Bonfire
Rating: 4/5 | This was an impressive debut novel for Krysten Ritter! I'm not always a fan of thrillers (they're such a rollercoaster ride), but this one was fun to read. She gives you just enough information to know that you have all the pieces of the puzzle, if only you could figure out how they fit together. I listened to the audiobook during my Thanksgiving car rides, and I really enjoyed it. (Click the post to read more.)
It has been ten years since Abby Williams left home and scrubbed away all visible evidence of her small town roots. Now working as an environmental lawyer in Chicago, she has a thriving career, a modern apartment, and her pick of meaningless one-night stands.
But when a new case takes her back home to Barrens, Indiana, the life Abby painstakingly created begins to crack. Tasked with investigating Optimal Plastics, the town's most high-profile company and economic heart, Abby begins to find strange connections to Barrens' biggest scandal from more than a decade ago involving the popular Kaycee Mitchell and her closest friends—just before Kaycee disappeared for good.
Abby knows the key to solving any case lies in the weak spots, the unanswered questions. But as Abby tries to find out what really happened to Kaycee, she unearths an even more disturbing secret—a ritual called The Game—which will threaten the reputations and lives of the community, and risk exposing a darkness that may consume her.
Author: Krysten Ritter
Rating: 4/5
“Memories are like fire, and need only a little oxygen to grow.”
This was an impressive debut novel for Krysten Ritter! I'm not always a fan of thrillers (they're such a rollercoaster ride), but this one was fun to read. She gives you just enough information to know that you have all the pieces of the puzzle, if only you could figure out how they fit together. I listened to the audiobook during my Thanksgiving car rides, and I really enjoyed it.
That's how the main character, Abby, feels too. I liked that. A lot of the time with mystery books written in the first person, you end up with a narrator who has to notice everything (so that you, as the reader, will be exposed to it) but not actually think about anything. Not so here.
So the book, as I mentioned, is about a woman named Abby who comes from a super small town. Her experiences there had been terrible: a mother who passed away from cancer, a father who was emotionally distant and abusive, and a group of teenage classmates who literally terrorized her with their cruel bullying.
At the end of their senior year of high school, the school Queen Bee (and Abby's childhood best friend), Kaycee, disappeared. She'd been sick — seizures, vomiting blood, etc. — but after she left, all the other "sick" girls had said they'd been faking for attention, and it all went away. No one heard from Kaycee again.
Now, it looks like Optimal, the plastics manufacturer that literally is the entire town, is poisoning the town's water supply. Abby is an environmental lawyer, so she and her team return to investigate. But once she's back, she can't let go of her nagging suspicions about Kaycee, and an environmental investigation turns into a dangerous and exciting whodunnit.
I was a little disappointed that there were some unresolved questions at the end of this book. I won't give away spoilers, but basically, there were some theories put forth that were never proven or disproven, and it wasn't exactly clear how two of the book's mysteries related to one another.
Still, though, it was an enjoyable story that drew me in and made me want to know how it ended. Impressive first book for Ritter! I hope she writes more.
The Female Persuasion
Greer Kadetsky is a shy college freshman when she meets the woman she hopes will change her life. Faith Frank, dazzlingly persuasive and elegant at sixty-three, has been a central pillar of the women's movement for decades, a figure who inspires others to influence the world. Upon hearing Faith speak for the first time, Greer—madly in love with her boyfriend, Cory, but still full of longing for an ambition that she can't quite place—feels her inner world light up. Then, astonishingly, Faith invites Greer to make something out of that sense of purpose, leading Greer down the most exciting path of her life as it winds toward and away from her meant-to-be love story with Cory and the future she'd always imagined.
Author: Meg Wolitzer
Rating: 5/5
“Greer had noticed, when she was very young, how, looking straight ahead, you could sort of always see the side of your own nose. Once she realized this it began to trouble her. Nothing was wrong with her nose, but she knew it would always be part of her view of the world. Greer had understood it was hard to escape yourself, and to escape the way it felt being you.”
I really, really enjoyed this one. The prose was musical and purposeful and hit you right in the feels, as they say. I thought it was great when I was reading it, but then I switched to audiobook and was even more blown away; the voice acting was a perfect match.
“Your twenties were a time when you still felt young, but the groundwork was being laid in a serious way, crisscrossing beneath the surface. It was being laid even while you slept. What you did, where you lived, who you loved, all of it was like pieces of track being put down in the middle of the night by stealth workers.”
Greer Kadetsky, at the beginning of the novel, is a new college freshman with a legitimate reason to have a grudge against her parents and a boyfriend, Cory, living the life she should have had (or rather, that they should have had together). She has big ideas, but hasn't quite found her voice. But she does find friendship.
She also finds the beginnings of a purpose after meeting Faith Frank, a former feminist figurehead. Then, after college, she finds her way into Faith's employment and on a path that skyrockets her through her 20s.
Along the way, tragedy strikes, mistakes are made, money talks, love hurts, and the world changes. And people change. And Greer changes. And it's really, really beautiful.
“There are some people who have such a strong effect on you, even if you’ve spent very little time with them, that they become embossed inside you, and any hint of them, any casual mention, creates a sudden stir in you.”
I really loved the examination of the power of women's relationships with one another. About how they lift each other up, and how they sometimes tear each other down a little. How they love each other, and how they sometimes don't. But we need each other.
Also, the characters were complex, and Wolitzer gave us everyone's perspectives at least once. It painted a more complete picture of Greer's world and everyone's motivations. For example, at first I loved Cory, and then I kinda disliked him, and then I loved him again, and then I realized that this is how real people are.
If you are big on really literary stories, especially those that involve women and the relationships between them, then this one is for you.
Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger
Rating: 5/5 | I listened to this audiobook in the week or so leading up to the 2018 midterms, and I actually had it in my ears as I voted. I finished it that evening, before the elections were decided. That was an excellent choice. (Click the post to read more.)
In the year 2018, it seems as if women’s anger has suddenly erupted into the public conversation. But long before Pantsuit Nation, before the Women’s March, and before the #MeToo movement, women’s anger was not only politically catalytic—but politically problematic. The story of female fury and its cultural significance demonstrates the long history of bitter resentment that has enshrouded women’s slow rise to political power in America, as well as the ways that anger is received when it comes from women as opposed to when it comes from men.
With eloquence and fervor, Rebecca tracks the history of female anger as political fuel—from suffragettes marching on the White House to office workers vacating their buildings after Clarence Thomas was confirmed to the Supreme Court. Here Traister explores women’s anger at both men and other women; anger between ideological allies and foes; the varied ways anger is perceived based on its owner; as well as the history of caricaturing and delegitimizing female anger; and the way women’s collective fury has become transformative political fuel—as is most certainly occurring today. She deconstructs society’s (and the media’s) condemnation of female emotion (notably, rage) and the impact of their resulting repercussions.
Highlighting a double standard perpetuated against women by all sexes, and its disastrous, stultifying effect, Traister’s latest is timely and crucial. It offers a glimpse into the galvanizing force of women’s collective anger, which, when harnessed, can change history.
Author: Rebecca Traister
Rating: 5/5
"...Senator Mitchell's approach had been 'Let's keep things under control, under control.' The women's insistence they get to talk, that they got to insisted that Hill get to tell her story, was the moment that George Mitchell lost control.
Yes, things were out of control. That was the point. Because control was when no one was able to report the story of Harvey Weinstein raping women; control was Donald Trump getting elected president, thanks to voter suppression and the electoral college systems designed to suppress, and better control, nonwhite populations. Control was the unchallenged reigns of Bill O'Reilly and Roger Ailes and Bill Cosby. Control was women being too terrified to defy Eric Schneiderman by telling of how he hit them; control was ensuring that no one cared about the abuses sustained by Ford factory employees or flight attendants; control was all male presidents and vice presidents; control was only two black women senators and no black women governors in the history of the country; control was marital rape being legal to the seventies; control was slavery and locking women in unsafe shirtwaist factories. Control was Jordan Peterson's Taoist white serpent, thrust at us against our will."
I listened to this audiobook in the week or so leading up to the 2018 midterms, and I actually had it in my ears as I voted. I finished it that evening, before the elections were decided. That was an excellent choice.
Traister does a great job of picking back through our country's history, calling attention to the ways women's anger shaped the world. She acknowledges all the hesitations women feel around their angry emotions, picks them apart, and helps you to see that they are, in fact, okay.
This book is not a rallying cry to anger. She is not trying to make women angrier or convince them to go on tirades through the streets. Instead, she reminds you that the tirade you already want to go on is justified and normal and could actually have an impact, and that women (mostly black women; shout out to the black women for real) have been going on tirades to make change for centuries. She has facts and anecdotes and she's powerful and convincing.
I think what I learned the most from this book was that, as a white woman, my anger is new. But women's anger is not new. Women of color and women in oppressed groups have been angry for a long time, and they know what they're doing. So we don't need to build a new fight; we simply need to join theirs.
This was my favorite quote, and the one that I remembered as I went to bed while they were still counting the ballots:
“Consider Shirley Chisholm, who cried when she was mad, and who didn’t win. She lost. And yet. She pulled Barbara Lee into politics. Barbara Lee, who was the only person in Congress to vote against the AUMF, which she has been trying to repeal ever since; a fight she has also lost. Barbara Lee, who pioneered a bill in 2015 that would overturn the Hyde Amendment—a major step forward for poor women on an issue that no one had dared to touch since the 1970s. Lee’s bill went nowhere. But enthusiasm for her efforts would help opposition to Hyde to find its way into the presidential agenda of Hillary Clinton. Who lost. And whose loss helped spur the entry of perhaps tens of thousands of women into electoral politics and provoked this country to take women’s experiences of sexual harassment seriously for the first time. Some of those women will lose, too. But that will not be the end of the story either.”
Uncensored: My Life and Uncomfortable Conversations at the Intersection of Black and White America
Rating: 5/5 | Zachary Wood is an impressive person. He wrote his memoir like he lives his life: free of judgment, open to interpersonal connection, assertive but not aggressive, and with plenty of room for the reader to maintain his or her dignity and opinion. He seeks to understand, to connect, to challenge assumptions, and to broaden both his and his readers' understanding of the world. (Click the post to read more.)
As the president of the student group Uncomfortable Learning at Williams College, Zachary Wood knows all about intellectual controversy. From John Derbyshire to Charles Murray, there's no one Zach refuses to debate or engage with simply because he disagrees with their beliefs—sometimes vehemently so—and this controversial view has given him a unique platform on college campuses and in the media.
But Zach has never shared the details of his own personal story, and how he came to be a crusader for open dialogue and free speech. In Uncensored, he reveals for the first time how he grew up poor and black in Washington, DC, in an environment where the only way to survive was to resist the urge to write people off because of their backgrounds and their perspectives.
By sharing his troubled upbringing—from a difficult early childhood filled with pain, uncertainty, and conflict to the struggles of code-switching between his home in a rough neighborhood and his elite private school—Zach makes a compelling argument for a new way of interacting with others, in a nation and a world that has never felt more polarized. In Uncensored, he hopes to foster a new outlook on society's most difficult conversations, both on campus and beyond.
Author: Zachary Wood
Rating: 5/5
"Without [the exceptional circumstances that allowed me upward mobility], my life would likely have been just like the other kids' in Bellevue. I could have had a dad in prison, a mom who was desperately trying to make it and didn't have the time or energy to give me love and support, and teachers who were sick and tired of my black ass and just wanted me to sit down and be quiet. The drugs, the violence, and the hostility—that was years of oppression and accumulated disadvantages coming out. I knew where that came from. Despite my relative advantages, I felt it every day. But I was also determined to make the most of my unique opportunities and hopefully use them one day to make a difference. And I could do that only by avoiding the traps that were laid at every turn for me and all the other kids like me."
Zachary Wood is an impressive person. He wrote his memoir like he lives his life: free of judgment, open to interpersonal connection, assertive but not aggressive, and with plenty of room for the reader to maintain his or her dignity and opinion. He seeks to understand, to connect, to challenge assumptions, and to broaden both his and his readers' understanding of the world.
Zach grew up in his mother's house. She had significant mental health issues and was both physically and emotionally abusive. Nevertheless, Zach learned to read early and escaped into books. But not fiction—instead, he learned anything and everything he could. Even after he left his mother's house, he drove himself into the ground (literally) trying to learn, to make himself useful, to be helpful, to defy stereotypes, to change the world. I have never met anyone in my life with a work ethic like Zach's. It is hard to even believe.
Once he got to Williams College, he became involved with a student group called Uncomfortable Learning. Under his leadership, the group sought to bring speakers to campus who held radically conservative viewpoints—the most extreme of the extreme. His fellow students fought him tooth and nail, wishing to protect the safe space their campus had become for them. But he wanted to debate, to push everyone to think harder and deeper. This did not often make him popular, but it did make a statement. It also brought him national attention.
Zach states several times in his book that he wants to run for President one day. I hope he does; while I obviously can't decide whether I'd vote for him just by reading this book, his willingness to debate both sides of an argument and his ability to do so in a smart, respectful, effective way is sorely needed in the Democratic Party.
I tore through his memoir in just one day. It reads very well, and it opened my eyes to a perspective and set of experiences that my privileged upbringing never exposed me to. That alone is worth the time to read this book.
Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions
Rating: 5/5 | Tell Me How It Ends is a short, concise, but hard-hitting work of literary nonfiction. It made me think about an issue that I haven't let myself think about to deeply, and it humanized it more than numbers and statistics ever could. This will only take you a few hours to read. Do it. (Click the post to read more.}
Structured around the forty questions Luiselli translates and asks undocumented Latin-American children facing deportation, Tell Me How It Ends (an expansion of her 2016 Freeman's essay of the same name) humanizes these young migrants and highlights the contradiction of the idea of America as a fiction for immigrants with the reality of racism and fear both here and back home.
Author: Valeria Luiselli
Rating: 5/5
"I hear words, spoken in the mouths of children, threaded in complex narratives. They are delivered with hesitance, sometimes distrust, always with fear. I have to transform them into written words, succinct sentences, and barren terms. The children’s stories are always shuffled, stuttered, always shattered beyond the repair of a narrative order. The problem with trying to tell their story is that it has no beginning, no middle, and no end."
Tell Me How It Ends is a short, concise, but hard-hitting work of literary nonfiction. It made me think about an issue that I haven't let myself think about to deeply, and it humanized it more than numbers and statistics ever could. This will only take you a few hours to read. Do it.
"Rapes: eighty percent of the women and girls who cross Mexico to get to the U.S. border are raped on the way. The situation is so common that most of them take contraceptive precautions as they begin the journey north."
Valeria Luiselli began volunteering as an interpreter for Latin-American children facing deportation, helping the nonprofit organizations who aid these children understand their stories in an effort to put together a legal defense to help them stay. These organizations have put together a 40-question intake form that attempts to gather the most useful information. It does allow them to begin to help as quickly as possible, but it's not perfect; with only a few weeks to find these children lawyers and put together a viable defense, most of the details from these children's experiences can't get captured on a form.
"They’ve fled their towns and cities; they’ve walked and swum and hidden and run and mounted freight trains and trucks. They’ve turned themselves in to Border Patrol officers. They’ve come all this way looking for—for what, exactly? The questionnaire doesn’t make these other inquiries. But it does ask for precise details: 'When did you enter the United States?'"
Luiselli is Mexican, and she has by now interpreted for many, many children who lived and fought through literal hell to get to the United States. She has heard these children's stories, and she feels the details deeply. She is in a unique position to write this book. It's riveting, profound, and insightful.
"No one suggests that the causes are deeply embedded in our shared hemispheric history and are therefore not some distant problem in a foreign country that no one can locate on a map, but in fact a trans national problem that includes the United States—not as a distant observer or passive victim that must now deal with thousands of unwanted children arriving at the southern border, but rather as an active historical participant in the circumstances that generated that problem....There is little said, for example, of arms being trafficked from the United States into Mexico or Central America, legally or not; little mention of the fact that the consumption of drugs in the United States is what fundamentally fuels drug trafficking in the continent."
I have no critique of this book. Thank you, Valeria Luiselli, for opening my eyes and my heart a little bit wider.
An Ember in the Ashes (Ember Quartet, #1)
Rating: 4/5 | This book was really, really good. There was a good amount of world-building to do, so the first few chapters were complex and slower than the rest. But for good reason: Once I hit a certain point, I took off and never looked back until I hit the end of book 3 (only because book 4 isn't out yet). (Click the post to read more.)
Laia is a slave. Elias is a soldier. Neither is free.
Under the Martial Empire, defiance is met with death. Those who do not vow their blood and bodies to the Emperor risk the execution of their loved ones and the destruction of all they hold dear.
It is in this brutal world, inspired by ancient Rome, that Laia lives with her grandparents and older brother. The family ekes out an existence in the Empire’s impoverished backstreets. They do not challenge the Empire. They’ve seen what happens to those who do.
But when Laia’s brother is arrested for treason, Laia is forced to make a decision. In exchange for help from rebels who promise to rescue her brother, she will risk her life to spy for them from within the Empire’s greatest military academy.
There, Laia meets Elias, the school’s finest soldier—and secretly, its most unwilling. Elias wants only to be free of the tyranny he’s being trained to enforce. He and Laia will soon realize that their destinies are intertwined—and that their choices will change the fate of the Empire itself.
Author: Sabaa Tahir
Rating: 4/5
Thank you Goodreads and Razorbill for selecting me as a Goodreads Giveaways winner and sending me a free copy of this book!
“There are two kinds of guilt. The kind that's a burden and the kind that gives you purpose. Let your guilt be your fuel. Let it remind you of who you want to be. Draw a line in your mind. Never cross it again. You have a soul. It's damaged, but it's there. Don't let them take it from you.”
This book was really, really good. There was a good amount of world-building to do, so the first few chapters were complex and slower than the rest. But for good reason: Once I hit a certain point, I took off and never looked back until I hit the end of book 3 (only because book 4 isn't out yet).
I read this book (as well as all of book 2 and part of book 3) during a 25 in 5 readathon. I hadn't intended to do the whole series, but Sabaa left me no choice. I was hooked.
“Nan always said that as long as there is life, there is hope.”
Laia is a Scholar, a caste of people at the bottom of the totem pole. Long ago, her people ruled and flourished as they sought higher and higher knowledge, but that was a long time ago. Her parents had fought for (and led) the Scholar Resistance, which aimed to stop the killing of their people by the Empire and bring some power back to the Scholars, but they had been killed. At the beginning of the book, Laia lives with her brother and her grandparents.
All that turns upside down in a heartbeat when a group of Masks (hyper-skilled warriors, almost monsters, that fight for the Empire) invades their house. Her brother doesn't seem to be the passive man he'd seemed, seeing as he'd been drawing illegal sketches of Empire weaponry. Her brother is taken, and instead of staying to fight for him, Laia runs away.
Ridden by guilt for not staying to fight, Laia finds the Resistance and embarks on a mission to spy on the ultra-evil woman who leads Blackcliff, the training school for Masks. In return, the Resistance promises to find and free her brother.
Meanwhile, Elias is top of his class at Blackcliff, about to graduate as a Mask. Secretly, he hates it and longs to escape so he can't be made to do the Empire's bidding anymore. But then the holy Augurs decree that the time has come for a new Emperor to be chosen, and Elias is picked to compete. With no way out of the situation that leaves him alive, he has no choice but to fight through the trials. Elias and Laia are thrown together again and again (with significant romantic tension, as you might expect) as each of them battles their guilt in an effort to do the right thing and escape Blackcliff.
“Fear can be good, Laia. It can keep you alive. But don't let it control you. Don't let it sow doubts within you. When the fear takes over, use the only thing more powerful, more indestructible, to fight it: your spirit. Your heart.”
These kinds of books are my guilty pleasure: alternate universes, magic systems, fantastic societies, a burning romance, good vs. evil...the whole nine yards. One thing that usually comes with the territory is battle scenes, and this book is no different. But what I like about this one is that the battles aren't there for battles' sake; they don't ramble on just to be exciting. Each sentence has a purpose, and it never feels like the end of Lord of the Rings when you wish the orcs would just give up already because ewwww.
Also, I absolutely love Elias. He is so raw and human and just plain good. But also strong and protective and determined. Another character, Helene, is also fantastic, although we get a lot more of her in subsequent books. All the characters are round and complex and interesting.
As with any good first book in a series, this one leaves you with more questions than answers. Questions that beg answers. A truly fantastic start to an amazing story.
New Power: How Power Works in Our Hyperconnected World—and How to Make It Work for You
Rating: 4/5 | New Power was a fascinating look at one of the many ways the world is changing. It offers a study of "old power" vs "new power" and suggests ways they can be used strategically together to help effect positive change. The old vs. new dichotomy is straightforward and makes a complex situation easier to understand. They also picked great examples to help illustrate their points. (Click the post to read more.)
Why do some leap ahead while others fall behind in our chaotic, connected age? In New Power, Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms confront the biggest stories of our time—the rise of mega-platforms like Facebook and Uber; the out-of-nowhere victories of Obama and Trump; the unexpected emergence of movements like #MeToo—and reveal what's really behind them: the rise of "new power."
For most of human history, the rules of power were clear: power was something to be seized and then jealously guarded. This "old power" was out of reach for the vast majority of people. But our ubiquitous connectivity makes possible a different kind of power. "New power" is made by many. It is open, participatory, and peer-driven. It works like a current, not a currency—and it is most forceful when it surges. The battle between old and new power is determining who governs us, how we work, and even how we think and feel.
New Power shines fresh light on the cultural phenomena of our day, from #BlackLivesMatter to the Ice Bucket Challenge to Airbnb, uncovering the new power forces that made them huge. Drawing on examples from business, activism, and pop culture, as well as the study of organizations like Lego, NASA, Reddit, and TED, Heimans and Timms explain how to build new power and channel it successfully. They also explore the dark side of these forces: the way ISIS has co-opted new power to monstrous ends, and the rise of the alt-right's "intensity machine."
In an era increasingly shaped by new power, this groundbreaking book offers us a new way to understand the world--and our role in it.
Authors: Jeremy Heimans, Henry Timms
Rating: 4/5
“A key dynamic in the world today is the mutual incomprehension between those raised in the Tetris tradition and those with a Minecraft mindset.”
New Power was a fascinating look at one of the many ways the world is changing. It offers a study of "old power" vs "new power" and suggests ways they can be used strategically together to help effect positive change. The old vs. new dichotomy is straightforward and makes a complex situation easier to understand. They also picked great examples to help illustrate their points.
"Old power" is Apple: A company decides what is best for us, and then they control, market, and sell it. "New power" is Lyft or Airbnb: The crowd creates, manages, and distributes the product. The crowd is the product. "Old power" is the government (ineffectively) telling you not to drink and drive. "New power" is Black Lives Matter growing organically, without a prominent leader.
What I really liked about this book was that while it would have been easy for them, in today's political climate, to categorize old power as "bad" and new power as "good," they didn't. That would be unrealistic and not very useful. What they discover in their analysis of the way the world works today is that both types of power have uses in different situations. How and when to use each one is not a matter of right vs. wrong, but rather of timing and circumstance.
I think this book is especially useful to people who work in marketing, nonprofit, or another industry or role in which they are responsible for affecting the masses to achieve a noble end. Thinking about your toolbox in terms of old and new power is useful and actionable.
The Song of Achilles
Rating: 5/5 | This review is brought to you in partnership with "I may never recover" and "Why did that have to end?" That was SO BEAUTIFUL! I finished it at 6:30 AM (I'm an early bird) and subsequently dissolved into a puddle as I got ready for work—in the best way, of course. (Click the post to read more.)
Greece in the age of heroes. Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the kingdom of Phthia to be raised in the shadow of King Peleus and his golden son, Achilles. “The best of all the Greeks”—strong, beautiful, and the child of a goddess—Achilles is everything the shamed Patroclus is not. Yet despite their differences, the boys become steadfast companions. Their bond deepens as they grow into young men and become skilled in the arts of war and medicine—much to the displeasure and the fury of Achilles’ mother, Thetis, a cruel sea goddess with a hatred of mortals.
When word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, the men of Greece, bound by blood and oath, must lay siege to Troy in her name. Seduced by the promise of a glorious destiny, Achilles joins their cause, and torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus follows. Little do they know that the Fates will test them both as never before and demand a terrible sacrifice.
Built on the groundwork of the Iliad, Madeline Miller’s page-turning, profoundly moving, and blisteringly paced retelling of the epic Trojan War marks the launch of a dazzling career.
Author: Madeline Miller
Rating: 5/5
“Afterwards, when Agamemnon would ask him when he would confront the prince of Troy, he would smile his most guileless, maddening smile. 'What has Hector ever done to me?'”
This review is brought to you in partnership with "I may never recover" and "Why did that have to end?" That was SO BEAUTIFUL! I finished it at 6:30 AM (I'm an early bird) and subsequently dissolved into a puddle as I got ready for work—in the best way, of course.
Retellings are one of my favorite types of fiction to read, and this was no exception. I picked up The Song of Achilles after reading Miller's Circe, which I also loved, and I was not disappointed.
“'Will you come with me?' he asked. The never-ending ache of love and sorrow. Perhaps in some other life I could have refused, could have torn my hair and screamed, and made him face his choice alone. But not in this one. He would sail to Troy and I would follow, even into death. 'Yes,' I whipsered. 'Yes.'”
The story follows the life of Patroclus, known in Greek mythology as the best friend and sworn companion of Achilles. After being exiled from his father's court, he is sent to Phthia, where Achilles is prince. They form an unlikely bond that, in time, blossoms into a true and passionate lifelong romance.
Then the Trojan War begins, and the peace and ease of their lives is changed forever. Their love never does. But prophecies and glory and war are relentless, and the way Miller spins this classic tragedy is hypnotizing and heart-wrenching and so, so beautiful.
“I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.”
I particularly loved how Miller characterized Patroclus. The book is written in his first person, but rarely does he describe his own facial expressions or other nonverbal details. All we get is a few feelings, straightforward dialogue, and every small piece of information about Achilles that could be imagined. The result is a true understanding of the depth of Patroclus' love and a reverberant inference of his emotions.
24 hours later, and I'm still a puddle. I am still in denial that it's over. Don't miss this one.
The Ensemble
Rating: 5/5 | This book was absolutely beautiful—like music. The characters were lovable and flawed, the language was lyrical, the metaphors and themes were perfectly balanced. I didn't want it to end!
Jana. Brit. Daniel. Henry. They would never have been friends if they hadn't needed each other. They would never have found each other except for the art which drew them together. They would never have become family without their love for the music, for each other.
Brit is the second violinist, a beautiful and quiet orphan; on the viola is Henry, a prodigy who's always had it easy; the cellist is Daniel, the oldest and an angry skeptic who sleeps around; and on first violin is Jana, their flinty, resilient leader. Together, they are the Van Ness Quartet. After the group's youthful, rocky start, they experience devastating failure and wild success, heartbreak and marriage, triumph and loss, betrayal and enduring loyalty. They are always tied to each other—by career, by the intensity of their art, by the secrets they carry, by choosing each other over and over again.
Following these four unforgettable characters, Aja Gabel's debut novel gives a riveting look into the high-stakes, cutthroat world of musicians, and of lives made in concert. The story of Brit and Henry and Daniel and Jana, The Ensemble is a heart-skipping portrait of ambition, friendship, and the tenderness of youth.
Author: Aja Gabel
Rating: 5/5
"How were these terrible, beautiful people worth excluding entire sectors of living? Why were they—once unchosen, regular people, colliding in regular ways with other regular people—now linked to each other inextricably, tied by old binds, each breath wound around the breath of three others, like a monster, like a miracle?"
This book was absolutely beautiful—like music. The characters were lovable and flawed and they grew and changed, the language was lyrical, and the metaphors and themes were perfectly balanced. I didn't want it to end!
"They were kindred in their prideful loneliness, the stubborn fermata held blankly in their centers that could just go on forever. They pushed their fermatas against each other, and were something close to satisfied."
Jana, Brit, Daniel, and Henry find one another while pursuing their master's certificate at conservatory. They commit to a career together as a professional quartet, and life begins. The book is divided into four sections and spans over twenty years, showing us their journey as friends, as professionals, and as people.
All four of them have distinct traits, problems, hopes, and fears. I love the way these morph, soften, and sharpen throughout their lives. There are late chapters that, if read next to early chapters, would seem totally incongruous. But the evolution is natural and really beautiful. I think this is true of all people—we are young, we grow, and we change. We are still ourselves, but we are very different people.
“'I think that’s what happens when you love people more, or more people. In here gets bigger.' Daniel tapped his hand on his own bullish chest. 'But out here has to get a little bit smaller,' he said, sweeping his hand around the room."
The book had several strong, recurring themes: that you sometimes have to break something to make it better, that love and friendship is a choice you have to make over and over, that the versions of ourself we are today are composed of all our past selves. I loved these characters, and I wasn't ready to be finished with their stories.
This was the Girls' Night In book club pick for June 2018, and I'm so glad. I'm not sure I would have found my way to it if they hadn't chosen it! This is also going to be an incredible book for discussion—so much to unpack.
Words on the Move: Why English Won't—and Can't—Sit Still (Like, Literally)
Rating: 4.5/5 | Oh. my goodness. If you love words and language, you have to read this book (literally). Actually, I recommend that you listen to it as an audiobook, as I did. McWhorter is delightful and witty and very funny. Plus, a lot of his points depend on the pronunciation of words and inflection, so I think you'll get a lot more out of it that way. (Click the post to read more.)
A best-selling linguist takes us on a lively tour of how the English language is evolving before our eyes—and why we should embrace this transformation and not fight it.
Language is always changing—but we tend not to like it. We understand that new words must be created for new things, but the way English is spoken today rubs many of us the wrong way. Whether it's the use of literally to mean "figuratively" rather than "by the letter" or the way young people use LOL and like, or business jargon like what's the ask?—it often seems as if the language is deteriorating before our eyes.
But the truth is different and a lot less scary, as John McWhorter shows in this delightful and eye-opening exploration of how English has always been in motion and continues to evolve today. Drawing examples from everyday life and employing a generous helping of humor, he shows that these shifts are a natural process common to all languages and that we should embrace and appreciate these changes, not condemn them.
Words on the Move opens our eyes to the surprising backstories to the words and expressions we use every day. Did you know that silly once meant "blessed"? Or that ought was the original past tense of owe? Or that the suffix -ly in adverbs is actually a remnant of the word like? And have you ever wondered why some people from New Orleans sound as if they come from Brooklyn?
McWhorter encourages us to marvel at the dynamism and resilience of the English language, and his book offers a lively journey through which we discover that words are ever on the move, and our lives are all the richer for it.
Author: John McWhorter
Rating: 4.5/5
"Like is a word, and so we'd expect it to develop new meanings: the only question, as always, is which one? So is it that young people are strangely overusing the like from the dictionary, or might it be that like has birthed a child with a different function altogether? When one alternative involves saddling entire generations of people, of an awesome array of circumstances across a vast nation, with a mysteriously potent inferiority complex, the other possibility beckons as a worthy engagement."
Oh. my goodness. If you love words and language, you have to read this book (literally). Actually, I recommend that you listen to it as an audiobook, as I did. McWhorter is delightful and witty and very funny. Plus, a lot of his points depend on the pronunciation of words and inflection, so I think you'll get a lot more out of it that way.
I have always been passively fascinated by the way we use language, both written and oral. I think emojis are such a cool modicum of communication that goes so much farther than simple pictures. The way you can tell someone is angry if they end a text message with a period? So fascinating to me. And this book was about those things exactly, and more. All of it is interspersed with tangible examples from multiple languages and periods of history.
"In terms of how words actually exist in time and space, to think of a word's 'genuine' meaning as the one you find upon looking it up is like designating a middle-aged person's high school graduation snapshot as 'what they really look like.' There's a charming whimsy in it, but still. A person receiving such a compliment often says, 'Oh, please!'—and words, if they could talk, surely would as well."
I learned so many interesting things. For example, did you know that the word overwhelm is as redundant as irregardless? It's true. (Although as I type this, Grammarly's spellcheck disagrees, as do you probably.) Apparently, whelm used to be a word on its own that actually means what we mean today by overwhelm. But people really wanted to emphasize it, so they added over, and it stuck. That's exactly what's happening with irregardless. And literally. Also, did you ever notice how somehow everyone knows nowadays that one exclamation point is simply the polite way to react ("See you there!"), but to express true enthusiasm, the norm is three exclamation points?
Okay, I don't want to give all these things away, but they are so cool. I'm clearly still very excited about it all. Do yourself a favor and listen to this audiobook!
Circe
Rating: 5/5 | Circe was excellent. Miller's use of language is masterful, the story is unique and attention-grabbing, and the combination of the two is powerful. (Click the post to read more.)
In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child--not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power—the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.
Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.
But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love.
Author: Madeline Miller
Rating: 5/5
"Humbling women seems to me a chief pastime of poets. As if there can be no story unless we crawl and weep."
Circe was excellent. Miller's use of language is masterful, the story is unique and attention-grabbing, and the combination of the two is powerful.
The book is written in Circe's first person. Rather than simply starting at the beginning and moving through, her narration feels more like you're sitting beside her near a fireplace while she tells you the story of her life. Interjections along the lines of "if only I had known then what I know now" make this clear and keep you engaged, always looking out toward the end and wondering how you'll get there.
She starts the story at her birth and details a terrible childhood in the halls of her Titan father, Helios. The picture she paints of these gods is one of coldness, selfishness, arrogance, and abuse. It takes her a while to figure out that she does not need to stand for this treatment, although small events show that the strength and confidence she needs do exist inside her.
"I will not be like a bird bred in a cage, I thought, too dull to fly even when the door stands open."
Eventually one of these small moments earns her exile to the beautiful island of Aiaia, where she begins to grow into herself and learn how the world can be both lovely and cruel. Interactions with both gods and mortals—including characters like Hermes, Minos, Dedalus, Jason and Medea, and Odysseus, for example—shape her, destroy her, build her back up, and more. The longer she lives, the more she comes to love the mortals she meets and the world they live in.
We are taken through so many phases of her life, from childhood to confidence to loneliness to abuse-driven cruelty to quiet acceptance to strength. The integration of so many characters and stories from Greek mythology make the book even more interesting, as we are almost getting the "true story" behind these myths—the good, the bad, and the really ugly. Throughout, her portrayal of the women is the best part. We get a side of the story that shows them as strong, fierce beings—some good and some bad, but always round and complex—rather than the edited version all the male poets have "chosen" to portray.
"It is a common saying that women are delicate creatures, flowers, eggs, anything that may be crushed in a moment’s carelessness. If I had ever believed it, I no longer did."
This book was so well-done. Because it was written in the first-person of Circe, the phrasing is god-like but also relatable, which makes it sort of hypnotizing and really enjoyable to read. I loved it.
Lincoln in the Bardo
Rating: 4.25/5 | Lincoln in the Bardo is unlike any novel I have ever read. In fact, the format is entirely unique. But it's perfectly suited to the story (or, perhaps more appropriately, stories) Saunders spins. It left me feeling a little hypnotized, somewhat reverent, entirely intrigued, and hungry for more. (Click the post to read more.)
February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln’s beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. “My poor boy, he was too good for this earth,” the president says at the time. “God has called him home.” Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returned to the crypt several times alone to hold his boy’s body.
From that seed of historical truth, George Saunders spins an unforgettable story of familial love and loss that breaks free of its realistic, historical framework into a thrilling, supernatural realm both hilarious and terrifying. Willie Lincoln finds himself in a strange purgatory, where ghosts mingle, gripe, commiserate, quarrel, and enact bizarre acts of penance. Within this transitional state—called, in the Tibetan tradition, the bardo—a monumental struggle erupts over young Willie’s soul.
Lincoln in the Bardo is an astonishing feat of imagination and a bold step forward from one of the most important and influential writers of his generation. Formally daring, generous in spirit, deeply concerned with matters of the heart, it is a testament to fiction’s ability to speak honestly and powerfully to the things that really matter to us. Saunders has invented a thrilling new form that deploys a kaleidoscopic, theatrical panorama of voices—living and dead, historical and invented—to ask a timeless, profound question: How do we live and love when we know that everything we love must end?
Author: George Saunders
Rating: (4.25/5)
"It is soon to be spring The Christmas toys barely played with I have a glass soldier whose head can turn The epaulettes interchangeable Soon flowers will bloom Lawrence from the garden shed will give us each a cup of seeds I am to wait I said"
Lincoln in the Bardo is unlike any novel I have ever read. In fact, the format is entirely unique. But it's perfectly suited to the story (or, perhaps more appropriately, stories) Saunders spins. It left me feeling a little hypnotized, somewhat reverent, entirely intrigued, and hungry for more.
"The impression I carried away was that I had seen, not so much the President of the United States, as the saddest man in the world."
The premise of the novel is President Lincoln's midnight visit to his recently deceased son's grave. He is seeking comfort, meaning, and a way to continue on. The civil war has just started, and the only person who doubts him more than the American people is himself. How can he be the leader his country needs if he cannot bring himself to optimism? How can he order more death when he has just learned what it is to lose one's son?
But Lincoln is not really a character in the novel. Instead, his trip is narrated and annotated by the remnants of past souls who, having unfinished business or feeling their life was not properly recognized, have not accepted their death and wait for the opportunity to return. They are all unique, with rich backstories and wonderfully metaphorical physical manifestations of that which they feel is unfinished. For example, Roger Bevins III changed his mind mid-suicide, and "even now" lies upon the floor of his kitchen, bleeding, waiting to be found and resuscitated. Here, in this place, his hunger to experience all the beauty of the world, which he came so close to throwing away, manifests as an innumerable quantity of arms, legs, eyes, noses.
Among these is Willie Lincoln, who struggles to understand whether he is meant to go or stay. He is compelled to go, but his father has promised to return.
"Let them have their chance, someone cried from the throng. In this place, we are all the same. Speak for yourself, someone else shouted. And we heard the sound of blows."
"And yet, still: I had my moments. My free, uninterrupted, discretionary moments. Strange, though: it is the memory of those moments that bothers me most. The thought, specifically, that other men enjoyed whole lifetimes comprised of such moments."
No story about Lincoln would be complete without a commentary on slavery and racism. Sauders masters it. The issue is not tangent to the novel, but natural. It is a focus without being the focus. He did a great job of bringing the era's political climate to life and making it so much more relatable than anything I have read before.
I also listened to parts of this book as an audiobook because it has gotten a lot of attention. The book's format is unique, so the audiobook is, too. With a cast of 166 voice actors, including Nick Offerman, David Sedaris, Julianne Moore and Ben Stiller, it is an impressive work of art. George Saunders himself even read one of the main characters. However, I found that the format of the novel made it kind of difficult to follow as an audiobook (or, at least, to get its full effect), so I ended up switching back to print.
At the end of the day, here's my review: Don't miss this one.
The City of Brass (The Daevabad Trilogy, #1)
Rating: 4.5/5 | The City of Brass has absolutely everything you're looking for in the first book of a fantasy trilogy: a beautiful AU with rich history, languages, politics, magic systems, and longtime oppression; a willful female lead who comes from nothing to rise to badass-ness; a devilishly handsome, super strong warrior love interest who is maybe not the greatest person ever but oh gosh you love him; a corrupt but genius and conniving king who is hard to outsmart; and a young rebel prince who knows what's right and is bound to bust out of his shell soon to help save the world. (Click the post to read more.)
Nahri has never believed in magic. Certainly, she has power; on the streets of 18th century Cairo, she’s a con woman of unsurpassed talent. But she knows better than anyone that the trade she uses to get by—palm readings, zars, healings—are all tricks, sleights of hand, learned skills; a means to the delightful end of swindling Ottoman nobles.
But when Nahri accidentally summons an equally sly, darkly mysterious djinn warrior to her side during one of her cons, she’s forced to accept that the magical world she thought only existed in childhood stories is real. For the warrior tells her a new tale: across hot, windswept sands teeming with creatures of fire, and rivers where the mythical marid sleep; past ruins of once-magnificent human metropolises, and mountains where the circling hawks are not what they seem, lies Daevabad, the legendary city of brass, a city to which Nahri is irrevocably bound.
In that city, behind gilded brass walls laced with enchantments, behind the six gates of the six djinn tribes, old resentments are simmering. And when Nahri decides to enter this world, she learns that true power is fierce and brutal. That magic cannot shield her from the dangerous web of court politics. That even the cleverest of schemes can have deadly consequences. After all, there is a reason they say be careful what you wish for . . .
Author: S. A. Chakraborty
Rating: 4.5/5
"He was looking for her. Nahri was the one who had called him.”
The City of Brass has absolutely everything you're looking for in the first book of a fantasy trilogy: a beautiful AU with rich history, languages, politics, magic systems, and longtime oppression; a willful female lead who comes from nothing to rise to badass-ness; a devilishly handsome, super strong warrior love interest who is maybe not the greatest person ever but oh gosh you love him; a corrupt but genius and conniving king who is hard to outsmart; and a young rebel prince who knows what's right and is bound to bust out of his shell soon to help save the world.
The story is of Nahri, who starts as a street rat in Cairo before accidentally summoning Dara, the swoon-worthy djinn warrior. Pursued by ifrit (the bad guys/creatures), he whisks* her off to presumed safety in Daevabad, the city of her ancestors—it turns out she is 50% djinn. Not only that, but she is possibly the last living descendant of a very powerful and magical family that ruled the djinn race for thousands of years before being wiped out by the current regime. (Her lineage is a mystery that will absolutely become way more important in later books, I'm sure.) But Dara has a lot of secrets and an extraordinarily complicated history, and the ruling family is not very happy to see either of them.
All this overlaps with a very complex political situation: the shafit (those who are half-djinn and half-human) have been not only oppressed but persecuted for millennia, and an uprising is bubbling below the surface. There are five different djinn tribes—all with their own cultures, religions, and languages—none of whom get along very well, if at all. The king's eldest son...oh boy. I'm not going to ruin that one for you. And his second son is young but smart with spot-on morals and a lot of skill with a weapon.
*I asterisk the word "whisks" above because their journey to Daevabad takes a tad bit longer than I would have liked. It's important for world-building, but it's the slowest part of the book. Also, this book was highly anticipated because it is by a Muslim author and features aspects of the Islamic faith and traditions. I have read the reviews of a healthy number of Muslim friends and fellow reviewers who were very disappointed in the execution of this cultural focus. Truthfully, it is not much of a focus at all.
However, as far as stories go, I really loved this one. I literally read the last few chapters on my hands and knees because I was so excited and couldn't contain myself or read quickly enough! I really should have known better than to start another trilogy that's not fully published yet. What am I going to do with myself while I wait?
Poor Your Soul
Rating: 5/5 | Reading Poor Your Soul was a beautiful, heartbreaking, moving experience. I found myself almost hypnotized by Mira Pitacin's masterful use of language and perspective. One evening, after I'd read a particularly emotional section of the book, I actually crawled into bed next to my husband and said, out loud, "I feel sad. Sad in the best way." (Click the post to read more.)
Content warning: Miscarriage, fertility, the loss of a child.
At twenty-eight, Mira Ptacin discovered she was pregnant. Though it was unplanned, she embraced the idea of starting a family and became engaged to Andrew, the father. Five months later, an ultrasound revealed that her child would be born with a constellation of birth defects and no chance of survival outside the womb. Mira was given three options: terminate the pregnancy, induce early delivery, or wait and inevitably miscarry.
Mira’s story is paired with that of her mother, who emigrated from Poland to the United States, and who also experienced grievous loss when her only son was killed by a drunk driver. These deftly interwoven stories offer a picture of mother and daughter finding strength in themselves and each other in the face of tragedy.
Author: Mira Pitacin
Rating: 5/5
"Pregnancy. I didn't find it beautiful. I found it disturbing. But can't something be both disturbing and beautiful at the same time? Can't things be tremendous and lonesome at the same time? Simultaneously heartbreaking and glorious? Wasn't that New York?"
Poor Your Soul was a beautiful, heartbreaking, moving experience. I found myself almost hypnotized by Mira Pitacin's masterful use of language and perspective. One evening, after I'd read a particularly emotional section of the book, I actually crawled into bed next to my husband and said, out loud, "I feel sad. Sad in the best way."
Mira accounts the painful experience of having your world turned upside down, learning to accept and even embrace your new reality, and then having it all crumble. And then learning to accept that, too. Despite the fact that she never missed any birth control pills, she and her new boyfriend find themselves pregnant. They get engaged, and then at their first ultrasound, learn that their child will not live. Crushed by the choice before her, Mira ends up choosing the path her doctors, her fiance, and even her relatively parents urge her to make: to terminate the pregnancy. Her grief threatens to consume her as she and her fiance—eventually her husband—struggle to regain some sense of normalcy.
Mira switches back and forth between her pregnancy journey and her childhood, through which we get to see her mother's journey through life and loss. Like Mira, her mother struggled to define herself both within and apart from her family before setting off to find independence and a sense of self. We learn how and why Mira's sense of home, duty, pride, womanhood, and family shaped into what they are today. We see Mira's grief reflected in that of her mother when Julian, Mira's brother, is killed by a drunk driver. We see a tangible illustration of the fact that everyone handles grief differently, and everyone's reactions are valid even if they are not always compatible.
"Mom says that people always remember things the way they want to remember them instead of the way it was, because it was never just one way. That memory isn't what happened; it's what happens over time."
Yes, this book was very sad, but it was also sometimes light-hearted, often uplifting, and consistently beautiful. It offers hope in the fact that we are all human. It offers forgiveness in the fact that we all feel guilty about things for which we should not. And it offers solace in the fact that we are never alone, no matter how lonely we feel.
Mira also uses New York City to help illustrate her themes: the sense of adventure and anticipation, the overwhelming crowds without true connection, the excitement, the ugliness. I live in the metro area, and so I related to these metaphors and loved them. Everyone in New York both loves and hates it, and that is what we love about it—and what we hate about it.
This was kind of a dark horse for me; I picked it up with a friend when we were at the Brooklyn Book Festival last summer, and we read it together. I bought it because it sounded good, but I had no idea what I was in for. I am so glad that I did.
The Power
Rating: 5/5 | The Power was not a light read; it was not comfortable. It was weighty and important composed of layers and layers just waiting to be peeled back. I went into it without any real expectations, but still, I never could have imagined this novel would turn out to be what it is. (Click the post to read more.)
In The Power, the world is a recognizable place: there's a rich Nigerian boy who lounges around the family pool; a foster kid whose religious parents hide their true nature; an ambitious American politician; a tough London girl from a tricky family. But then a vital new force takes root and flourishes, causing their lives to converge with devastating effect. Teenage girls now have immense physical power—they can cause agonizing pain and even death. And, with this small twist of nature, the world drastically resets.
From award-winning author Naomi Alderman, The Power is speculative fiction at its most ambitious and provocative, at once taking us on a thrilling journey to an alternate reality, and exposing our own world in bold and surprising ways.
Author: Naomi Alderman
Rating: 5/5
"You cannot get there from here."
The Power was not a light read; it was not comfortable. It was weighty and important composed of layers and layers just waiting to be peeled back. I went into it without any real expectations, but still, I never could have imagined this novel would turn out to be what it is.
On the Day of the Girls, young women around age 13 suddenly discover that their skein, a previously unrecognized organ over their collarbone, has come alive. Through it, they are able to channel dangerous amounts of electricity through their hands. Some have more power, and some have less, but all the girls seem to have it. New babies are born with it, and the young can wake it up in women older than them.
"The men flinch. The women stare hungrily. Their eyes are parched for the sight of it."
We follow four(ish) different characters' storylines, separate and also intertwined, as the world begins to change. Schools are segregated by gender; men are afraid. Developed societies try to pretend it will go away someday, and countries in which women have long been oppressed discover that they are powerless no longer. Some women hide it, some seek to do good, and some become drunk with their new power. The gender imbalance that exists today, in real life, reverses.
“It doesn't matter that she shouldn't, that she never would. What matters is that she could, if she wanted. The power to hurt is a kind of wealth.”
I have not read anything else like this, either in books or online. It speaks to the pain and anger that many women feel nowadays; what would happen to the world if those feelings were suddenly unleashed? If something tipped, all at once, and striking back was easy? Women are not morally superior to men just because women are oppressed and men are the oppressors. Everyone is a human being, and no matter your gender, power corrupts—totally. "Power has her ways. She acts on people, and people act on her." This isn't something I have ever considered before, and it has already started a major shift in my way of thinking about the world.
Naomi Alderman's writing is superb. Every single word is chosen with care, and nothing means only one thing. It's hypnotizing, in fact. The biblical references throughout are masterful (casual example: "...the imaginations of young people, which are now what they have always been and ever shall be"). Even apart from the character arcs that are definitively biblical, as the idea of God shifts from God the Father to God the Mother, references to religion and the way humanity bends and shapes it to our will is a constant hum in the back of the book's subconscious.
"This is how it works. The younger women can wake it up in the older ones; but from now on all women will have it."
I also think one of my favorite things—one of the things I most admire that Alderman did—was that this power woke up in young women and spread to the older generations. And from now on, the younger ones will have it, the older ones will have it; a tipping point was reached, and the young women changed the way women existed, and none of them can ever un-know what they now know. Does that sound familiar to anyone else?
And the story would have been enough to keep my mind working for a good, long time, but the structure of the novel—and its ending—added so much more. I won't say more on that here because it was so powerful for me to come into it on my own, but wow.
And that recurring quote—"You cannot get there from here"—the depth of that sentence still has me reeling. Are we too wounded to get there from here? To build a world that's good for everyone, so scarred by everything that has come before?
There is so, so much more to be said on this, but I don't think I've even begun to internalize it all yet. I'm really excited to discuss it with other women at a book club meetup in a few weeks. It's one of those books that just need discussion.
Just...trust me. Don't miss this one.
A Man Called Ove
Rating: 5/5 | When I finished this book on my way to work one morning, all I could think was, "UGH UGH UGH MY HEART UGH." I then started my workday as a blubbering ball of pure emotion. (Click the post to read more.)
Meet Ove. He's a curmudgeon, the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him the bitter neighbor from hell, but must Ove be bitter just because he doesn't walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time?
Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove's mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents' association to their very foundations.
Author: Fredrick Backman
Rating: 5/5
“People said Ove saw the world in black and white. But she was color. All the color he had.”
When I finished this book on my way to work one morning, all I could think was, "UGH UGH UGH MY HEART UGH." I then started my workday as a blubbering ball of pure emotion.
Peter Borland, the book's editor, told Off the Shelf, "Sometimes I hear people say they love the book because of how Ove changes over the course of the novel. But that's not true. What's remarkable about the book is that Ove doesn't change at all. Not even a little bit. Instead, once we learn his backstory and understand why he is the way he is, we change—and we fall in love with him." To say that he hit the nail on the head feels like an understatement.
"'Loving someone is like moving into a house,' Sonja used to say. 'At first you fall in love in everything new, you wonder every morning that this is one's own, as if they are afraid that someone will suddenly come tumbling through the door and say that there has been a serious mistake and that it simply was not meant to would live so fine. But as the years go by, the facade worn, the wood cracks here and there, and you start to love this house not so much for all the ways it is perfect in that for all the ways it is not. You become familiar with all its nooks and crannies. How to avoid that the key gets stuck in the lock if it is cold outside. Which floorboards have some give when you step on them, and exactly how to open the doors for them not to creak. That's it, all the little secrets that make it your home.'"
Nobody told me that this book was going to break my heart and then lovingly repair it, over and over again. I was emotionally unprepared for how beautiful it all was. I was heartbroken that this book had to end.
Ove (pronounced OO-vuh—he's Swedish) is a grumpy old man who does the same thing every day. He sees the world a certain way and will never change it. He and Sonja of remind me of the old man and his wife from Pixar's Up. But as we get glimpse after glimpse into his past and perspective, we realize that it would be impossible for Ove to love more deeply or more completely. The way he loves is so pure that I find myself wanting to personally shield him—a fictional character—from anything that could cause him pain.
Backman also uses metaphors masterfully—the cat, the Saab, driving in the residential area, reading Shakespeare, I could go on—in a way that is perfectly balanced between subtle and familiar. The secondary characters are purposeful, delightful, and just as lovable as Ove. And there are so many beautiful lessons to take away from the story.
I could gush about this one forever. It's gonna take me a while to recover. Ugh. Love.
Reset: My Fight for Inclusion and Lasting Change
Rating: 5/5 | Wow. This is the book I didn't know I was waiting for. In this book, Ellen tells the story of how she was repeatedly promised the world and given the gutter at the behemoth venture capital firm where she worked. Then, she spent hundreds of thousands—if not a million—dollars of her own money to challenge the firm in court. She was eventually out-gunned by the firm's greater financial and legal resources, and she lost, but it was close. She had many, many opportunities to settle the case for a significant sum, but chose to surrender her money in order to be able to write this book and tell her story. (Click the post to read more.)
In 2015, Ellen K. Pao sued a powerhouse Silicon Valley venture capital firm, calling out workplace discrimination and retaliation against women and other underrepresented groups. Her suit rocked the tech world—and exposed its toxic culture and its homogeneity. Her message overcame negative PR attacks that took aim at her professional conduct and her personal life, and she won widespread public support—Time hailed her as “the face of change.” Though Pao lost her suit, she revolutionized the conversation at tech offices, in the media, and around the world. In Reset, she tells her full story for the first time.
Ellen K. Pao’s Reset is a rallying cry—the story of a whistleblower who aims to empower everyone struggling to be heard, in Silicon Valley and beyond.
Author: Ellen Pao
Rating: 5/5
"In diversity discussions, we hear a lot about 'death by a thousand cuts'—the toxic effect of all the casual remarks like 'Will you get us some coffee, honey?' or 'Can I touch your dreadlocks?' Sometimes the cuts are a little deeper: 'I can't see you as a manager. I can't quite put my finger on why, but I just don't. And sometimes the cuts—like my friend's "Take one for the team"—make you flip the table and leave.
What I think about these days is our ability, in the course of our lives, to counteract those thousand cuts by giving out a thousand Band-Aids. We can't immediately fix the systemic problems in tech and other industries, but we should do what we can in the meantime. Small cruelties or ignorant comments hurt, and they contribute to a sense that we don't belong. And so for those of us who want to promote inclusion, our job is to give to each other the encouragement that will counteract those moments of disillusionment."
Wow. This is the book I didn't know I was waiting for. In this book, Ellen tells the story of how she was repeatedly promised the world and given the gutter at the behemoth venture capital firm where she worked. Then, she spent hundreds of thousands—if not a million—dollars of her own money to challenge the firm in court. She was eventually out-gunned by the firm's greater financial and legal resources, and she lost, but it was close. She had many, many opportunities to settle the case for a significant sum, but chose to surrender her money in order to be able to write this book and tell her story.
One woman reached out after the trial with the comforting assertion that perhaps Ellen's trial will be like that in To Kill a Mockingbird; it's not the trial's outcome, but the shift in thinking and in the public's hearts, that truly matters. From where I'm sitting, that woman hit the nail on the head.
The boys' club culture she describes in the venture capital industry is the kind of thing you imagine only happened in decades past, and yet it is somehow also not surprising at all. It simultaneously hurts, knowing that we have so far to go, and comforts, knowing that none of us are alone in the double standards we face each day. Because all women have been there. Here are two of my own experiences that stick out in my mind, and I'm only 25 years old:
A business school professor gave me feedback—in front of the whole (mostly male) class—that I should "try not to be so bossy next time" after I'd begun a presentation asking my audience to raise their hands if they'd ever experienced the problem our fictitious product aimed to solve.
I spent an internship reporting to several different people, which meant no one person knew what my workload looked like, and I was responsible for helping several actual employees meet their KPIs. At the same time, the department head would ask me to do things like stuff and stamp envelopes and go to Starbucks to pick up coffees for the whole team (that's 8 coffees) all by myself. I did all the work, but balancing my priorities proved tough. At the end of the internship, he told me that I was "aggressive" and "abrasive" for questioning whether the envelope-stuffing and Starbucks runs took priority over my other tasks.
Ellen's writing is steady and intelligent. She is reasonable and calm and steadfast and relatable. She tells an engaging story that feels important and universal. And she offers hope and actionable next steps for anyone hoping to move the gender-discrimination needle. Even if you are not part of the tech industry, even if you are not a woman—perhaps especially if you are not a woman—I encourage you to pick this one up.
Made to Stick
Rating: 5/5 | I am always looking for ways to learn new things, especially as it helps me get closer to accomplishing my professional goals. As a result, I've read a lot of books in this "self-help-for-business" genre. At this point, I sometimes feel like I've read all the advice before. This book pleasantly surprised me; all of it was engaging and entertaining as well as educational and thought-provoking. I learned something new and related the lessons back to my experiences with every turn of the page. (Click the post to read more.)
Mark Twain once observed, “A lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can even get its boots on.” His observation rings true: Urban legends, conspiracy theories, and bogus news stories circulate effortlessly. Meanwhile, people with important ideas—entrepreneurs, teachers, politicians, and journalists—struggle to make them “stick.”
In Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath reveal the anatomy of ideas that stick and explain ways to make ideas stickier, such as applying the human scale principle, using the Velcro Theory of Memory, and creating curiosity gaps. Along the way, we discover that sticky messages of all kinds—from the infamous “kidney theft ring” hoax to a coach’s lessons on sportsmanship to a vision for a new product at Sony—draw their power from the same six traits.
Made to Stick will transform the way you communicate. It’s a fast-paced tour of success stories (and failures): the Nobel Prize-winning scientist who drank a glass of bacteria to prove a point about stomach ulcers; the charities who make use of the Mother Teresa Effect; the elementary-school teacher whose simulation actually prevented racial prejudice.
Provocative, eye-opening, and often surprisingly funny, Made to Stick shows us the vital principles of winning ideas—and tells us how we can apply these rules to making our own messages stick.
Author: Chip and Dan Heath
Rating: 5/5
I am always looking for ways to learn new things, especially as it helps me get closer to accomplishing my professional goals. As a result, I've read a lot of books in this "self-help-for-business" genre. At this point, I sometimes feel like I've read all the advice before. This book pleasantly surprised me; all of it was engaging and entertaining as well as educational and thought-provoking. I learned something new and related the lessons back to my experiences with every turn of the page.
In my full-time job, I create a lot of content. And I do that for a company that does something typically perceived as boring—insurance—in a way that is actually fundamentally different from everyone else. We have a business model and structure that is specifically intended to fix the things people hate about insurance, and we are purpose-driven and passionate. We have a story to tell, and a message that resonates with people when (if) we can do a good job of telling it. Working for a great company is the easy part (usually...). Making others understand—and care about—that greatness is the hard part.
So many quotes hit home for me. Some are:
"The hard part is weeding out ideas that may be really important but just aren’t the most important idea."
"People are tempted to tell you everything, with perfect accuracy, right up front, when they should be giving you just enough info to be useful, then a little more, then a little more."
"To make our communications more effective, we need to shift our thinking from 'What information do I need to convey?' to 'What questions do I want my audience to ask?'"
"One important implication of the gap theory is that we need to open gaps before we close them. Our tendency is to tell people the facts. First, though, they must realize that they need these facts. The trick to convincing people that they need our message, according to Loewenstein, is to first highlight some specific knowledge that they’re missing."
I borrowed this book from the library, but I think I'm going to purchase a print version so I can re-highlight, dog-ear, and reference it later. It truly motivated me to go to work and try to put this advice into practice.
No wonder this book is so widely read. I wish it hadn't taken me so long to pick it up!
Small Great Things
Rating: 5/5 | This book was not really comfortable, but it was important. In the story, which was developed after Picoult conducted extensive interviews with both Black people as well as former white supremacists, a white supremacist father goes after a Black nurse over the death of his baby. And the world lets him. (Click the post to read more.)
Ruth Jefferson is a labor and delivery nurse at a Connecticut hospital with more than twenty years' experience. During her shift, Ruth begins a routine checkup on a newborn, only to be told a few minutes later that she's been reassigned to another patient. The parents are white supremacists and don't want Ruth, who is African American, to touch their child. The hospital complies with their request, but the next day, the baby goes into cardiac distress while Ruth is alone in the nursery. Does she obey orders or does she intervene?
Ruth hesitates before performing CPR and, as a result, is charged with a serious crime. Kennedy McQuarrie, a white public defender, takes her case but gives unexpected advice: Kennedy insists that mentioning race in the courtroom is not a winning strategy. Conflicted by Kennedy's counsel, Ruth tries to keep life as normal as possible for her family—especially her teenage son—as the case becomes a media sensation. As the trial moves forward, Ruth and Kennedy must gain each other's trust, and come to see that what they've been taught their whole lives about others—and themselves—might be wrong.
Author: Jodi Picoult
Rating: 5/5
“Active racism is telling a nurse supervisor that an African American nurse can’t touch your baby. It’s snickering at a black joke. But passive racism? It’s noticing there’s only one person of color in your office and not asking your boss why. It’s reading your kid’s fourth-grade curriculum and seeing that the only black history covered is slavery, and not questioning why. It’s defending a woman in court whose indictment directly resulted from her race…and glossing over that fact, like it hardly matters.”
This book was not really comfortable, but it was important. In the story, which was developed after Picoult conducted extensive interviews with both Black people as well as former white supremacists, a white supremacist father goes after a Black nurse over the death of his baby. And the world lets him.
In the chapters told from Turk Bauer's perspective, we see how he "joined the movement": attending secret rallies where social activities included target practice at caricatures of Black people and Jewish people; going on a first date that involves bashing gay men's heads against a sidewalk; having a swastika tattooed on your scalp as a sign of love for your wife; reciting marriage vows that include a promise to protect the purity of the white race and fight in the impending holy race war. Eventually, Turk's "movement" goes underground, operating online rather than in the open, hiding in plain sight, where they know they are just as (if not more) terrifying. As I read this book, real-life white supremacists and Nazis gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia. They hurt people. They killed people. They carried swastikas. They quoted Adolf Hitler. They were real, and they'd been hiding in plain sight. How can this be the world we live in?
As a white woman who has all kinds of privilege, I was wary of placing too much stake in this book. I know that being an ally involves a heck of a lot more than reading books by other white women. Picoult also recognized that she was not an authentic voice for the Black community, and I think she did a pretty great job of using the experiences of Black women who helped her, educated her, to inform the story (although I know I am not the right one to judge that). Audra McDonald read Ruth's part in the audiobook, though, so that does make me suspect that Picoult must have at least gotten close.
Picoult is a wildly successful author for a reason. I'm not going to waste your time by telling you that she writes well, that she spins a great story, that her plots and characters are excellent. But the first book I read by her was Nineteen Minutes. She writes important things, and she keeps you fully engaged while she does it.It's not enough for those of us who have privilege to hear that we do.
It's not enough to have our eyes opened to the experiences of those who do not have privilege. We have to hear and see those things over and over, as often as we can, for it to even have a chance of making a difference. This book was a good start—a good way to continue. Read it.
Who Fears Death
Rating: 5/5 | This book will change the way I see the world forever. It is a genre so different and yet so similar to those I have read before, but it made such an impression on me. I am going to read everything Nnedi Okorafor has ever written, because it will make my world better and deeper. How many books can you say have done that for you? Few for me. I cannot recommend it to you highly enough. (Click the post to read more.)
In a far future, post-nuclear-holocaust Africa, genocide plagues one region. The aggressors, the Nuru, have decided to follow the Great Book and exterminate the Okeke. But when the only surviving member of a slain Okeke village is brutally raped, she manages to escape, wandering farther into the desert. She gives birth to a baby girl with hair and skin the color of sand and instinctively knows that her daughter is different. She names her daughter Onyesonwu, which means "Who Fears Death?" in an ancient African tongue.
Reared under the tutelage of a mysterious and traditional shaman, Onyesonwu discovers her magical destiny—to end the genocide of her people. The journey to fulfill her destiny will force her to grapple with nature, tradition, history, true love, the spiritual mysteries of her culture—and eventually death itself.
Author: Nnedi Okorafor
Rating: 5/5
This book will change the way I see the world forever. It is a genre so different and yet so similar to those I have read before, but it made such an impression on me. I am going to read everything Nnedi Okorafor has ever written, because it will make my world better and deeper. How many books can you say have done that for you? Few for me. I cannot recommend it to you highly enough. Who Fears Death had just enough fantasy, just enough feminism, just enough social justice, and just enough beauty to leave me in awe of every word. Okorafor has won a ton of awards for a reason—I couldn't believe her talent.
Onyesonwu is a formidable human being. She is strong and angry. She has power. She is not particularly feminine, and yet also incredibly woman. She is both good and bad, but mostly good. It is hard to wrap your head around her character, but she also finds it hard to wrap her head around her own self, so this isn't surprising. The result is that even though she is magical and powerful, she is also extremely human, and very beautiful.
The other characters in the story begin as very two-dimensional, but as it progressed, I found myself surprised by how much I either loved or hated them. This helped reinforce the theme that all people are human, that no one deserves to be treated a specific way based on superficial impressions, and that the world can always use more compassion.
If you take only one of my recommendations ever, let it be this one. Read this book.