fiction – Life Off Headset

Books Read September 2024

Last week of October, and finally got around to writing up the books I read last month. Not a lot of books read, but I was determined to finish that Bronte biography, and I did!

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi – I picked up this book at a Little Free Library and it just sat in my shelf until a lot of you told me to read it. What a beautiful powerful book. I wish every chapter were its own book. I think that might be one reason I didn’t love love this book- I just wanted more of each story and the format almost felt like it was a short story collection. Interestingly enough, I just listened to an author interview where the author talks about how short story collections don’t have to end with a big satisfying bow the way novels do. I think once I accepted this book as a collection of connected short stories, I enjoyed it more.

History of Women in 101 Objects: A Walk Through Female History by Annabelle Hirsch, read by Read by Gillian Anderson, Katy Hessel, Anita Rani, Jackie Kay, Len Pennie, Annabelle Hirsch, Shirley Manson, Rebecca Solnit, Sandi Toksvig, Marina Hyde, Naomi Shimada, and a Full Cast– This book looks at history, specifically Female History, through the lens of objects . Some objects are very pedestrian (like the Miele vacuum cleaner, the bikini), some less so (a 16th century glass dildo…) Some chapters drew my interest more than others, but as a whole it was a fascinating way to walk through history. I would say this audio book kind of felt like a podcast on occasion because each chapter was so short and varied.

Pride of Bagdhad by Brian K. Vaughan and Niko Henrichon– This is a graphic novel based on a true incident where lions escaped from the zoo during the bombing of Baghdad. In this book, the lions wander the city looking for food and trying to grapple with what it means to be free and have the ability to interact with other animals. I borrowed this when I was on my graphic novel kick a few months ago. I think my problem with graphic novels, though, is the writing/dialogue can sometimes read somewhat stilted for me. Maybe that’s the nature of unfurling a story panel by panel? Despite that, though, I thought this book was beautiful, and the story really sad. There were times when I turned the page and then gasped at the stunning images or story.

Life is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way by Kieran Setiya – I had read Setiya’s Midlife: A Philosophical Guide and found it gave me a lot to ponder in regards to what is fulfilling and the purpose of setting goals. My big take away from that book is that learn to enjoy activities for the sake of doing the activities rather than achieving goals because you don’t know when life will end. I didn’t find Life Is Hard as compelling or as focused. Each chapter looks at one things that might give use despair (Infirmity, Loneliness, Grief, Failure, Injustice, Absurdity, and Hope. That last is kind of a spoiler for what the book ultimately says) Setiya looks at ways that philosophers and thinkers have examined these problems and reconciled how to live with them. The book is a little dense, but there were some quotes that I liked:

“…being happy is not the same as living well. If you want to be happy, dwelling on adversity may or may not be of use. Bur mere happiness should not be your goal.” – I agree that happiness is overrated.

“Projects fail and people fail in them. But we have come to speak as if a person can be a failure as though failure were an identity, not an event. When you define your life by way of a single enterprise, a narrative arc, its outcome will come to define you.” I love this idea of failure as an event, not a identity. People are not failures. So important to remember.

“Hope coexists with quiescence. If there’s courage in hoping, it’s the courage to face the fear of disappointment that hope creates. When things turn out badly, hope is more harrowing than despair.” I feel like this is very apt to our current times as we count down the days to the election.

The Brontes: Wild Genius on the Moors: the Story of Three Sisters by Juliet Barker – After two years of steady reading, I’ve finally finished this door stop of a book. I found so much of this book fascinating – it vividly captured the tedium of living in remote rural England. (I guess most of England was remote and rural at the time.) I mean this was before the internet and electricity! Interestingly, though, the lives of the Brontes seemed a combination of loneliness and connection. They were often far from friends, but the letters flew back and forth with great frequency and there were frequent visits and community events. It made me think of how we fill our time so differently now. I loved how much of a person’s personality shines through in their letter writing. Reading the excerpts from correspondence was one of my favorite parts of this book. The letters were always polite and correct, but could convey so much. I think about how we can offload the task of writing such correct and proper letters to ChatGPT now, and it makes me sad. I mean this phrase, in which Charlotte declines a proposal:
I am not the serious, grave, cool headed individual you suppose – you would think me romantic… and say I was satirical and severe. However I scorn deceit and I will never for the sake of attaining the distinction of matrimony and escaping the stigma of an old maid take a worthy man whom I am conscious I cannot render happy.
We certainly don’t write like that anymore.
There was also so. much. death in this book. Of the six Bronte children, two died in infancy as well as the mother. And then, of course, Emily and Anne and brother Bramwell also died before they were into their thirties. Bramwell was a trip – troubled, aimless and full of scandal. I thought a lot in this book about their father as well, who outlived all his kids and kept doing his work as a minister until his death at age 84. If you’re into dense literary biographies, this is probably a good book to sink into.

On my bookshelf: I just finished reading a couple books, so there are only two books on my books in progress shelf:

This is so awkward: Modern Puberty Explained by Cara Natterson and Vanessa Kroll Bennett – This book is what the title suggests. It looks at the science behind puberty and then offers tips and scripts for how to talk about it with kids. Natterson and Kroll Bennett are the co-hosts of one of my favorite parenting podcasts.

Confessions of an Unlikely Thru-Hiker by Derick Lugo – Lugo is a young Black comedian who decides to hike the Appalacian trail, even though he had never even been camping before. I have a fascination with stories of people who do epic hikes (Wild, The Salt Path).

I’m going to start having a longer commute in a few weeks, so if anyone has any good audiobooks to recommend, please tell me!

Books Read April and May 2024

I read a lot in April, but I didn’t read much in May because work was really busy, Lots of audiobooks because of commuting, though…

Last Night at The Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo – I picked up this book from my sister in law when I was visiting them in Berkeley. This novel is about Lily Hu, growing up in 1950s San Francisco and how she begins to question and explore her sexuality. It’s always fun to read a book about the place that I’m visiting, particularly since we did go to Chinatown and I had a frame of reference for some of the streets mentioned in the book. I loved all the historical details, and thinking about life as a Chinese American in mid century America. I think ultimately, though, coming of age novels aren’t really my jam right now. I find I get impatient to know what happens to a character once they break free of childhood so I’m always a little disappointed when the books end with them just starting their journey. I liked reading this book and all the characters, but I just wanted there to be more story and less personal angst. I think this is definitely a “me” problem because the book is beautiful written and well researched.

Textbook by Amy Krouse Rosenthal – A 2016 collection of writings, micro essays, drawings, and some things I can’t define. I first heard of Amy Krause Rosenthal through her delightful children’s books. (Oh gosh – I just googled her and she passed away in 2017, which makes me so sad now and tinges the book with bittersweetness) This book has an interactive texting component to it, which given that she has passed away, makes that element really poignant. Anyhow, this book is structured in class subjects and she uses each subject as a lens through which she examines all the things that give us angst and give us joy. I really loved this book – the book is very dog eared from all the passages I wanted to mark. I laughed and laughed so hard. Some favorite excerpts:
Under Social Studies:
“You run into someone from elementary school, someone you haven’t seen in forever. How have you been what have you been up to?! There are many ways to come at their questions, but considering your shared history – you were once prepubescent fort-makers together – there sis really only one response: What have I been up to? I’ll tell you the biggest, craziest things since I last saw you: A few humans tumbled out of my lady parts.“

Under Midterm Essay, about hitting middle age:
“An so it was, everything around me had a bittersweet sheen to it; moments were dramatically stamped FLEETING and TRANSIENT as I roamed about. A simple exchange between my son and me, for example, felt epic in its beauty and poignancy; all that happened was that he tapped on his bedroom window, I looked up at him from the sidewalk below, and he waved…. I lost it when my daughter excitedly asked me to quick come outside, watch this; See how fast my new sneakers make me run?
I didn’t exactly have a midlife crisis. I had a mid-life cry-bliss. “

And also has pithy charts and drawings like this one under Language Arts:

Murder Your Employer- the McMaster’s Guide to Homicide by Rupert Holmes – This is a novel about how to, well, murder your employer. I borrowed the audio book because it was narrated by Neil Patrick Harris and Simon Vance. The novel centers around Cliff, who is recruited to a school that trains people in murder, kind of a Hogwarths for would be killers. I thought this book was gleefully convoluted, and Holmes skewers the mystery genre to perfection. If you’re not into murder mysteries this might not be your thing, but if you do like them, this will feel delightfully similar in tone to Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone.

The Obsession by Jesse Q Sutanto – Read for Mother Daughter Book Club. The 12 year old picked this out and then told me I had to read it. It’s about a high school boy who developed an obsessive crush on a classmate and how his crush retaliates. I didn’t love this book – all the characters are either morally terrible or clueless in a harmful way. The 12 year old loved it though – she loves novels with a good twist and this one was quite twisty. I did yelp out loud at one point. I have enjoyed other books by Jess Q Sutano, though – I think she writes fun and entertaining books.

My Brilliant Friend be Elena Ferrente– FINALLY finished this book from Cool Bloggers Book Club. My take away – WTF? Who are all these people? I mean a) literally in the sense that I couldn’t keep track of all the characters, and b) I could never figure out what they were about.

How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue – This beautifully written novel is about a village in Africa that is contaminated by the digging on their land by a BIG American corporation. The villagers spend years trying to get the big company to stop the digging and to pay reparations for all the death and disease the digging and toxic run off has has caused. The effort has a huge cost to the people of the village. This was a sad and frustrating read for me, as might be expected whenever a story pits people without resources against huge corporations and corrupt governments. I really liked this book, despite that- or maybe because of it. Mbue finds surprising nuances and complexities in corruption and survival.

The Tattooist of Auchwitz by Heather Morris, read by Richard Armitage– I picked this audiobook because it was read by Richard Armitage, who I’ve been a fan of since the BBC production of North and South. As might be expected from the title, this is a very very sad book – the misery was a little unrelenting. At the same time, I thought there were parts of it that were stunning even in the face of the autrocities of the Holoucaust.

Sourdough by Robin Sloan, read by Therese Plummer– I picked this up becauae I saw it on a list of short audiobooks. It is about a young computer programmer who moves to the Bay Area to work for a tech company and starts making sourdough bread in her spare time. I thought this satirical and charming book was a fun read, but the end was a little unhinged and bizarre. The astute observations on life in the Bay area made me laugh. There were parts that made me want to revive my sourdough starter and start baking bread again, the descriptions of bread baking were so evocative and romantic. I don’t love books where the ending comes out of left field, and this book kind of just left me scratching my head. I listened to a lot of this during late night commutes and there were parts where I thought, “Maybe this doesn’t make sense because I’m tired’.” And I’d go back and re-listen, a couple times even. But nope, the story was just that odd in places.

My Fair Brady by Brian D. Kennedy – YA novel set in the world of high school theatre. (I suggested this as a mother daughter book club book, but I’m not sure the 12 year old read it.) High school senior Wade is passed over for the lead in the school production of My Fair Lady, so he decides to befriend Elijah in an attempt to show people how not self centered he is. Elijah on the other hand has joined the lighting crew for the show in order to make some friends, and jumps at th eopportunity to make friends with super popular Wade. I always find theatre books fun to read – seeing what an author got right or wrong compared to my own experiences. I loved those details in this book, but I didn’t love Wade. The concept of the book is based on what an asshole Wade is, but the story is told in first person and I find it very rare that people truly come off as assholes in first person.

On my proverbial night stand:

Landslide by Susan Conley- Maine author to go with our Maine trip. Really enjoying this book.

Life is Hard: How Philisophy can Help us Find Our Way by Kieran Setiya- A couple years ago I read Setiya’s book Midlife: a Philosophical Guide, and found it so thoughtful to read. This book is about the various things that can make life challenging- infirmity, loneliness, failure, injustice- and seeing if phlosophy can help us navigate them,

Wild Genius On The Moors by Juliet Baker- Charlotte Brontë has died! Yet there are still thirty pages to go….

To Night Owl from Dogfish by Holly Goldberg Sloan and Meg Wolitzer, audiobook- charming epistolatory novel about two 12 year olds whose fathers have met and fallen in love- it’s a little too cute sometimes (perhaps because of the audiobook format) but mostly proving delightful.

The Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White- reading aloud at bedtime to the kids,

Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty- another Maine author- a collection of interconnected short stories. I’m enjoying to so far.

Books Read November and December 2023

I feel like for being so busy in November and December, I got more reading done than I thought I would. Thank you, audiobooks and commuting! I finished the year having read 51 books – which is fewer than last year, but I also had a lot less time off from work this year than last year. The past two months have been mostly lighter books.

Thank You for Listening written and narrated by Julia Whelan – Novel about an audiobook narrator finding her way in life. I loved this book. I had debated between reading it and listening to it on audio, and Engie had such good things to say about the audio that I went with that version and do not regret that choice. I want more books read by Julia Whelan now. And the book itself was also pretty great – I laughed out loud many times while listening. I see this book billed as a Romance, and while there is a great love story, I think there is so much more going on in this book for Sewanee, the protagonist, than just finding love. The book abounds with complex and loving relationships, the details about life as an audiobook narrator are fascinating to me, the Italian audio engineer is indelible in my mind. This book was just so satisfying.

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer – It took me two years, but I finally finished this book. I had first heard of Robin Wall Kimmerer when she was a guest on the podcast On Being. This is a pretty dense book. Not dense as in thick and tome-like, but dense in that every essay in this book required so much concentration from me. I would finish one essay and then feel like I couldn’t really digest another one. So I would say this is a book to be read slowly, one essay at a time. (Or go find her interview on On Being, if you don’t feel up for reading this book…) There are so many threads in this book, but a lot it ties back to the idea of nature and the natural world and learning from a world that gives and gives. And how humans take and take, but we don’t remember to listen to the earth or to give back to it. This book really impacted how I talk about nature to my children, though. I mean, I don’t think I used to talk about nature too much to my kids, but after reading this book, I’ve come to feel that it is important to point out the beauty and brilliance and benefits of nature to my kids so that they also foster an appreciation for the natural worlds and don’t take it for granted.
Some quotes I highlighted:
“Maybe we’ve all been banished to lonely corners by our obsession with private property. We’ve accepted banishment even from ourselves when we spend our beautiful, utterly singular lives on making more money, to buy more things that feed buy never satisfy. It is the Windigo way that tricks us into believing that belongings will fill our hunger when it is belonging that we crave.”
Yes, do I really need more things? I wrote in my notes, after reading this passage, “Now I feel guilty about wanting that dress.” I don’t think the point is to make people feel guilty for their consumerism, but rather for them to think about what “need” really means and what “wants” really are.

“If all the word is a commodity how poor we grow. When all the world is a gift in motion, how wealthy we become.” – from the essay The Gift of Strawberries – a reminder to not take the earth for granted and to treat natural resources as a gift. There is a lot of railing against capitalism in this book. As is probably to be expected.

“Our toddlers speak of plants and animals as if they were people, extending to them self and intention and compassion – until we teach the not to. We quickly retrain them and make them forget. When we tell them that the tree is not a who, but an it, we make that maple an object. […] If an a maple is an it, we can take up the chain saw. If a maple is a her, we think twice.” What do we teach our children about the world we live in?

I Should Have Honor written and read by Khalida Brohi – Brohi is a Pakistani activist who advocates for women’s rights and speaks out against honor killings in Pakistan. Her message and mission is an important one and there are parts of her book that were so sad and horrifying. I think, though, I kind of wanted less of her personal story and more about the history and impetus for honor killings. Granted this is her memoir, so the book is of course mostly about her journey – and it is really an incredibly brave one – but I think I wanted more of an insight into the country and culture she was from.

All The Right Notes by Dominic Lim – This book was about Quinto a piano player and composer in New York whose music teacher father wants him to come home to put on a show to raise money for his high school music program. And his father wants Quinto to convince Emmett Aoki, a famous movie star and his child hood friend/crush, to perform. Reconnecting with Emmett sends Quinto’s world into a tailspin. I’m always intrigued by romance novels (well, really any novel) set in the theatre world and with Asian characters. Not all books get theatre life right (or right compared the my reality, which is, admittedly just one perspective), so sometimes I just find them annoying, but I like to read them anyway. I thought this book was fine. The writing is funny in parts, awkward in others. The description of Filipino food made me want to look it all up and then order some. Overall though, the book wasn’t terribly memorable for me.

The Chiffon Trenches written and read by Andre Leon Tally – Tally was a fashion journalist and Anna Wintour’s right hand man at Vogue. Reading this in conjunction with Braiding Sweetgrass was interesting, because fashion is such a material industry. This book is full of juicy inside stories of the fashion world. Tally’s descriptions of clothes were so vivid and several times I looked images up because I just had to to see for myself the ensembles of which he wrote. This book made me want to be stylish, yet also made me realize how even though fashion can be a lot of fun and a great form of self expression, at the same time it must be a huge mental load to be so put together. There is a lot of this book that feels completely not relevant to my life, but I enjoyed hearing about nonetheless. There are also a lot of sad and vulnerable moments in this memoir. Tally, who passed away in early 2023, says a lot about being a Black man in a predominantly white industry, and makes many points that I had never thought about before.

The Takedown by Lily Chu, read by Phillipa Soo – I really enjoyed Chu’s book The Stand-In, and I’m a sucker for audiobooks narrated by Hamilton cast members, so of course I picked this book up. The novel centers around Dee Kwan a (borderline toxically) positive person who works in diversity consulting. She gets assigned to work a case at a major fashion house and hijinks and drama and self awareness ensue. I thought this was a charming book. There are some awesome – yet complicated – female friendships, some thoughtful handling of issues of race, a nice guy that is a little too perfect, and a chinchilla. I thought the ending was a little too pat, but there’s your romance happily ever after for you. Chu’s books are labelled as romance, but I feel like the romance is the least interesting parts of her books, to be honest. This book was an interesting listen to follow The Chiffon Trenches.

And Elderly Lady Is Up To No Good by Helene Tursten, translated by Marlaine Delargy -Another Engie recommendation, which I picked up after I read Killers of a Certain Age and wanted more stories of women who are no longer in the first (or second or third) bloom of youth. These series of short stories of an 88 year old Swedish woman who lives alone and likes it that way, to the extent that she’s willing to do anything to keep things going the way she wants. It’s a little dark and very funny. It’s a good palate cleanser read, I think – short, smart, and unlike anything else I’ve been reading. I already have the sequel in my TBR pile.

Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change by Angela Garbes – This book is a collection of essays that looks at caregiving in America and how this essential act is greatly undervalued, probably because it is considered the domain of women. She has one really great essay that points out how our society values inventors and not maintenance workers – and what are caregivers but the maintenance workers of people’s bodies? I really liked Garbes’ previous book Like a Mother, which looked at pregnancy and childbirth today. Essential Labor, I felt, was a more personal book. I think I wanted something a little more scholarly, though, and with a little more focus. While there are so many thoughtful and interesting points in this book and a lot of personal narrative, Garbes also recaps a lot of other people’s writings and part of me just wanted to read all the articles listed in her bibliography rather than just her interpretation of them.

Business or Pleasure by Rachel Lynn Solomon – This novel was in the New York Times’ list of favorite romance novels of 2023, and sounded interesting. Chandler, a ghost writer, feeling slightly disillusioned about her career has a one night stand with a cute guy. The next day, she is hired to ghost write the memoir of a former teen heartthrob who turns out to be… one night stand guy. This book features one of the funniest and most honest bad sex scenes I’ve ever read – Chandler and Finn’s one night stand is incredibly disappointing for her, and you know what? It’s probably one of the most true to life things I’ve ever read in a romance novel. Sex is always amazing in romance novels, but is it always that in real life? Anyhow, I expected the rest of the book to be about how Chandler and Finn grow to like each other as they work on the book, but it turns out to be so much more (and so much more open door) than just working on the book. There are a lot of details I liked about the book – I particularly appreciated how Chandler and Finn bonded over being Jewish because you don’t often find those cultural details as such a casual key characteristic in romance novels. I thought this was a fun read all in all – not terribly memorable on a whole but some really great moments. I’m a little burnt out on first person narrative contemporary romance novels, though. Why doesn’t anyone write romance novels in the omniscient voice?

Murder in Mesopotamia by Agatha Christie – I’ve read a lot of Agatha Christie, but hadn’t read this one yet. I think I saw this on a list of really good Agatha Christie novels that people don’t generally talk about. This was a Poirot mystery set in Mesopotamia, so all the expected cringe-y colonial undertones are there. The mystery itself was quite clever. I try not to guess “whodunnit” when I read mystery novels because I think it takes the fun out of the big reveal for me. I am probably in the minority here, but I actually prefer Miss Marple to Hercule Poirot mysteries. Poirot can be a little smug for my tastes. Nonetheless a nice comfort read for the end of the year.

Well that wraps up 2023 reading. I’ll have a post with my favorite books and reading experiences from the year later on. I hope.

On my proverbial bedside table:

Wild Genius on the Moors – Still reading about the Brontës. Everyone is dead almost. Charlotte doesn’t like to leave home.

Girlfriend on Mars by Deborah Willis – Amber is competing on a reality show for a chance to go to Mars. Boyfriend Kevin is back home in Vancouver, trying to live life. So far, funny and wry.

Untangled by Lisa Damour – it has the very cringe-y subtitle of “Guiding Teenage Girls through The Seven Transitions into Adulthood.” The content is better than that subtitle.

The Monsters We Defy (audiobook) by Lisa Penelope read by Shayna Small -Part heist novel, part historical fantasy, set in the Washington DC’s Black Broadway of 1925. This is proving very entertaining.

Mad, Bad, And Dangerous to Know by Samira Ahmed – Mother Daughter Book club read. Muslim American Teenager in Paris for the Summer on a mission to solve a historical question with a very cute descendant of Alexander Dumas in tow.

Books Read – July 2023

Already September and just now getting around to the July books. I thought about doing August and July books together, but this post was already half written, so here you are…

Ballad of Love and Glory by Reyna Grande: This novel was set during the Mexican-American War, a historical event which I didn’t know anything about. It is based on the true story of Irish immigrants who join the American army then defect to the Mexican side and were given their own artillery unit. I really loved the historical aspect of this book and learning about a new slice of history. The writing is so descriptive and vivid. At the same time, I thought the narrative arc lacked momentum. And maybe that’s just the nature of war – people die, things just plod on and on. I felt invested in the story, though, because I really liked the two main characters – John Riley who lead the artillery unit and Ximena Solome a Mexican army nurse – and I was really rooting for their relationship.

The Year of Miracles by Ella Risbridger – I don’t usually put cookbooks in my “Books Read” list, but this one was so beautifully written – part memoir, part cookbook. I had read her first book Midnight Chicken and felt similarly entranced by it. A Year of Miracles takes place during the pandemic as Risbridger is mourning the death of her long time partner. It is an account of finding joy in the simplest of things but also for allowing yourself to grieve and to feel. It’s a testament to good friends and simple food. I love this book so much because she writes things like:
I’ve been grieving now for years, and grief sets “missing” as your default state. I’m always missing someone; and I’ve learned to live along the line of something being lost. I’ve learned to cultivate happiness in absence, and to love an empty space where something used to be in the quiet hope that it won’t be wasted: something always turns up to be loved, a fox, a star, a courgette. At cat. A home. A person.

And then she writes recipe instructions like:
Stir to coat everything in the lovely scented oil. You might have to turn the heat up here, but not too high. A medium flame, let’s say, at most. I trust you. If it seems like anything is catching, turn it down. Just watch it, and it will be ok.

Her writing and her recipes are like a warm, soothing hug from a good friend.

Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn – This novel is about the escapades of a group of female assassins, which immediately piqued my interest. They have been in the assassin business for a 30+ years, but somebody is suddenly out to extinguish them and they have to go rogue to figure out who that is. I thought this novel was a lot of fun. 60-something year old female assassins who are smart, cunning, witty and can kick ass — well that’s definitely refreshing to read about. And their friendships – I like reading about female friendships and these ones are certainly complicated yet comforting. I’ve read Raybourn’s historical mysteries, but this has a certain fresh humour about it that is different. I wonder if she will write more?

After Dark with the Duke by Julie Anne Long – The next novel in the Palace of Rogue series. I really loved this novel – the heroine is an opera singer, so automatically that piques my interest. She is fleeing from scandal, having been the impetus for a duel, and comes to the Grand Palace on the Thames to escape and figure out what to do next. Having no money she agrees to put on a concert to raise funds for the boarding house. The hero is a celebrated war hero who has taken rooms in the Grand Palace on the Thames to write his memoirs but he’s a little stuck. He insults her (a little bit on purpose) and to make up for it he teaches her how to speak Italian and over the course of their Italian lessons they learn about each other and fall in love. But of course she’s an opera singer and he’s a noble lord. This is just a very nice romance novel about two very mature people trying to do the right thing, when the right thing they want to do is not necessarily the right thing society would have them do. There is a bit of an age difference between the two of them (20 years) that I found not really warranted, but that’s a minor quibble.

A Heart that Works by Rob Delany – A sad, wistful, and angry book about Delany’s two year old son’s battle with brain cancer. Losing a child just seems like such a horrific and heart-wrenching experience. I think it must be one of the worst things that a person can face. Delaney writes with such honesty and with surprising humour about what he and his family went through. It’s a book that made me want to hug my children closer

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Anne Schaffer and Annie Barrows, narrated by Paul Boehmer, Susan Duerden, Rosalyn Landor, John Lee, Juliet Mills – I feel like I’m the last person to read this novel, set in 1946 about a writer who strikes up a correspondence with a man on the Island of Guernsey. Epistolatory novels are my cat nip and I heard that this one was charming on audio, and indeed it was. Some of the plotting was a little awkward and unsubtle – there are limits to the epistolatory novel, of course, but over all this novel was perfect for my long commute home – sweet and undemanding and full of fun characters.

The Secrets of Happy Families by Bruce Feiler – Feiler is a New York Times journalist who in the book explores frameworks for creating a thriving family life. He does talk to scientists and researchers, but also talks to business experts, coaches, and military professionals to figure out what makes families stronger. It’s kind of family through a team building lens. Each chapter tackles a different subject – things like allowance, activities, travel, making decisions, discipline, having a family mission statement, how to talk about sexuality, etc. A lot of it is common sense and just good reminders of how we need to invest time in our families for them to thrive. Like any parenting book, I think one can take what is useful and leave the rest- “Good for you, not for me.” Some of his strategies to build relationship through createing competition between his kids rubbed me the wrong way – it is very counter what “Siblings without Rivalry” advocates. But that’s just another example about how there is no one parenting style that will work for all the variations of parents and children in the world. I did make a lot of highlights in this book, though. I think the parts that really resonated with me are the chapters about how to create stronger bonds in your family through shared experiences, rituals, histories, and values. Some of my highlights:
“… The more kids remember about their own families, the more self-esteem and confidence they exhibit. With the at in mind, devote a night to having kids tell stories from their own past… the day they scored two goals at soccer, the night their mother made those awesome chocolate chip cookies. This game would work particularly well the night before a big test or game, as scientist have found recalling high points form their own lives boosts children’s self confidence.”
The book talks a lot about how important it is for kids to feel like they have a family history – how knowing where they come from gives them confidence and roots for becoming adults.

“A key gift of the family meeting was to give us a designate space each week to overcome … differences. It was a safe zone where everybody was on equal footing, and no one could leave until a resolution was forged.”
I like the idea of regular family meetings and a family mission statement – this idea that a family was a unit lead by the parents, but not dictated by the parents. This is very different from how I grew up and I chafed at that.

“I told my dad, ‘I promise not to do anything big and stupid sexually if you promise not to yell at me for doing something small and stupid.'”
I need to learn this, to accept that kids will do dumb things and if I can be gentle with the small mistakes then hopefully my kids will not be afraid to come to me if they make big mistakes.

“The purpose of youth sports, Thompson says, is to create better competitors and to create better people. He often asks parents who they think has the job of accomplishing the first goal. “They get it right way,” he said. “Coaches and kids.” Parents have a more important job, he tells them.” You focus on the second goal, helping your kids take what they learn from sports into the rest of their lives.” Let’s say your kids strikes out, and his team loses the game. “You can have a first-goal conversation about bailing out of the batter’s box, keeping your eye on the ball, etc. Or you can have a second-goal conversation about resilience, character, and perseverance.”
I think this is so important to remember as my kids start activities. There are coaches and teachers to tell them how to play the sports. My role is to help the kids see the intangible benefits of what they are doing.

“Honey, what you are saying makes a lot of sense.”
Another phrase I need to learn to use more – to validate other people.

Reading with the kids – some of our/my recent favorites (I mean the kids also love those early readers that feature Peppa Pig or the Avengers, but I’m going to be a bit of a snob and list the ones that I like reading to them.):

The Legend of Rock Paper Scissors by Drew Daywalt and Adam Rex – I got this as a Vox book and it’s hilarious to my kids who love to settle things by playing Rock-Paper-Scissors. (Though they don’t always like the results.)

L’Ecole de Barbarpapa by Annette Tisson and Talus Taylor – okay this book is one I like to read. At the end of the school year, the 6 year old’s school gives everyone books to take home. Because he is in a French immersion program, they try to give him French books. When I saw this book, I was immediately taken back to my childhood – The Barbapapa books were very popular where I was growing up in Canada. It’s about a charming family of amorphous beings who shape shift as necessary. In this book, they open up a school.

I’m a Unicorn by Helen Yoon – This is a rather silly book about a cow that thinks they’re a unicorn because they have one horn. There are poop jokes, which always makes for a winner. Yoon also wrote the work from home book “Off-Limits” that we love.

Working Boats by Tom Crestodina – A beautifully illustrated book that looks at cross sections of various boats. Not a bedtime book, but a slowly pore and explore book with so many fascinating facts.

On my proverbial night stand:

Wild Genius on the Moors – still plugging through the Bronte biography. Charlotte has writer’s block.

Braiding Sweetgrass – I had put this aside for a while, but now I’m about 20 pages to the end, so I really want to finish it.

Stranger in a Shogun’s City – Non fiction about a woman in nineteenth century Japan who, after suffering three failed marriages, leaves her rural village for the big city of Edo. Such fascinating period details.

The Number One Chinese Restaurant – novel set in Rockville, near where I live and where, indeed, all the good Chinese restaurants are.

Tree Grows in Brooklyn – for Engie’s book club. What a lot of suffering is going on in these chapters.

Unwind – Dystopian YA novel about a world where adults can choose to have children “unwound” – basically their body parts are taken and given to other people- if they don’t show any promise between the ages of 13-18. It is rather grim reading. Next book in our Mother Daughter book club. We might need something more cheerful next.

Books Read – June 2023

Nothing like the first of the month to recap the books I read two months ago… I read more books than normal in June- thanks partly to my solo week at home! These past few months I’ve been really enjoying reading hard copy books. I read a lot via Libby on my phone, but there is something glorious to be about sitting with a book and turning the pages and flipping back and forth. I think the family being away really upped my “read in bed” lounge-y time.

The Chuckling Finger by Mabel Seeley – I was unfamiliar with Seeley, but I guess this American writer was hugely popular in the late 30s and 40s. She wrote mystery and crime novels. I picked up this book because I saw it recommended in The Week – can’t remember by whom. It’s like an Agatha Christie mystery with a touch more gothic in it. The story centers around Ann Gray, who has come to visit her cousin at her house on the lake. Mysterious accidents and eventually bodies ensue. It’s not the most well plotted of mysteries, but the heroine is plucky and smart and quite daring. Good if you’ve exhausted Agatha Christie and looking for something similar.

Scarborough by Catherine Hernandez – This 2017 novel by Canadian writer Hernandez centers around three children whose lives intertwine at a literacy center for low income families in a suburb outside of Toronto. Such a well crafted book, with story lines and characters flowing parallel and then intersecting in heart-wrenching ways. I think this novel really showed how hard it is to be a good parents when your basic needs are not being met – it’s Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in novel form. Another central theme in this book is how children can simultaneously be so vulnerable yet so resilient. Even when their lives are hard, the characters manage to find friends and moments of joy. Reading about children who are abused or mistreated is always hard for me, yet Hernandez manages to treat all her characters with empathy and compassion, even when they are making really bad decisions.
Quotes I highlighted:
– “He lay his daughter on the bed face up, which made her snore so perfectly. She was the most beautiful sack of potatoes he ever did see.”
Yep, I’ve been there.
-“Sylvie’s dad was on that couch for months. Jonathon, like many here, was a sad combination of bad cards dealt and bad choices made.”
-“When you’re dead, you can’t tell someone, “You will change your ways,” because their ways won’t continue ever again.”

Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman – full cast audio production – I listened to this book on my commute and loved it. It was clever, funny, deeply human and vastly entertaining. I laughed out loud many many times. In this novel, as the world hurtles towards Armageddon an Angel and a Demon contemplate life and how much the actually enjoy Earth and don’t want it to end. I don’t always like full cast audio productions, but I found this one to be pretty great.

When a Rogue Meets his Match by Elizabeth Hoyt – This is the second book of Hoyt’s Greycourt series. It was … fine. Not particularly memorable – I just had to google the book to remind myself of the plot – it involves a forced marriage and then BIG SECRETS and then bad people. In my notes, I wrote, “The chemistry between the main characters was hot. Plotting was kind of awkward. I’m not sure I understand the motivation for all the intrigue.”

Night of the Scoundrel by Kelly Bowen – So I got to the end of When a Rogue Meets his Match and… there was another book appended to the back. I figured, may as well read it too. This novella is pretty much a vengeance plot. Guy says, “Help me get revenge.” Girl says, “What will you give me?” He says, “Whatever you want.” And they fall in the love in the meantime. Kelly Bowen is new to me. I thought her writing was very good, but I thought that the trauma and backstory of the mysterious hero was overwrought. I don’t mean to say trauma can’t be… well, traumatic, but just there was something almost sadistic about the amount of suffering he was made to go through here.

Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez: This novel is set at Tawawa House, a holiday resort in Ohio where white men would bring their enslaved Black mistresses. I was fascinated by this little slice of history – about what would motivate a man to bring his enslaved mistress to a resort and what it was like for the women to leave the plantation. The novel centers around a group of six slaves who meet at Tawawa House and the friendships they form and how their lives shift as they return to the resort year after year. Not going lie – this book was a challenging and gut-wrenching read, as one would expect of a book centered around the lives of a group of slaves. There is a lot of brutal sexual assault depicted as well as the mental and emotional and physical cruelty of slavery. Even still, I found this book gripping, as it followed the main character and her conflicted relationship with her master.

Index, A History of the by Dennis Duncan – The title pretty much says it all. I found this book fascinating. Duncan delves into the history of how we categorize, track and find information in the books that we read. The book is a little dry, very witty and definitely nerdy. I mean there is a whole chapter about page numbers. I take page numbers for granted, but Duncan points out that page numbers were kind of useless before the printing press was invented then goes into the history of page numbers including what is one of the earliest surviving page numbers. Also, apparently indexes were controversial when they first became a thing because people thought that scholars would just read indexes rather than the real text. Also – did you know there was a society of professional indexers? I guess someone has to create an index, but it had never occurred to me before that that could be a profession. And in our world of AI and Google and e-book search functions – are professional indexers going to be obsolete? Duncan does provide an example of a computer generated index and a human generated index of this book, and one can certainly tell the difference. Indeed, the human generated index is one of the most amusingly tongue in cheek things I’ve read in a while. Definitely don’t skip reading the index of this book if you read it.

Unshuttered: Poems by Patricia Smith – Smith collects nineteenth century photographs of Black people and this volume of poetry was inspired by those photographs. Photographs of Black people of the time are very rare as Black people did not often have the money or freedom to have their portraits taken. For each photograph in this volume of poetry, Smith has written a poem that speculates as to whom the subject is. Both the pictures and the poems are haunting.

Slay by Brittney Morris – YA novel, our Mother Daughter book club book this month. I heard about this book on the podcast What Should I Read Next and immediately put it on my holds list from the library. This novel centers around 17 year old Kiera who has developed a video game that only Black people can play – the worlds and characters and superpowers were all created with the Black experience in mind. No one knows that she is behind this hugely popular game and when a teenager is killed over the game, Kiera has to decide how to handle the public scrutiny and accusations of “anti-white discrimination” that the game starts to get all while. I thought this was a very thought provoking book – Morris speaks more eloquently about the need for safe spaces and for the difficulty of being unable to assert your own racial identity than any piece of non-fiction I’ve read. At the same time, the book isn’t preachy or didactic – all these thorny issues are wrapped up in a well plotted novel that moves with momentum. I really enjoyed this book. The 11 year old did as well.

On my proverbial night stand:
Wild Genius of the Moors – Still reading about the Brontes. The past couple chapters have had so. much. death. Sad sad times.

Keeper of the Lost Cities by Sharon Messenger: Mother daughter book club book. My daughter suggested this one. She is obsessed with this series about a girl who discovers she has magical powers and leaves her known family and earth.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – as part of Engie’s blogger book club. I’ve never read this book before and am finding it beautiful in its details of time, place, and character.

My Darkest Prayer by S.A. Cosby – I loved his novel Razorblade Tears. This is one of his first efforts and while it is a little rough around the edges, I’m enjoying the prose very much.

What are you reading?

Books Read: March, April, and May 2023

Here we are in June and I haven’t done a book post in a while, so time to catch up. March was a slow month for reading – work was really consuming and I only finished three books. April I had spring break and our trip to get some books in, and also maybe I was just reading easier books? Here’s what’s I’ve been reading the past few months:

Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu. My father gave me a copy of this book – Yu is a Taiwanese American writer; I’m pretty sure my parents know his parents. Interior Chinatown is a quirky novel that tells the story of actor Wallace Wu who has spent his whole life playing “Generic Asian Man” while he dreams of really playing “Kung Fu Guy”, the pinnacle for an Asian actor. The book sometimes reads like a screenplay, sometimes reads like a fever dream, sometimes reads like a diatribe on the Asian American experience. The struggle to assimilate, the conflicting feelings about wanting to assimilate – a lot of the themes of the book spoke to me on a very personal level. I thought this was a really good book.

Four Aunties and a Wedding by Jesse Q. Sutanto, read by Risa Mei – This book is a sequel to Dial A For Aunties, a book I found hugely entertaining. I didn’t love this book as much. Perhaps it was the audiobook experience – the Indonesian accents seemed overdone to the point of caricature and really started to grate on me. Maybe I would have enjoyed reading it better than listening to it. The story itself was amusingly ridiculous, chaotic and madcap.

All Our Names by Dinaw Mengestu – This novel tells two parallel/ intersecting stories of two friends growing up in war-torn Uganda and of a woman in the Midwest who befriends one of them after he immigrates to America. It is a beautifully written book that explores the idea of how we make our own identity, especially when one has to leave it behind. Some of the book was a little slippery and hard to grasp for me – I couldn’t really tell which were the separate sides of the revolution that were being fought – and there was some violent parts that I didn’t love.

The Dinner by Herman Koch – I bought this book by Dutch author Herman Koch to read during our trip to Amsterdam. I like reading novels related to my travel destination whenever I can. Koch’s novel unfolds over the course of a very fancy dinner in which two brothers and their spouses meet to talk about a very important issue. This was an expertly crafted and suspenseful thriller, which ultimately left me with an “ick” feeling. It’s pretty much a book about horrible people being really unself-aware, doing horrible or idiotic things. This book also featured on of my least favorite plot devices, which I won’t say because it would be a bit of a spoiler. Despite that I found much to admire in the book – it is very well crafted and the satirical food writing is very on point.

Fencing with the King by Diana Abu-Jaber – This novel tells the story of Amani, a divorced poet struggling with writer’s block, who accompanies her father to his homeland of Jordan. Her father has been invited to participate in the birthday celebrations of the King, who had once been his fencing partner. I really like this book – I’d never been to Jordon nor, indeed do I know much about it, and this book immediately swept me on a journey to a foreign country, so immersive was Abu-Jaber’s writing. I don’t usually have patience with main characters who are too driftless in the world, but Amani was at least trying to work through the malaise. This book had family secrets, political intrigue, foreign adventures and a touch of romance. I really enjoyed this one.

Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton – This graphic novel memoir tells about Beaton’s time working in the oil sands of Alberta. This was a grim, uncomfortable read, one that doesn’t shy away from the sexism and casual misogyny and abuse that she faced every day. At the same time, she is able to cling to the kernels of kindness that she finds among her co-workers, and she recognizes that people aren’t bad, rather the oil sands are just in an impossible and toxic environment. I thought the art in this book was beautiful too. This book really stuck with me. (Side note – I thought I was unfamiliar with Beaton’s work, but then in one part of Ducks, she shows herself drawing horses, and I thought the horse looked familiar, and sure enough – it turns out that she had written a pretty awesome book that I had read with my kids – The Princess and The Pony.)

Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine – Read this for my “book club” with my 11 year old. She had read it for school and then handed it to me to read. I thought the book was very sweet and funny – a Cinderella story of sorts, this book tells the story of Ella who is cursed to always do as she is told, and her adventures to break this curse. Prince Char seemed a little too perfect for my tastes, but the 11 year old says that’s what fairy tale princes are supposed to be like.

The Golden Hour by Niki Smith – A graphic novel that was also a mom/daughter book club read. The 11 year old had read it and then given it to me, saying she thought it was really good. This is the story of Manuel, a high school student who is trying to find his way after witnessing an act of gun violence. He finds solace in take photographs and eventually in the friendships that he forms at school. The art in this book is stunning and the climax of the book even more so.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, read by Sherman Alexie – I picked this book up because it was mentioned in the Judy Blume “By The Book” column of the New York Times. After I borrowed it, I realized that Alexie had written a hilarious and surprising children’s book Thunder Boy, Jr. that I had read last year. I guess this book is a YA classic and somewhat controversial, partly for it’s frank talk of sexuality. The novel tells the story of native American teenager Junior, who decides to go to a high school off his reservation, angering his best friend. This book is as hilarious as it is heartbreaking and the last few chapters are absolutely gripping and beautiful. I hear there are some illustrations in the book that I didn’t get to see since I read this on audio. The audio version does have lots of bonus content, though, including an interview with Alexie, where he talks about his inspiration and about how much of the book was autobiographical.

Pride and Protest by Nikki Payne – a modern retelling of Pride and Prejudice, this is a fun and steamy romance novel set in DC, which made it extra fun for me. I love a good Jane Austen inspired spin off and I really enjoyed this one. In this version, Liza is a DJ trying to fight big corporate property developer Dorsey as he tries to take over her neighborhood. But, as in the original Austen, Dorsey is perhaps not the man Liza thinks he is. I loved trying to track the parallels between the original Austen and this modern day interpretation and especially appreciated the freedoms that the characters have when freed from the constraints of 19th century society. I have always felt frustrated by the lack of agency Austen’s women have and how they are bound by the rules of their time, and this modern day version was really enjoyable for me in that Liza doesn’t have to wait for Dorsey to save her family, but takes charge of things on her own.

The Good People by Hannah Kent – I picked up this book from our AirBnB in Amsterdam. I left my copy of The Dinner behind for the next traveler and took this book with me to read on the plane. This historical novel tells the story of Nora, who loses her husband on the first page of the book. Nora lives in a small Irish village and now must look after her invalid grandson on her own. She hires teenage Mary to help her and then becomes more and more convinced that her grandson is a changeling child. Nora seeks the help of Nance, an elderly healer, to bring her true grandson back, and in doing so runs up against both Church and Law. This book is apparently based on a true story. It is such a bleak book. I was really drawn in by the story and the cast of characters, and I thought the writing was good, but there wasn’t a lot of joy to be found in this account of rural Ireland.

Foster by Claire Keegan – This novella reminds me a lot of one of my favorite songs, Knoxville: Summer of 1915 in that it’s told from the perspective of a child who doesn’t know everything that’s going on, but certainly understands the important things. The narrator, whom I think is nameless, is sent to live with an older couple so that she is out of the way while her mother carries her next child to term. It’s a quiet story, just as love sometimes is.

Picture books that we (I) liked:

Sugar in Milk by Thrity Umrigar – a story about immigration and finding room for everyone.

If You Come to Earth by Sophie Blackall – I love Sophie Blackall’s books – the illustrations are always so lovely. In this book, a young child tells aliens what they can expect to find on our planet.

Green Pants by Kenneth Kraegel- We loved this story about Jameson who will only wear green pants. He is faced with an impossible dilemma when asked to be in his beloved cousin’s wedding because, well, tuxedo pants aren’t green.

In the Neighborhood by Rocio Bonila – In this neighborhood, everyone keeps to themselves. Until one day….

Peace is an Offering Words by Annette LeBox, Pictures by Stephanie Graegin – So I was at the library counter checking out books one day, and behind the counter, I saw the back of this book on a cart to be re-shelved:

Books with Aisian children always catch my eye, so I asked the librarian if I could see the book and then if I could borrow it. The book turned out to not be about Asian kids, but about people in general -the text poetically reminds us of ways we can find and extend peace in the world. This is a lovely, quiet book that the kids asked for repeatedly at bedtime.

On my proverbial night stand:

Index, A History of by Dennis Duncan – There is a whole chapter about page numbers. This is a very nerdy book, full of interesting tidbits about how we read and categorize things.

The Chuckling Fingers by Mabel Seeley- Murder mystery from the 1950s. A little melodramatic.

Wild Genius on the Moors by Juliet Baker – yes, still. There is now scandal involved in the Bronte family and it’s engrossing.

Year of Miracles: Recipes of Love + Grief + Growing Things by Ella Risebridger – a essay book with recipes or a cookbook with essays? Some really eloquent and thoughtful writing here.

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett – full cast audio book production. Very funny and on point.

Books Read – February 2023

Random book habit though this month: After I finish a book, I will go back and re-read the first two or three chapters again. I find by the time I get to the end of a book, I often don’t remember the first few chapters, and I like to remind myself how the story starts; there are often details that pop out at me that I hadn’t noticed before, but which feel richer having read the whole book. Often the characters have changed or grown, so it’s fun to see what they were like at the beginning. I very rarely re-read entire books, though. What about you?

Would Like To Meet by Rachel Winters– This was a cute but ridiculous romance-ish novel that the I picked up because the 11 year old found it at the Little Free Library at the pool, and I jokingly said, “We should have a book club!” So she read it and then handed it to me. The premise: Evie works as an assistant to an agent whose major (only) client is an Oscar winning screenwriter who is behind on delivering a script for a rom com. The screenwriter has writer’s block because he thinks romantic comedies are unbelievable, so Evie decides to show him that the “meet cute” really does exist by attempting to have a “meet cute.” Hijinks ensue. This is a decidedly mediocre yet amusing romance novel. Evie is a bit too much of a door mat for my liking, but her friends are fun and the meet cutes that she engineers have their own charm.

Dante and Aristotle Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz, read by Lin Manuel Miranda – Truth, I chose this audio book because it was narrated by Lin Manuel Miranda. This YA novel tells the story about Ari, who can’t swim, and Dante whom he meets at a pool, and who offers to teach him. Over the course of a summer and the following school years, the two Mexican-American teenagers develop a deep friendship that grows into more. It’s the kind of book that meanders along, much like life, until something really dramatic happens, then people pick up the pieces and try to keep moving forward. I thought it really captured the inertia of the teen years – the way that things often seem like they won’t ever change then life turns a corner and suddenly things will never be the same. There were some pacing issues with the book, but I did love all the characters, especially Dante who was kind of quirky and unselfconsciously so.

I’m only Wicked with You by Julie Ann Long – I really enjoyed Long’s Pennyroyal Green series. This is the latest in her Palace of Rogues series. I thought the ending had everything I love in a romance novel ending, but the rest of the book took a looooong time to get there. Forced marriage isn’t my favorite romance novel trope and when two characters spend too much time not liking each other, I get impatient. I mean I like witty banter as much as the next person, but a lot of the banter in the first part of the book was just caustic and mean. Once the two main characters started getting along and liking each other, I really started to enjoy this book.

My Plain Jane By Brodi Ashton, Jodi Meadows, and Cynthia Hand– I picked this up because I found the first book of this series, My Lady Jane, really charming and was eager for more of the same. Like My Lady Jane, My Plain Jane is a retelling of a known story (Jane Eyre) with some twists, turns, and magical elements. This novel features Charlotte Bronte and her good friend Jane Eyre as ghost hunters, and the plot revolves around the secret society they come to work for. I thought the book was really clever; the authors did not shy away from the problematic issues of the original source material; explaining the whole “How does the 19 year old fall in love with a manipulative man twice her age, and who is that in the attic?” is actually the backbone of the story. Even still, this book was very chaotic with huge plot holes and coincidences galore that I just found ridiculous after a while. Reading this book made me realize that one thing I loved about My Lady Jane was the audio book narrator – I just didn’t have the right dry witty tone in my head when I read My Plain Jane to myself.

Mercy Street by Jennifer Haigh – Surprisingly funny book about lives that intersect, either directly or indirectly, around a Boston abortion clinic. I thought the character portraits of people on both side of the abortion debate were really shrewdly drawn, and I was really sucked into the lives of these character who all were just trying to do the right thing. The anti-abortion protesters seemed like caricatures in their dogmatic beliefs, almost to the point where I felt like that portrait was perhaps a little unfair. The book is not an unbiased view, of course. The main character, Claudia, has worked in the abortion clinic for years and even as she is worn down by the job, she still does it because she believes it’s essential work in a world that is stacked against women. At one point, one character says, that he has no problem with abortion, “as long as there’s a good reason.” And Claudia replies, “There’s always a good reason.”

I have two little things that bothered me about the book – one is that the book felt like a very white telling of the abortion debate – totally understandable because Haigh is a white author, so I don’t know that I should have expected otherwise. I just felt like there was a whole side and demographic missing from how abortion services are vital in this country. The other tick was a stylistic quirk where characters often loose track of time and it would repeatedly be, “months or days”, “after an hour or a month…” etc. Those are the only two I highlighted, but it recurred many times to the point of irking me.

Anyhow, some other passages of note:

“Bring in your pelvis for its twelve-month check up. Failure to perform scheduled maintenance may void warranty.” – made me laugh out loud. Yeah, I feel like that some days. Like the body is a machine and I’m not following the manual correctly.

“Baby Doe had been a person, a little girl who felt love ad joy, who delighted in her pink leggings and giggled when her toenails were painted and who, in the end, felt shock and fear and betrayal and pain. As a fetus she’d been protected by Massachusetts law, the twenty-four week cutoff. As a person she was utterly dependent on a woman who couldn’t raise her and didn’t want to. Once she became and actual person, by Doe was on her own.” I think this is one of the things that frustrates me so much about the abortion debate- people need to be cared for throughout life, yet the resources just aren’t there.

“Deb raised other people’s kids because it was one of only a few things she could earn money doing. The world was full of discarded people, sickly old ones and damaged young ones, and she was a paid caretaker. It said something about the world that this was the worst-paying job around.” – yeah this goes hand in hand with the quote above.

“Married life was like walking around in shoes that almost fit. She wore them every day for two years, and still they gave her blisters. Like most shoes designed for women, they were not foot-shaped.” So when married life gives you blisters – do you get new shoes or just put on some moleskin?

Some picture books that we enjoyed this month (inspired by how Lisa always includes picture books in her reading recaps!) :

Off Limits by Helen Yoon – this was a re-read about working from home. It’s cute and a lot of fun and the kids (and I) totally relate to it, particularly the scene where the child strews Post-It notes alllllll over the room.

The Barnabus Project by the Fan Brothers – This book is about a bunch of misfit toys that escape their confines. It’s a gripping adventure story, and I wish I could find more picture books that had this kind of large scale adventure element to them.

Otis and the Scarecrow by Loren Long – We are new to the Otis the Tractor series – where have we been this whole time? This book had a charming relaxed feel, and I really liked the message about accepting people in all their moods.

Over and Under the Canyon by Kate Messner, art by Christopher Silas Neal – We love this whole series of books – each book takes a deep look at one habitat in nature. The prose is calm and soothing, just like a nature ramble should be. The first one was Up in the Garden, Down the the Dirt, is still probably our favorite.

On my (Proverbial) Night Stand – for some reason I have a lot of books in progress right now, though three of those are ongoing reading projects.

The Brontes – Still plugging away. The drama and understatement of village life is riveting.

Braiding Sweetgrass – The next chapter is quite long so I’m saving it for when I can sit and read it in one go.

Interior Chinatown by Charles Wu – novel set in Hollywood about a struggling Taiwanese actor. It feels especially relevant when Everything Everywhere All at Once swept the Oscars.

Fencing with the King by Diana Abu-Jabar – Amani, a divorced poet, accompanies her father to his homeland of Jordan. So far it’s family secrets and some beautifully descriptive writing about life in Jordan.

What the Fresh Hell Is This by Heather Corinna – still working my way through this book on perimenopause too.

Stay True by Hua Hsu – Memoir about growing up as Asian Americans in America. My father recommended this book to me, and then I heard Hsu give an interview on Fresh Air and thought he said some very thoughtful things.

Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine – the next “book club” book with the 11 year old.

Books Read January 2023

Okay, I literally wrote “January 2022” at the top of this post. When does it sink in? I once read a trick of pre-writing the new year on the first ten checks in your check book – I thought that was a pretty neat hack.

The Nineties by Chuck Klosterman – I’m not sure what Chuck Klosterman is. I mean googling him, he is defined as a “writer and essayist”. I think of him as a cultural critic, though I’m not sure what the qualifications are for that. Anyhow, this book is a collection of essays dissecting the 1990s from a cultural standpoint. I picked it up because I’m always interested in what people say about the times I’ve experienced. Klosterman looks at the decade through the lens of media, the internet, politics, sports, film and other things that were in the public conversation at the time. Klosterman is a cis-gender white male, and that was definitely in the back of my mind as I read the book; while there were some really keen observations in the book, I couldn’t help but to think that there were huge swaths of the American experience in the 1990s that was missing from the book. To be fair, he does acknowledge that his viewpoint is rather specific (as would anyone’s viewpoint be.). There is also a huge amount of snobbery in this book – for example, he skewers Titanic as a movie without merit, which dismisses the pleasure of watching a popcorn movie for the thrill of the moment. (He writes, “Yet the single most interesting thing about Titanic is its total commitment to expressing nothing that could be construed as interesting, now or then.” I mean I think a huge ocean liner sinking is pretty fascinating myself). All that notwithstanding, I thought there were some really thoughtful things going on in this book about how we (or at least the “we” that have the luxury of an examined life) live and think about our place in the world.
Some food for thought:
Most of the time, the skewed recollections [of our conversations] dwell on pop cultural ephemera – the precise spellings of minor consumer products, iconic lines of dialogues that are both famous and incorrect, and the popularity of a children’s movie staring the comedian Sindbad that does not exits. The most unhinged explanation for this phenomenon involves quantum mechanics and the possibility of alternative realities; the most rational explanation is that most of these memories were generated by people of the early nineties, a period when the obsession with popular culture exponentially increased without the aid of a mechanism that remembered everything automatically.
One of Klosterman’s points in the book is about how the 90s was the last decade when it was okay not to know something, to live with the uncertainty since we couldn’t immediately fact check everything. Once we could easily Google things on our phone, being correct became much more standard and expected. This thought made me think about the benefits of living in uncertainty – of being okay with knowing that you don’t really know if something is 100% correct. It seems like it would be hard and freeing at the same time.

In the nineties, when a semi-educated young person was asked to identify the root cause of most American problems, the probably answer would not have been capitalism. The more likely response would have been commercialism. … The problem of commercialism is the motive, and that can be recognized in how the thing is packaged. This differs from a hatred of capitalism, where the problem is the thing.
I thought this an interesting point. He explains that it’s the difference between hating Christmas and hating Christmas Carols played before Thanksgiving. But again, also his elitism is showing because what does “semi-educated” mean anyway?

The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi – Set in present day Nigeria, this novel is centered around Vivek Oji, who he was, how he died and the community surrounding him. I wasn’t expecting a mystery novel when I picked it up, but that’s what it evolved to be. I think the relationships of the people in this novel was my favorite part. Vivek was part of a large, loving, and complicated community and I loved how everyone loved Vivek in their own way. His mother, in particular, in her tenacity to find out the truth of her son’s death, was heartbreaking. The writing is beautiful, almost poetic, and so immersive. I went into the book not having read the “back” so it took me a while to see where the story was going. The chapters alternate viewpoints, some told in first person and some in third person and there were so many characters it was hard for me to follow the narrative thread. I think I would have liked this book much better if I could have sat down and read it all in one sitting because reading it a little at a time over several weeks just made it feel really disjointed.

The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun – Romance novel set in the world of a Bachelor-type reality show. Charlie, an awkward tech wizard whose career is in flames agrees to be the latest Prince Charming in order to rehab his reputation. Dev, one of the show’s producers is assigned to be Charlie’s handler. As Dev helps Charlie navigate the women vying for his hand, the two become close. I have to admit, I didn’t completely buy that Dev and Charlie could get so close (physically and emotionally) without *anyone* on the show figuring it out and calling them on it. (Well, no one did until about 3/4 of the way through the book.) Or that it took them so long to figure out their feelings for each other. But maybe that’s just a testament to how messed up it is to be on a reality tv show? The other thing I didn’t love was the way the women on the show were portrayed, at least initially. I get that when you have thirty women trying to win the same guy there are going to be some stereotypical girl fighting and cattiness, but all the contestants felt really two dimensional until it was down to the last few and even still, now I can’t remember a thing about them. Despite all that, I did enjoy this book a lot because of the romantic leads and the peek inside making a reality television show. Dev and Charlie were both really nice and sweet guys with believable emotional baggage to figure out, there was a good amount of tension and chemistry between them.

Any Other Family by Eleanor Brown – I felt like this book was similar to This is How it Always Is in that it’s a parenting fable disguised as a novel. It’s the story of three mothers linked by the fact that their adopted children all have the same birth mother. The families have gathered for a vacation and get the news that the birth mother is pregnant again, bringing up questions of if they should adopt the new child or find a new family. A lot of the book is about how people create their idea of family. Each chapter alternates being told from a different woman’s point of view, which really highlights how one’s outward appearance can belie that doubts and anxieties within. I really liked that aspect of the book – the person who seems to all have it together in one chapter is seen to be barely holding on inside in the next, and how no one sees one’s flaws as deeply as oneself. Even still, I feel like between this book and This Is How It Always Is and The School For Good Mothers, I’m a little tapped out on “the difficulties of mothering” novels for a while. It was well written and very readable, but I just need a break from tales of exhausted mothers.

Lots of passages of note:
Violet wakes up. Elizabeth closes her eyes to pray for strength, then open them and forces a smile onto her face. “Hello, sweet girl,’ she says, pretending to be the cheerful mother she knows she ought to be, and the the withered thirty-something husk of a woman who hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in far too long. Violet begins to wail. You can’t bullshit a bullshitter.
Yup.

“Look. Things change. This is a fact of life. But you have survived one hundred percent of the changes in your life so far, which means the odds are high you’re going to survive whatever comes next, even if you don’t know what it is right now.”
One character says this to her rising middle-schooler. I need to file this away to say to my kids some day.

“The thing is, you’re going to be a lot of different mothers over the course of Violet’s life. It could be that you don’t like being this mother this infant mother, and no one would blame you for that, not a bit. it’s really hard. They’re energy vampire, and they take so much and give so little. But it won’t always be this way. She’ll be Tate and Taylor’s age and Phoebe’s age, and you’ll be the mom she needs then, and you’ll like some of those stages a whole lot more, and some of them probably less. None of this is written in stone. There’s no finish line in parenting, no end to it. We just have to be in it with them the whole time.”
It’s stuff like this that makes this book feel like a parenting manifesto disguised as a novel. There is a lot of wisdom to it, though.

On My Proverbial Night Stand Currently…

The Brontes – Still. Charlotte Bronte is now in her late teens. I had a moment of pause when I realized that she is already halfway through her short life.

My Plain Jane – A twist on Jane Eyre written by the team that wrote My Lady Jane. Amusing so far, though a little chaotic. Fun to read in conjunction with the Bronte biography.

Braiding Sweetgrass – Reading a little bit at a time. This week, I highlighted this passage: “The marvel of a basket is in its transformation, its journey from wholeness as a living plant to fragmented strands and back to wholeness again as a basket. A basket knows the dual powers of destruction and creation that shape the world. Strands once separated are rewoven into a new whole. The journey of a basket is also the journey of a people.”

What the Fresh Hell Is This? Perimenopause, Menopause, other Indignities, and You – Because I turned 40 and then thought… gosh I wonder what’s next. (I did read, and didn’t love, The Menopause Manifesto, so I’m interested if this take on the issue will resonate with me any more…)

I’m Only Wicked With You – Romance novel by Julie Anne Long, part of her Palace of Rogues series. Not loving it as much as the first two books in the series but not hating it enough to quit quite yet.

Books Read – December 2022

The last Books Read for 2022!

Husband Material by Alexis Hall – This was the sequel to Boyfriend Material, which I had read earlier this fall and adored. In this book, the main characters Luc and Oliver, contemplate getting married as it seems like everyone around them does. (I think it was in no small part inspired by Four Weddings and a Funeral. Also – incidentally, I was poking around Alexis Hall’s blog and he has a series of posts dedicated to watching every single movie that Hugh Grant ever made, which makes for delightful reading.) I didn’t feel like Husband Material was quite as good as Boyfriend Material – there were too many silly side plots – but I still really enjoyed this book; it was fun, funny, cute, had a big heart, and explored some nice themes about what commitment looks like. I love the idea of a romance novel sequel and seeing how characters continue to grow – life doesn’t end after “happily ever after” and this book felt like there was some really credible personal growth going on. Oliver continues to be swoony and regimented, Luc continues to be an adorable mess.

Joan is Okay by Weike Wang – I almost didn’t read this because I didn’t care for Wang’s first book Chemistry. I’m glad I gave this book a chance because I ended up liking it so much better than Chemistry. The main character, Joan, is a Chinese American ICU doctor and in this novel, she is grappling with the death of her father in China and her mother’s subsequent move back to the the US from China, while trying to figure out how to just go back to life as usual when life keeps changing. A lot of the questions Joan asks herself about being the child of immigrants felt like questions that I have wondered myself. I liked this better than Chemistry because Joan was actually contemplating these questions, whereas the main character in Chemistry just sort of drifted through life without a lot of self awareness. Some highlights I made:

You made zong zi? I asked, the entire breakfast table covered in food. I had to, she [Joan’s mother] said. Yesterday I was so bored, and this was the most time-consuming thing I could think of to do.
This made me laugh because my mother also makes zong zi – sticky rice filled with meat and peanuts and then wrapped in bamboo leaves and steamed. I love zongzi, but yes, they do take a lot of work to make – it’s a multi day process.

Director, the first time I put on my white coat, it felt like home. From having moved around so much and with no childhood or ancestral home to return to, I didn’t think myself capable. I didn’t prioritize home or comfort, because if everyone did, then immigrants like my parents, brother, and sister-in-law couldn’t exist. Home was not a viable concept for them until later, and it wasn’t a concept for me until the day I put on that coat, this coat. I pulled at my white lapel to show him. From then on, I knew that my occupation would become my home. To have a home is a luxury, but now I understand why people attach great value to it and are loyal to defend it. Home is where you fit in and take up space.
This exchange with her boss – I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of people leaving their home to make a life in a new country and how these immigrants contribute to their new country. What were the forces that pull someone away from the place they were born? I think maybe not all people give home the same weight in the calculus of life choices.

The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish – I picked up this book for two reasons: 1) I wanted a lengthy tome to read this winter, and this one clocked in at 592 pages, and 2) the blurb compared it to Possession, which is a book I loved. This novel tells two intertwined stories, both set in England, separated by 400+ years; in the present day, two scholars try to unravel a historical mystery centered around Jewish theology, and in the 1660s we follow the story of Ester Velasquez a young Jewish immigrant from Amsterdam, who is at the center of that mystery. This book didn’t have the same romantic sweep of Possession, but it did have a similar complex, intertwined onion-like layers of plot. I thought this book was so well researched and well crafted and I loved all the details. Reading, I realized that sometimes the difference between a lengthy book and a shorter one is the amount of ink devoted the descriptive details of things, from the smell of the ancient manuscripts in the research library, to the sounds of a seventeenth century theatre… Kadish’s writing is immersive and specific. I’m pretty sure I didn’t understand all the historical points in this book – I had to Google many things – and I think that if I had understood all the history of philosophy or the migratory patterns of Jews in early modern Europe, I may have liked the book more. But as it is, though slow to start and with some awkward info dump narrative devices, this book proved to be a pretty satisfying to sink into. I liked how nuanced the three main characters were. Ester, in particular, is one of my favorite heroines I’ve read in a while – she’s smart and bold to the point of subversive, and doesn’t ever fall into self-pity – I like that in a character. I loved this observation she makes:

“You asked once,” Ester said, “What my mother counseled me about love. But it was her life rather than her words that gave the plainest counsel. My mother was so angered by love’ failures, Mary, that she navigated with spite as her compass. But if you’d seen her, though she was beautiful, you’d have understood how easily the blade of spite turns in one’s hands, and cuts one’s own palms. So that one can grasp nothin, Mary. So that life is … no longer life.”

Also this realization from the scholar Aaron about the uptight reference librarians (both named Patricia), gatekeepers to precious manuscripts:

“… she was among those whose worry took the form of anger at the world for its failure to remain safe.
‘I haven’t seen her in days,” Patricia said, and as if his own troubles had given him new ears, Aaron understood that her terseness was love, that all of it was love: The Patricias’ world of meticulous conservation and whispering vigilance and endless policing over fucking pencils.”

This is How it Always Is by Laurie Frankel – This beautiful book struck me as actually being a parenting fable masquerading as a novel. It’s the story of a family whose youngest son at a very young age decides he is a girl and how the family handles and supports that change. There was so much in this book that I really related to – this line, “Bedtime was a study in chaos theory … Three of his four children were naked, which, while one step closer to pajamas, was still a long way off from bed,” was spot on. And also there was so much of this book that I wanted to hold close to my heart and remember, particularly the theme that hard things are necessary in life. The parents in the book try to make it easy for their child to transition to being a girl, and at one point they are told that just because they made it easy when she is young doesn’t mean they are making the hard part disappear. There will always be something hard and it’s just a question of when their child would have to face it. At one point the husband says, “Easy is nice, but it’s not as good getting to be who you are or stand up up for what you believe in… Not much of what I value in our lives is easy.”

Currently Reading…
The Brontes, Wild Genius on the Moors: The Story of Three Sisters by Juliet Barker – a door stop of a biography on the Bronte sisters. The everyday happenings of a small English town is proving surprisingly fascinating. I don’t imagine I’ll finish it before Spring.

The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi – Someone had listed this as one of their three favorite books, the other two being The Great Believers and The Nickel Boys. These latter two books are two of my favorite reads too, so I thought I’d give this book a try. I started reading it without reading the blurb on the back, so I’m not quite sure where the story is going. (Anyone else dive into books without reading the “back”? I like to do it once in a while with fiction, just to come into a story with fewer expectations.)

The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun – Romance novel set against a Bachelor-like reality dating show. I don’t watch reality dating shows, but I love them as a backdrop for books. I’m so fascinated by how manufactured everything is. A fun romance novel is always a nice way to start the New Year, and this is proving to be just that.

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer – I’ve been slowly working my way through this book for over a year now. The essays are not to be rushed because there is a lot of digest in them, but I’m trying to make the time this year to sit and read savoringly.

And some other books that I’ve started a page or two of, but I’m not sure they will stick.

What’s on your (proverbial or literal?) night stand?

Books Read – November 2022

A surprisingly full reading month. Some good, some not so good.

Dava Shashtri’s Last Day by Kirthana Samisetti – I felt pretty “meh” about this book. The novel is about a very wealthy lady, the self-made Dava Shashtri, who arranges for all her children to come home so that she can spend her last days with them. Secrets come out, families get redefined. I think the main thing I didn’t love about this novel was that I felt like that a lot of the storytelling was kind of … lazy. Throughout the novel diary excerpts, letters (unsent), newspaper articles, etc. were used to tell the reader what the characters were like, and while I love a good epistolary novel (Where’d You Go Bernadette did this so well), in this book these narrative devices just seemed a somewhat contrived and forced way to do some character development. Also … I know everyone has a story, but I think these days I don’t have as much patience for stories about rich people problems.

Shit, Actually by Lindy West – okay, this book was hilarious. Each chapter is devoted to one movie which West recaps while pointing out the sheer ridiculousness of the movie. Some of the chapters were so funny that I read them aloud to the Husband. West points out the sexism, agesim, racism, all the problematic -isms that were (are) pervasive in Hollywood, often to hilarous effect. The title of the book refers to Love, Actually – which I love, but yes, it has some really cringe-y things going on in it.

The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan- This book was really well written and crafted, but it made me so angry. Which, I think, was kind of the point. The novel tells the story about Frida, who leaves her two year old alone at home for a few hours and is sent by the court to a facility that is basically mom rehab. It’s a little dystopian/ Handmaid’s Tale in the way that the women at the facility have no rights and must buy into this very rigid idea of what makes a good mother. Ironically, I was reading Sibling Rivalry at the same time and some of the language that the educators at the facility use is very similar to language in Sibling Rivalry, except in the concept of “mom school”, the words sound like some kind of military state mantra, and for a split second made me question my own faith in parenting books. Anyhow, everyone is miserable, the women are powerless, motherhood is skewered, and fathers get off easy in this novel. I can’t say I enjoyed it but it was certainly powerful and I really understood the way that the mothers in the book were all being judged and expected to hold motherhood as some impossibly high standard. “Unrelenting misery, finely written” is what I wrote in my notes. Some quotes that hit close to home:
“My ex-husband said my custody might be suspended. is that true?”
“Yes, the child will remain in her father’s care.”
“But it won’t ever happen again. Gust knows that.”
“Ms. Liu, this was an emergency removal because of imminent danger. You left your daughter unsupervised.”
Frida fushes. She always feels like she’s fucking up, but now there’s evidence.

The mothers at the school are instructed in how to hug their children:
They shouldn’t hold for more than three beats. Sometimes five or six beats is permissible if the child is injured or has experienced verbal, emotion, or physical trauma. Up to ten beats is permitted in extreme situations. Longer than that will hinder the child’s burgeoning independence.
When I first had my kid, I always wondered what the right thing to do was, even for the intangible….this pretty much sums up some of my internal monologue.

Frida is exhuasted from crouching and squatting and chasing and listening and giving and trying to channel frustration into love.
Yup… every day.

Siblings without Rivalry by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlich – Speaking of which…. I thought this book had some really good concrete ideas for how not to create contentious sibling relations. Which is not to say that kids won’t fight… just that parents can minimize their own role in their children’s antagonism. So many useful things in this book, the big idea is that when we listen to our kids and make them feel heard, they will be less likely to feel resentful of their siblings. A few of my specific takeaways:
– Don’t compare your children. This seems obvious, but I think there are subtle ways of comparing that I didn’t realize I was doing until I read this book. Specifically doling out praise – rather than praise inherent qualities in children, praise actions. Which I know is oft given parenting advice, but I’d never thought of it in context of siblings. When you praise actions, then siblings may be less prone to jealousy because actions can be emulated in ways that characteristics may not be. So a kid isn’t thinking, “Oh I’m not smart like my brother.” rather they think, “Oh my brother studies after school. That’s a good habit. I’ll try that too.”
– When kids fight, address the injured party, not the aggressor. So rather than, “Don’t hit your sister!” you say to the sister, “Oh does your hand hurt? Let’s get it some ice.” Then you show that your attention is on the injury not the action.
– Encourage kids to work things out on their own. Their steps: Narrate the conflict (“It looks like you both want to play with the train.) then let the kids figure it out (“I’m taking the train away until you guys can come to an agreement on how to play with it without fighting.”) I’ve actually tried this several times and it seems to work a lot of the time. I think in the past, I’ve stopped at just taking the toy away, but that extra step of actually telling them to work it out seems to really encourage them to talk to each other rather than sulking in separate rooms.
-In Family meetings avoid deciding things by vote because voting can leave someone feeling as if their opinions don’t matter. Have each person state their case, then state the family values you want the decision to follow. If you do vote, acknowledge the disappointment.

Tiny Habits by B.J. Fogg – I wrote little bit about this book in my last post when I was contemplating my morning routine. Fogg studies behavior science at Stanford, and his book is very organized- he lays out this step by step method he has developed to help cement little habits, with the idea that little habits become big developments or advances. I will say, I think the book is a bit of overkill for learning his method. I mostly read the book because I had heard him on an episode of Life Kit and was intrigued by his ideas, but I think I had expected the book to be more about the science and psychology of cementing habits, but there wasn’t a whole lot of that kind of backing. I don’t think one needs to read his book to incorporate his ideas into one’s life. I did like the lists he had at the back of the book of various examples of simple ways to incorporate tiny habits and prompts into one’s life. Also in the back of the book he has a fun list of ways to celebrate tiny habits – his method is pretty much: brainstorm tiny habits that would fix a problem/ pick one tiny habit and find a prompt for it/ link tiny habit to prompt/ celebrate tiny habit to cement it. One of my favorite is “Look for something yellow.”

My Lady Jane by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, Jodi Meadows, read by Katherine Kellgren – I loved this book, a take on the story of Lady Jane Grey, the nine day queen. Funny, sassy, sweet, smart, this book made me laugh out loud so many times. I’ve always thought Lady Jane Grey’s story was so so sad. I mean, she was basically a 16 year old pawn who lost her life in the deadly games of the court power. I couldn’t see how the authors could give her a happy ending, but they did. There might be a little imaginative bending of historical truths, but I highly approve. Also the audiobook narrator has this deliciously dry tone that made the listening experience a delight. I hear the second book in the series is My Plain Jane, based on Jane Eyre and I’m already planning to read that in January.

Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzales – There was so much I liked about this book, about a wedding planner to the elite living in the Bronx and her politician brother. The writing was great, the characters complex yet understandable, the book tackles themes of racism, classicism and the American Dream in a really sharp and observant way, and the plotting was swift and kept me interested. The book also made me realize how little I know about Puerto Rico, despite it being part of the United States. The two main characters are of Puerto Rican heritage and their complex relationship with the island is one of the main plot points of the book. The book also reminded me a little of The Dutch House in the way that characters in both books have to grapple with saintly absent mothers. I will say, that there was one bit towards the end that kind of just put me off to the book – it was just a plot point, an important plot point, but one that I wish had been handled differently. All in all, though, I thought it was a good read. Some passages I highlighted:

–Olga began to notice that her clients were growing steadily richer while people doing the work were getting compensated in exactly the same way. Even the rich people appeared less content than before. Simply existing seemed an immense burden to them. Their wealth bought them homes that were “exhausting” to deal with, vacations that were “overwhelming” to plan for.

– In the aftermath of the Spice It Up debacle, Olga realized that she’d allowed herself to become distracted from the true American dream – accumulating money – by its phantom cousin, accumulating fame. She would never made that mistake again.

In Olga’s heart there was a pin-sized hole of infinite depth that made every day slightly more painful than it needed to be. She thought of it, this hole, as a birth defect. The space where, in a normal heart, a mother’s love was meant to be.
I thought that was just some really beautiful writing.