About Cat and Jerome
I created Cat and Jerome for Black and Brown book lovers. In 2015, I took a look at my reading list and was disappointed to realize I wasn't reading enough books by and about Black and Brown folks. Every year since then, I've put more of a focus on works both old and new that tell the stories that my soul had been longing to read, even if I didn't know it. As a Latina, I've been particularly enthralled with contemporary Latina authors like Ivelisse Rodriguez, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Kali Fajardo-Anstine, Zoraida Córdova, Malka Older, and many others.
Between running a business and co-parenting an elementary school student, I don't read as much as I'd like these days. But what I lack in quantity I make up for in quality: I read mindfully, passionately, and joyfully. Cat and Jerome is a place for me to share reviews and recommend books I love in hopes you'll love them, too.
During the pandemic, I purposefully bought books through Bookshop to support local bookstores. I recently set up a Bookshop affiliate shop to support the cost of running Cat and Jerome, which means I earn a commission if you click on a book link on this site and make a purchase.
About Me
Hi, I’m Ericka and I love books. Allegedly, I began reading when I was two years old. I don’t remember a time before I was in love with words. Each Saturday when I was a child, I would fill my little red wagon with twenty books – the most I could borrow at one time – and the librarian’s oldest son would help me pull it down the sidewalk to my mother’s office. I can only dream of reading twenty books a week these days!
Fortunately, I have lots of excuses to read. My daughter loves graphic novels and cartoon treasuries, so we’ve enjoyed Monster Mayhem by Christopher Eliopoulos, Sanity & Tallulah by Molly Brooks, and everything by Dav Pilkey. She’s also an avid Calvin & Hobbes fan. I’m a marketing and communications consultant, so I read my share of technical books. My work centers social justice and racial equity, so I’m also reading Mariame Kaba's We Do This 'Til We Free Us, Dorothy A. Brown’s The Whiteness of Wealth, and Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century, edited by Alice Wong.
In my downtime, I’m drawn to science fiction, speculative fiction, and magical realism. I love Octavia Butler, Malka Older, N.K. Jemisin, Victor LaValle, Nnedi Okorafor, Ted Chiang, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Silva Moreno-Garcia, and Vanessa Fogg. I have a soft spot for YA novels, especially those featuring Black, Brown, and / or LGBTQIA+ characters – probably because those are the types of books I would have loved to read as a young adult.
You can find me fan-girling over authors and railing against injustice on Threads at @erickasparkles.