Spin the Plate by Donna Anastasi (Book Review)

Title: Spin the Plate

Author: Donna Anastasi
Publisher: Black Rose Writing

About the book: Spin the Plate is the story of Jo, a woman who has come through a traumatic childhood, not battered and broken, but powerful and enraged.  A tattoo artist by day, she roams the streets of Boston nightly to forgether past and feed her two passions: rescuing mistreated creatures and inflicting bodily harm on their perpetrators.  Unassuming and unafraid, Francis, a man harboring a secret of his own, is the one person Jo can't seem to scare off.  Right from the start, he sees clearly the caring soul buried deep within Jo's hard exterior and puts into motion a succession of life-altering happenings.


My thoughts: I wasn't quite sure what to think when I started reading this novel.  Jo, the main character, is a really tough woman, who was always looking for someone to either get into a mental/verbal fight with, or looking for someone who deserved to have their face smashed in. I wasn't sure that it was going to keep my interest, but I kept reading.

Francis was then introduced.  He was a quiet man who thinks he has dreamed about Jo, or someone like her, and starts to follow her around - trying to work up his nerve to ask her out. Even though Jo is brusque and dismissive with him, he hangs on and for reasons even she can't define, she accepts his offer of dinner.

They begin to form a friendship with Jo giving Frances a listening ear to his theories and stories about the world without bias, and Frances bringing a calming influence to Jo's life.  She slowly begins to trust him - and she has trusted no man because of her childhood abuse by her father.  (This was also the source of her rage).


This is a good story about hope after the survival of dire circumstances.  The coming together of two opposite individuals able to form something wonderful together that was unreachable when they were apart.  I ended up reading the entire book in one sitting.  I liked the way that my impression of Jo changed.  In the beginning of the book she is described like this:  ". . . very big, extremely strong, and surprisingly fast.  She was 257 pounds and stood 5' 11" in her Chippewa hikers. "  (p5)  You really don't get a physical description of her later in the book, but when seen through Frances eyes - "She looked exactly as he always imagined her: serene. He drank in her beauty and explored each nuance of her exquisite face." (p182)   As I progressed through the book, and Jo starts to trust and lose some of her rage, it seemed to transform her outward appearance as well.

~I received a complimentary copy of this book from Walker Author Tours in exchange for my review.~

To find out more about the book - please visit www.spintheplate.com.  You can also visit the other blogs on this tour:

October 3: Blog interview with Jennifer Walker
October 4: Blog interview with Suzanne Alicie, plus with Jennifer on the A Cup of Coffee and a Good Book BlogTalkRadio show at 3:30 Pacific Time.
October 5: Book review by Kristi Herbrand of Books and Needlepoint
October 6: Book Review at Joan of Shark
October 7: Book Review and guest post from Laurie at Reader Girls
October 8: Book review by Michelle Devon


Spin the Plate
Publisher/Publication Date: Black Rose Writing, May 2010
ISBN: 978-1-935605-39-3
198 pages

My Thoughts on Banned Book Week - guest post by Donna Anastasi

Banned book week occurs the last week in September as a celebration of our right to read whatever we damn well please. It took viewing only a very small sampling of items on the banned booked lists to see that my novel Spin the Plate is a prime candidate for inclusion. Spin the Plate is a fictional account of a woman who as a child had been systematically sexually abused by her father and has immerged from this traumatic childhood not battered and broken, but powerful and enraged. The book contains both profanity and sexually explicit content.


So, is “bad language” really needed in literary fiction? Absolutely. Using the s, f, and other four-five letter words
is how many real people really talk. Profanity is used to convey threats, anger, power structure, comradery, familiarity, humor, and sometimes social class. A tense situation can be escalated to the red zone in an instant with a single, well placed swear word. Crude language can be used as a powerful literary tool: in Spin the Plate it is used to show the main character letting down her guard and letting go of her anger and hate, as the frequency of vulgarities dissipates through the course of the novel.


As for sexually explicit materials, again, absolutely necessary. Despite the prevalence of incest in this country (and even more so in many others), the topic is rarely broached in school curriculum. What type of message does this omission send to a young person in such a situation? Certainly having a book such as “Push” (upon which the film Precious was based) be banned only serves to further deny the reality many children are living and silence the victims of this horrific and vastly under-reported crime.
One final thought - with very recent events including the movie Precious winning academy awards, the clergy sex abuse scandal being addressed right up to the top most level, Jaycee Dugard’s brave and candid account as a kidnapping survivor of child rape, and new anti-bullying laws in many states, I wonder if perhaps as a society we are ready to take on child abuse at the next level – sexual abuse being perpetrated by family members. A staggering 10 million people in the US alone are victims of incest, yet it is something that is not talked about. Perhaps now more than ever this is the time to fight against the banning of books about incest victims and survivors, and let their voices be heard.


Visit http://www.bannedbooksweek.org/ for ways to participate in this year’s banned book week, September 23-30, 2011.



Thanks Donna for visiting here today!


My review of Spin the Plate will be posted later today!

Book Tour: Spin the Plate by Donna Anastasi (Oct 3-7)

Spin the Plate

by Donna Anastasi

Spin the Plate is the story of Jo, a woman who has come through a traumatic childhood not battered and broken, but powerful and enraged. A tattoo artist by day, she roams the streets of Boston nightly to forget her past and feed her two passions: rescuing mistreated creatures and inflicting bodily harm on their perpetrators. Unassuming and unafraid, Francis, a man harboring his own back story, is the one person Jo can't seem to scare off. Right from the start, he sees clearly the caring soul buried deep within Jo's hard exterior and puts into motion a succession of life-altering happenings for them both.

It is hard to imagine two characters as unique as Jo and Francis, yet Anastasi places them so convincingly in the world we know that it makes you take a fresh look at the people you pass on the street and wonder about what back story they may be hiding. Every character in this book, including the minor ones, has a distinct personality and practically jumps off the page into your world.

GOLD MEDAL WINNER, Women's Fiction, 2011 Living Now Book Awards
SILVER MEDAL WINNER, Contemporary Romance, 2011 Readers Favorite Book Awards
International Book Award Finalist, Romance
International Book Award Finalist, Women's Literature

Touring with Walker Author Tours.
Spin the Plate
Publisher/Publication Date: Black Rose Writing, May 2010
ISBN: 978-1935605393
198 pages