla is a black British artist and

journalist in New York for a string

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of interviews on re's latest film.

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The attraction between them

is immediate and undeniable.

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They give each other one night,

honest, intense, the kind of night that

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raises more questions than it answers.

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And in the morning, they both have

lives that don't have an obvious

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place for what they just felt.

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Sarta Domingo writes Desire and restraint

in equal measure, and this book has both.

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There are secrets between them and a

real tension around whether love at first

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sight or whatever this is, can survive

what neither of them has said yet.

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Sexy, sharp, and emotionally real.

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Behind the scenes by Christina C.

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Jones, I'm going to be straight with you.

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Christina C.

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Jones deserves her own episode.

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She belongs in every conversation about

black love, and I'm not exaggerating.

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This book is why.

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Logan is the only daughter of a

respected family with a long legacy.

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Pierre is the son of big screen

royalty and has spent his whole life

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either being compared to his father

or written off entirely on paper.

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Both of them look like exactly

what people have decided.

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They are, they're not.

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The love story between Logan and Pierre

starts in the most unexpected way.

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One night stand and then she shows

up at work the next day to discover

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her mystery man is her new client.

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The tension and awkwardness alone

had me hooked from the first chapter.

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Logan tries hard to keep it professional.

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The pull between them won't cooperate.

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Their chemistry is natural and grounded

in something real, not just physical

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attraction, but genuine recognition.

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Two people who actually see each other.

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Pierre's arc is one of my

favorite things about this book.

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He's a recovering alcoholic,

still facing the damage.

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His father left behind and watching

him grow with Logan beside him,

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not rescuing him, but believing

in him, felt honest and earned.

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This book is Tender and Adult

and beautifully written.

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Christina C.

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Jones does not miss the full

picture by Jessica Carmichael.

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Robin Carter is a first year

university student heading to Ghana

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for winter break, and for the first

time in 10 years going back to the

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country where she lost her mother.

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The trip is supposed to give

her answers about the parent.

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Her father has never been

willing to talk about.

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What she doesn't expect is Oay,

her grandmother's neighbor, a

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budding photographer, a dreamer who

wears his heart completely open.

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He is not the type she

would choose for herself.

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He's too much, too soft, too idealistic.

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She has a type on paper.

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Kelvin Williams, a charming pre-med

student visiting from her hometown

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who checks every rational box.

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But Ghana has a way of making

you honest with yourself.

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As Robin uncovers the truth about

her mother's past, something shifts

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in how she understands her own life,

what she's been chasing and what she's

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been running from the full picture is

a YA debut from Jessica Carmichael.

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And if you love Blu Baba, Lola or Jenny

Hahn, this one will feel like home, A

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coming of age story about family grief and

what it means to choose your own path over

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the one someone else laid out for you.

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So here's where I want to leave you.

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If your life has started to feel

like it's asking you to make yourself

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smaller, please pay attention to that.

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Not the version that says you're

ungrateful or unrealistic,

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or asking for too much.

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The quiet, steady version that says

there is more for you than this.

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Build the life that fits who you're

becoming, not who you were five years

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ago, not the version of you that

learned to stay small, to stay safe.

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The one you're growing into right now.

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Say yes to.

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What lights you up.

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Hold the boundary that

protects your peace.

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Pick up a book that reminds you

love is still worth believing in.

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And until next time, be soft.

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Be bold, be visible.