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April 9, 2024

Top Ten Tuesday: C’s Favorites

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly linkup of book bloggers hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl! This week is a freebie, so it felt like the perfect time to highlight some of C’s favorite books! I don’t talk about him overmuch here because the internet is wild and you never know who might be out there, but of course he’s an enormous part of my life and I really hope I am able to impart my love of reading to him! Here are ten books that he’s loved, some of which have come in and out of favor but all of which he has demanded at some point or another.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom: One of my own childhood faves, this has been a reliable hit and is part of our every night routine.

We’re Different, We’re the Same: Sesame Street is golden around here, so he loves this book and finding the parts of his face as well as his favorites on the pages!

Little Pookie: Truly every Sandra Boynton book could be on this list! He loooooves her. He adores the series of books about Pookie the pig.

I Am Sam I Am: Based on Green Eggs And Ham, I have read this board book so often that I have it memorized.

Llama Llama Wakey Wake: Another one where he loves the entire series (we have all the seasonal variations too!).

What A Wonderful World: This one is the lyrics to the Louis Armstrong

You’re My Little Sunshine: We have all the variations they’ve made for this series as well, and they’re in various states of disrepair from being read so often.

Little Owl’s Night: Another nightly must-read!

I Like It When: He loves acting out the pages…pretending to eat the food, playing peekaboo, and getting a big squeeze!

February 29, 2024

A Month In The Life: February 2024

And with this Leap Day, we’re at the end of February! This was a busier month by far than January, though thankfully we’re in an even-numbered year so I don’t have to deal with session until this time next year.

In Books…

Cromwell: Oof. This is the closest I have come to not finishing a book in a very long time, probably as long as I’ve been keeping this blog. I read Antonia Fraser’s biography of Marie Antoinette a few years back and found it very lively and engaging, so I thought her biography of Oliver Cromwell might help me learn about a time period and person I knew virtually nothing about. Mistake! This is absolutely not meant for an audience not already relatively familiar with the time period and players, as there are frequent references to the political and religious issues of the times without giving a whole lot of context for the neophyte. I actually don’t know how well I think it functions as a biography, with large portions being devoted to military campaigns…on the one hand, given that Cromwell rose to prominence (and in some cases, like his Irish campaign, infamy) through his leadership in the Army, it makes sense to give the reader some understanding of what seems to be a legitimate gift for martial strategy. On the other, I know I’m not the only one who avoids military histories because I find them incredibly dull. I ended up skimming through most of the battle descriptions just to keep on moving, and wishing for more of a focus on Cromwell’s domestic life. The focus turns more to Cromwell’s personality in the later stages of the book, and it becomes very clear that Fraser intends this to be a bit of a revisionary biography and that she thinks he has gotten a bad rap. Because I was annoyed at the book already, this backfired spectacularly and the more I read, the more I found him unsympathetic. There’s a certain extent to which my failure to connect to this book is on me for expecting it to be something it was never trying to do, but even so I found it very boring and not at all enjoyable to read so I can’t at all recommend it.
Dare Me: A noir-style mystery/thriller set in a high school cheerleading squad? Sign me up (especially after a dense slog through a giant biography)! This is the third Megan Abbott book I’ve read, and I’m starting to recognize her work’s hallmarks: the noir stylings, an intense relationship that is ostensibly not romantic but carries romantic undertones, the darkness of teenage girls and the power their developing sexuality holds. This book centers on the friendship between Addy and Beth, two cheerleaders whose longtime bond is threatened when a new coach comes to town. Beth has always been the dominant personality between the two, the captain to Addy’s lieutenant, but as Addy buys more and more into Coach’s methods and persona, the tables begin to turn. But no one is all they seem to be on the outside, and Coach has demons of her own. An unexpected death rachets up tensions even farther, and Addy will have to choose either Coach or Beth. I found this to be pretty successful as a noir-type mystery, the confusion around the death was engaging and kept me guessing. The vibes were generally well-deployed, there was a seemy underbelly type feeling that was David Lynch-ian. The rest of it is a bit of a mixed bag. Another Abbott trademark is an almost florrid style of prose, and that’s on full display here as well. The girls exult in their social power as cheerleaders, in their developing performance skills, and that is reflected in phrasing about glitter and armor and tans and hair that does start to take on a repetitive quality. The characters feel more like types than people, and particularly for Addy as a narrator I felt like I needed more depth to really feel anchored in the story.
A Manual for Cleaning Women: This was, of course, a book club pick as I almost never choose short stories on my own unless it’s an author I’m already all-in on. If they’re good, I want them to be longer, and if they’re not good, they’re not good. This collection, from a previously little-known author, Lucia Berlin, was very buzzy a few years back so I hoped it might be one of the better ones. Alas, for me it was not. These stories vary in length from just a few pages to about 25ish, averaging about 10-15, so at least it moves quickly. Virtually all of them feature a female protagonist whose life has very similar details to Berlin’s own: four children, a few failed marriages, a peripatetic childhood, odd jobs to stay afloat, alcoholism. They’re little slices of a life that dangles now closer, now farther from the margins. Berlin’s prose is clear, true, with sudden and bright flashes of dark humor. But the effect, for me, of having these stories collected together was to make them feel samey. There were moments, here and there, of truth so straightforwardly rendered it was nearly breathtaking, but on the whole I just could not key into what the introduction and foreword took pains to tell me was the brilliance on display here. Two stories featured themes I found hard to deal with and wish I would have known about ahead of time so I’ll note them here for other readers: “Dr. H.A. Moynihan” has tooth-pulling that will horrify the squeamish, and “Mijito” has infant abuse and death.
The Year of the Flood: I read the first book in this series (Oryx & Crake) nearly eight years ago, so it’s a good thing that this book is more a companion piece than a direct sequel. It returns to the same world and roughly the same time as O&C, but where that book explored that world through a man’s eyes, from inside the exclusive corporate bubbles, this one looks at it from the perspective of two women, who live out in the “real world”. Toby was raised in relative comfort, but circumstances derail her path and she finds herself working a low-wage retail job where she’s sexually abused by her boss. She escapes from his clutches with the help of the God’s Gardeners, a new religious movement focused on preserving what’s left of the natural world, and remains with the group first from a lack of anywhere else to go, and then from loyalty. One of the young people being raised within the group is Ren, whose mother brought her along when she left their cushy corporate home to run away with one of the group’s leaders, a man named Zeb. Though set in the time just after the plague has been unleashed on the world, the story is told largely through flashbacks, following both Toby’s and Ren’s lives with the Gardeners and what happens to them after they have separately left the group. I was, as ever, blown away with the power of Atwood’s imagination. So much of the way the world devolves feels heightened but not outside the realm of possibility, which makes it all the more haunting, and she develops the theology of the Gardeners with hymns and sermons from their leader, Adam One, in a way that feels realistic for something that would emerge in the context of the world she posits. After the maleness of O&C, the focus on Jimmy and Glenn (both of whom do show up in the narrative here in side roles), it’s refreshing to have Toby and Ren as narrators of The Year of the Flood, and the two women are both richly-drawn and compelling in their own ways. Atwood’s prose remains top-notch, I find her writing spellbinding in a way I find difficult to put my finger on but I get lost in so easily. There are some flaws here, most notably the way that several survivors manage to reconnect in a plague-decimated world in a way that defies probability, but the storytelling is too enjoyable otherwise to make that a fatal flaw.
Joan of Arc: This book is subtitled A History, and it’s very true to that outlook, so if you’re looking for a true biography this isn’t for you. Joan doesn’t even enter the narrative until about 1/3 of the way through, as Castor spends quite a bit of time setting up the context in which she appeared. I knew only the vague outlines of her story beforehand (teenager, claimed to have heard voices, dressed like a boy and lead men in battle in defense of the dauphin’s right to the throne of France and to drive the English out of France, was burned at the stake), so it was actually immensely interesting and helpful to learn more about the time period, and understand that not only was France at war with England, France was experiencing civil war at the same time. And when Joan does finally appear, we don’t learn more about her early life or any of those standard biographical details. Instead, she’s already 17 and determined to meet the dauphin (who had already been crowned, actually, at this point, but not yet anointed), to tell him that he was destined to not only be officially enthroned but to reconquer France. And briefly, everything seems great: she wins early battles that start the tide turning her side’s way. But then there are some defeats, and capture, trial, and ultimately death. There were two trials, it happens: first by her English captors, who had every political reason to and did condemn her, and then a second one by the French after the once-improbable recapture of nearly all of their territory, which had every political reason to and did exonerate her. I found it relatively accessible, as a history. There are a lot of players with a lot of complex and interconnected interests, but it wasn’t too hard to keep track of who was who. It left me with lots of questions about Joan herself but also made a case as to why the surviving documentary evidence (and the political forces at play behind it) is unlikely to be able to draw a true portrait of a woman, hardly more than a girl, who rocketed to a significant place on the world stage and fell from grace just as quickly, becoming as much a symbol as a person. If you’re interested in Joan or the Hundred Years’ War, I’d recommend this!

In Life…

C turned two!: I can’t believe he’s two already! He is just the delight of my life and I love watching him grow. He’s not my little baby anymore, he’s a walking, talking, happy little boy who loves cars and Sesame Street and singing the Mickey Mouse Club theme song. He got a lot of presents and ate pizza and got chocolate frosting all over his shirt so it was a very successful birthday indeed!
Work retreat in Austin: This year’s work retreat took me to Texas for the first time ever! Austin is a super cool city, I’d love to come back again to explore more but particularly enjoyed my trip to BookPeople and stopping by Central District Brewery! And it’s always a fun to get to see the people from the other offices in our company in person and talk about what we’re up to professionally and personally.

January 1, 2024

What A Year: 2023 Edition

It’s officially 2024 now, which means it’s time to take a look back at the 365 days that were 2023. Some of them were great! Some of them were less so. But we all made it through and we are so excited about the (leap!) year to come!

In Life…

This year brought plenty of its own challenges, but looking back at last year’s post reminded me how far down I was emotionally in 2022 and honestly 2023 was a giant step forward. Part of that was finally, finally seeking help for the ADHD that my pre-parenthood coping strategies were no longer able to sufficiently compensate for. It turns out when you can hold a thought in your head for more than two minutes before it’s inevitably replaced by another, and then another, and then another, until you get home and realize you forgot to get batteries at the store AGAIN, and aren’t constantly blaming yourself for your inability to just focus and get things done that need to get done, your life is easier to manage and your self-esteem increases! Despite the struggle of finding my ADHD meds every month (shortages have lasted more than a year now!), it has been absolutely worth it and I’m so glad I did it.

C remains the joy and delight of my life. He walks (runs!) and talks (sings!), though he was late to both with virtually no incremental or precursor steps before he took to doing them. It seems like that is going to be his way: not interested whatsoever until he’s ready, and then a wholehearted embrace of a new skill. Which is nerve-wracking, as a parent! You just want to feel like your child is normal, keeping up with his peers. But we would never want C to be anyone else than who is, and who he is the most charming, sweet-natured, busy and active little man in the whole world.

This year saw us check off some “first”s for him outside of the official milestones. I went through my first legislative session as a mother, which was honestly really hard. He had just turned one so he was still pretty small for most of it and I leaned out as much as it is possible to do during a session, leaving as early as I could in the hopes of being able to see him before he went to bed. That’s not something I can repeat going forward if I want to keep myself in the position I’d like to be career-wise. And while I’m sure each new session will bring its own challenges in terms of the conflict it will inevitably create with being present as a parent, I’m glad that this first one is over and done with. We also took our first major trip as a family, to visit my parents and my sister’s family in my native Michigan. He was such a little trouper for most of the trip, cheerfully meeting tons of unfamiliar people and adjusting admirably to not just my mom’s house but my sister’s when we stayed there for a night to give the cousins some time together. The plane trip back would have been bad enough with all of the delays we experienced, but C getting food poisoning and barfing all over me on the last leg of travel was a rough one and I hope we have our most dramatically awful travel experience behind us.

I also managed to travel on my own a little bit, from a work retreat in San Francisco early in the year, a very quick solo trip to Michigan, a weekend in Las Vegas with my sister to see Adele, and my annual girls weekend with my besties in Los Angeles. It’s getting harder and harder to leave C, he’s so much fun right now, but I know it does me a lot of good mentally to take time to be a person outside of being a mother here and there.

In Books…

Read: 60. Despite the “easier” books I indulged in last year to give my overtaxed brain a break, I didn’t feel very satisfied with my year in reading. The number looked respectable enough for a new mother, but I wasn’t enjoying my books in the same way I usually do. I suspect at least some of that was the aforementioned overtaxed brain, but I decided for this year to just fall back into my normal reading patterns and let things fall where they would. In the end, not only was my number better this year (despite reading three long classics!), I also felt much more engaged with my reading and for that, I am very grateful. I’m actually doing a little experiment with my reading for 2024: I’ll only be reading books by women (I am undecided, currently, about whether to do exceptions for my IRL book club because I have no ability to influence those choices). I honestly don’t think it’s going to mean a better/more fulfilling year in reading, I haven’t noticed a significant difference in my average book rating between male and female authors. I’m just curious about what it will feel like to have my brain engaged almost solely with writing from other women for a year. And now for superlatives from the past year!

Best Book of the Year: Tin Man

It’s quite short, but so so beautiful. This story of a man who is remembering and coming to terms with the loss of the two people he loved most in the world, figuring out how to be true to himself for maybe the first time in his life, is poignant and sweet and hopeful and tugs on the heartstrings in a way that doesn’t feel emotionally manipulative. I read some good stuff in 2023 but this was the standout that stuck with me.

Most Reward For Engagement Demanded: The Hakawati

This book is quite long (over 500 pages), and told in overlapping stories that wind back around themselves and each other. If I wasn’t paying particular attention as I read, I often found myself flipping back to figure out where (and when) I was in each storyline. But the storytelling is so great that it was a pleasure to let myself get drawn in. You have to pay active attention to be able to follow this at all, but it’s very much worth the effort.

Most Searing Memoir: Know My Name

There was competition here, because I also read Therese Marie Mailhot’s Heart Berries this year. Both are stories from women of color about traumatic experiences, and both are beautifully written despite the difficult subject matter. But I found Miller’s prose irresistible, I was constantly thinking about it even when I wasn’t reading it. She really takes you on a journey with her, as incredibly difficult as that journey is. I especially appreciated the way she dealt with the non-linear nature of trauma recovery and the secondary victimization of being part of the criminal justice system. It’s so easy for public figures to get turned into symbols but her writing makes it impossible to forget that there’s a real person behind the name in the paper.

Best Classic: Middlemarch

It’s a doorstopper (nearly 1000 pages in the edition I read), and a clever look at what happens after the happily-ever-after, as both of the leading couples get together early in the book. From there, we see how their personal flaws and the other person’s inability to be exactly who they were expected to be combine to create unhappy marriages. Not all of the characters are especially likeable, but they’re richly drawn portraits and feel like actual people. Bonus points for the witty, eviscerating writing! Austen could be savage but she’s got nothing on Eliot.

Worst Classic: Dracula

It’s so boring and dragged so badly and all I wanted was for it to be over.

Most Immaculate Vibes: The Night Circus

To be fair, this book is like 95% vibes, so if the vibes didn’t work it would be a big mess. Judging by the Goodreads reviews, not everyone agrees with me that the vibes do work, but given the book’s enduring popularity, I think I’m on the right side of this one. I just sank into the world it created. I can still picture it in my head, months after reading it. I can also remember most of the plot (which isn’t normal for me), because there was so little of it.

The Adaptation Was Better: The Run of His Life

Like seemingly everyone else, I watched the FX miniseries about OJ Simpson with Sarah Paulson and Sterling K. Brown and loved it. I actually already owned the book at that time, but hadn’t yet read it. Now that I have, I can say confidently that Ryan Murphy (and/or his actors) did it better. I would not have thought that Murphy would be someone I would point to as a source of emotional realism, but he and his cast work to find the real people inside the figures that Toobin treats more as pieces on a chessboard (or, in the case of John Travolta’s Bob Shapiro, find the most funny version of that person). It made for a much more compelling depiction and I would recommend it heartily over its source material.

Best Step Outside My Comfort Zone: Annihilation

I don’t read a lot of science fiction or horror books, though to be fair this book isn’t an example of a particularly hardcore version of either genre. There are very few jumpscares here, and essentially zero gore. What there is is a masterfully created sense of unease and tension. I couldn’t really read this book at night because it so unsettled me. It’s intriguing and haunting and quite short at just about 200 pages, so it goes very quick. I absolutely loved it. Honorable mention to Michael Shaara’s The Killer Angels, the war novel I never would have thought I’d love but it was phenomenal and restored my faith in historical fiction as a genre.

September 30, 2023

A Month In The Life: September 2023

Another month over and we’re headed towards the homestretch of the end of the year, with birthdays and holidays to close everything out. We checked off a major item in the new-family list this month: our first plane travel with the little guy! It ended with some minor drama but it was overall a very fun trip.

In Books…

Hollywood Babylon: I skipped the You Must Remember This season about this book because I wanted to read it first but now that I have, I’m really looking forward to the podcast dissecting it. This has a reputation for being salacious, and also quite possibly entirely made up, and reading it confirmed both the former and the latter. There are no sources cited, he openly references rumor and conjecture as the basis for the innuendos he repeats. There is also racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny, and homophobia! It was a quicker read than its page count suggests, there are a ton of black and white photos (some of which are quite upsetting, like images of people and animals after they have died!) that pad it out. It’s not really worth reading unless you’re an Old Hollywood completist.
The Last Temptation of Christ: I knew this book had been condemned by the Catholic and Orthodox churches, and there is nothing you can do to make me interested in a book faster than telling me that someone doesn’t want me to read it. And last time I read a book banned by a religious authority, The Satanic Verses, I found it interesting even without much of the cultural background that would have likely made it better. Unfortunately for me, this was not that kind of book. It’s a very straightforward imagining of the end period of Jesus’s life, including both his ministry and his death (many details of which were unfamiliar to me because I mostly did not pay attention in catechism). Where it is scandalous is that it suggests that Jesus wrestled very seriously with the idea of rejecting his identity as the Messiah/a part of the Holy Trinity in favor of his identity as a man, living a life that would have included marriage and children and all of the normal, messy things about being a human. It’s not that this is an idea that couldn’t have been compelling. It’s more that this book itself is really boring. While Jesus himself is of course drawn richly since his interiority is the point of the book, most of the apostles are flat and the female characters (the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene) are stereotyped and given little to do. I never really got drawn into it at any point and it felt like slogging through mud to get through it.
North Woods: This book has been buzzy for awards, and after reading it I very much understand why. It traces the history of a house in rural Massachusetts, starting with its establishment as a cabin by a pair of teenage lovers fleeing their Puritan settlement, all the way through the present day and beyond. In between there are murders, seances, a new breed of apple, a mountain lion, joy, and despair. The story is told through multiple formats, including songs, one side of a correspondence of letters, and an article from a true crime magazine. It’s creative, compelling, and filled with callbacks to the past both large and small in a way that makes it rewarding to be an attentive reader of. I very much liked it and strongly recommend it.
Restless Valley: I’ve been thinking about whether I would have liked this book more on audio or if it would have been entirely too confusing and I can’t really decide. It’s written by a journalist who spent time in central Asia (particularly focused on the titular Ferghana Valley, which includes territory inside both Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan) and recounts loosely connected stories from his experiences there. I’m usually interested in stories about the former USSR, and there is a lot of stuff here that is attention-grabbing conceptually: murders! corruption! dictators! The way this was organized, though, did not at all work for me. Single stories were broken up in ways that felt jarring and made it hard to remember details that seemed like they should have been important. This is absolutely a symptom of Western privilege, but the names are unfamiliar and so keeping track of the players was a challenge. Some of the financial crimes that went along with the corruption are recounted in levels of detail that at least for me, rendered them obtuse and difficult to follow. It’s not like I got nothing out of the book, but it felt like it was actively fighting against my efforts to get drawn into it so it ended up feeling like a slog.
The Light Between Oceans: Whether or not this book will work for you depends on how you answer one question. If two people, desperate for a child, literally have an infant float into their lives and decide to keep her and raise her with love and devotion, even after finding out her mother is alive and mourning her loss, can they be good people who made a horrible, tragic choice or are they monstrously selfish? Before becoming a mother myself I think I would have been more interested in at least exploring the former idea, but now that I am one I can’t see the book’s protagonists as anything but awful. Stedman draws the couple sympathetically enough, with WWI veteran and lighthouse keeper Tom presented as genuinely torn and acting out of love for his wife, Isabel, herself bereaved by multiple pregnancy losses. They are engaged and devoted parents to the little girl they name Lucy. But all of the narrative tension depends on the reader investing in their self-created plight, so if you’re not compelled by them, their agonizing falls flat and feels like a lot of pointless waffling. There’s some pretty nature writing about coastal Australia here, though too many obvious lighthouse metaphors and clunky dialogue for me to get too drawn into the prose.

In Life…

Michigan trip with C: I have never wished harder for a direct flight between Reno and Detroit. I would have paid very good money to not need to deal with connections, especially on the return end when flight delays were an issue (as was probable food poisoning that manifested on our very last flight). It was good to bring him home though, he got quality time with both of his grandparents and got to meet his aunt, uncle, and cousin for the first time! He was a total trouper about crossing three time zones and back in less than a week, sleeping in two new places, and meeting a bunch of people. And hey, if we can survive having a baby need to use multiple airsick bags, we can probably survive a lot.

January 1, 2023

What A Year: 2022 Edition

As I abandon my previous, birthday-to-birthday format for my yearly updates, I’m starting a new tradition. What A Year will be a look back at the major events of the previous calendar year, both personally and thoughts on what I’ve read as well.

In Life…

What a lot of changes from where I was a year ago! Baby C was still an inside baby, kicking away at my ribs. I think back on the long stretches of free time that I had back then, and as much as I love my son, I have to admit I do miss it. I was pretty uncomfortable for those last six weeks of pregnancy and sleeping was a challenge. Everyone who tells a pregnant lady to “sleep while you have the chance” should have a watermelon taped to their abdomen and try to turn over in bed. C was late, so I had an induction scheduled for first thing on Valentine’s Day, and we watched the Super Bowl and then headed to the hospital. C has always had his own idea of how to do things so he did not join us until the next day, and I have not felt well-rested since. But we are so lucky, he is such a happy little dude with so much curiosity and such a good nature.

Becoming a mother has been wild. As I’ve written about before, my mental health was Not Great after birth and I am still being treated for post-partum depression and anxiety. Our dryer crapped out TWICE and our water heater tried to burn the house down in the first month after we brought C home, which certainly did not help the state of my brain. We’ve had formula shortages, antibiotic shortages, children’s pain reliever shortages. C has gone from being a little potato to a crawling, pulling-up-to-stand, babbling baby who loves to play with his stacking cups and watching him grow has been so fun. His giggles are my favorite sound. But motherhood has meant an inevitable change in my conception of myself. This is hardly an original observation, I know, but it’s true. The things that I thought of as fundamental to being who I am have had to get crunched down into smaller spaces because so much is taken up by parenthood. I have a new appreciation for the challenges my mom faced as a single mother because I struggle to imagine doing this without my husband. Parenting is scary and exhilarating and joyful and hard. I am not the same person I used to be, for better or for worse.

I’ve tried to not let go of everything, though. I made my first international trip since 2015 to head to Skate Canada International in Toronto with my best friend for two full days of figure skating and catching up in person. And then my annual girls trip with my high school besties resumed for the first time since pre-pandemic (I still remember, in the early days, debating whether we would be able to go on our June vacation, which was scheduled for Charleston). We spent a long weekend in San Diego and explored museums and breweries and shopping and talked and talked. Both were very fun and very good reminders that I am a person outside of being a mother. And, of course, I’ve read. Significantly less than I have previously…I won’t hit 50 books this year, which marks the first time since 2014 that’s happened. I’ve noticed that my taste, for the moment, has been changing as well. My familiar favorite doorstopper character studies have been harder to get lost in. I simply don’t have the time to immerse myself in a slow-moving, nuanced world the way I used to. I’ve tried dipping my toes into romance and YA, with mixed results. Maybe more mysteries? Maybe more light nonfiction? I’m sure as C continues to get bigger and his needs change, my preferences will continue to evolve. But books are, as always, my favorite form of portable magic.

In Books…

Read: 46. This is not a terrible total honestly, but is less than half of my top recent reading year (2016). I could make excuses to myself about longer, denser books tripping me up but the reality is that I read four of the Bridgerton books, too, so it all balances out.

Added To My Physical TBR: 125. Eep.

Favorite Book: Wojtek the Bear

This book relies on the shock value of the idea of a beer-swilling, cigarette-eating bear who was adopted a cub by a Polish Army regiment and went with them to World War 2 as its hook, but the story goes deeper than that. Not just of Wojtek himself, who is saved from an almost whimsical storybook quality by occasional reminders that he is in fact a bear, but the story of the regiment and the story of what happened to them after the war. It’s a story of love, and loss, and new beginnings, and it’s all true, and it’s a great book.

Unexpectedly Wonderful Book for Younger Readers That Older Readers Will Enjoy Too: The Graveyard Book

I should not have been surprised that Neil Gaiman wrote something wonderful but I do have to admit that it being a Newberry Award winner, and aimed at a tween/teen audience led me to expect something less…delicate, almost. That was my bad, because this book about a little boy who grows up in a cemetery was one of the highlights of my reading year. There’s adventure, there are of course some spooky moments, there’s a poignancy that grabbed me by the heart. Do not let this one pass you by.

A Book That Should Stay With Younger Readers: Tuck Everlasting

This is a “childhood classic” that I’d never read but seemed like it would be easy enough to get through in the newborn days. It was in fact too easy to get through, with a plot twist that can be seen coming a mile away and a central romantic relationship that would absolutely seem swoony to a pre-teen but to an adult felt creepy and weird. Some books really aren’t meant for adults and that is 100% fine!

Book That Made Me Want to Know More About Zelda Fitzgerald: Tender Is The Night

Though my reading this year also included the fictionalized account of her life, Z, by Therese Anne Fowler, the book that actually made me want to learn more about her was Tender Is The Night. A thinly veiled account of their marriage (along with being a portrait of the world of American expats in post-WWI Europe), F. Scott renders the Zelda insert character, Nicole, as much more interesting than his own alter ego, Dick.

Surprisingly Readable Intersectional Feminism: Feminist Theory, From Margin to Center

I’d never read bell hooks before, and was a little intimidated to start this because I thought it would be academic and dense. But hooks doesn’t let herself get bogged down in jargon. Her arguments that a full implementation of feminism would be a radical change and that in order to fully effectuate that change and liberate all women, we must break down other oppressive systems like race and class, are clear, incisive, and insightful. Is it like, light reading? No. But neither does it feel like a homework assignment.

Book That Turned Out To Be Less About Ballet Than I Thought Based On Its Title: Pointe

Theo IS a ballerina, and her dedication to dance is very much a part of the narrative. But the cover and title suggest that this is a “ballet book”, when it’s in fact about a Black teenage girl living in white spaces, like her high school and ballet studio, who is learning how to recognize her past experiences for what they were instead of what she’d imagined them to be at the time. I quite liked it, though I thought it was perhaps trying to do too much plot-wise. There is a LOT going on in this book, but it ultimately works because of Theo herself, who is not always 100% sympathetic but is always making choices for understandable reasons.

Book That Was Weird But I Got Really Into: Chime

I can’t even recall how this book ended up on my radar, exactly. It plunges you right into its own kind-of-fantasy, kind-of-real-world, vaguely steampunky atmosphere and does not give you any explanations. You discover as you go, but the more fantastical elements of the story are counterbalanced by a beautifully portrayed, complicated relationship between sisters Briony and Rose. There’s a mystery plot and a romance and the aforementioned supernatural bits and I feel like it would go very love-it-or-hate-it but I loved it.

Non-Fiction That Is Excellent But Really Hard To Read As A New Parent: One of Us

It is absolutely horrifying how normalized it has become for there to be mass shootings in the United States. When it happens elsewhere, it’s much more surprising. This is a comprehensive examination of the 2011 terror attack in Norway committed by Anders Breivik, including an in-depth examination of the perpetrator’s life, how he came to be the person he is, how he prepared for and committed the attacks, and the trial afterwards. It also highlights a few of the students who were murdered, exploring their families and their stories. It’s masterfully done and very compelling but oh is it so hard to read while your own little baby sleeps in his crib.

A Book I Should Have Loved On Paper That Never Really Clicked For Me: Intimacies

This seemed like very much a “me” book! Young woman coming of age, really into the idea of language as a concept and what it reveals and what it hides, ambiguous relationships. But it failed to hook me and felt like it was relying on its refusal to provide answers to suggest a deeper profundity than what was actually present.

March 31, 2022

Two Months In The Life: February and March 2022

Well, that was an unexpected hiatus. I thought to myself surely that I’d still have the time to work on the blog once the baby was here since so much of my content is pre-written and OF COURSE I’d be able to steal a little bit of time here and there for the rest of it. Ha. Hahaha! My life is lived on whims that are not my own so posting is going to be realllll slow around here for a while.

In Books…

Founding Mothers: This account of the Revolutionary War era based on the lives of the women (wives and mothers, usually) of the Founding Fathers was interesting enough but never actually compelling. I did learn more about what a crap husband Ben Franklin was (extremely) and was introduced to Eliza Pinckney, who was genuinely fascinating, but the reality is that there are few enough documents by these women in their own words that the ones for whom the most exist, like Abigail Adams, dominate the narrative.
The Inheritance of Loss: I had high hopes for this one, as a Booker Prize winner written by an Indian author (a micro-category that has historically worked well for me!). But it turns out it is mostly one straightforward thesis (more or less that colonialism/imperialism are bad because they teach the oppressed to love their oppressors and hate themselves) turned into a nearly 400-page novel with thin, underdeveloped characters and little in the way of actual plot. There are occasional beautiful turns of phrase, but not enough to salvage it.
Luster: This was a book club pick that I missed the discussion for because I was in the hospital! I found it to be more interesting in theory than actuality, if that makes sense. The idea of a story about a young self-destructive and underemployed Black woman who ends up in the middle of a white couple’s open marriage feels rich, and while the narrative occasionally lives up to its potential, it also seems to rely a lot on the reader filling in additional context and nuance.
Made-Up: I don’t know what I was expecting from this book that bills itself as addressing beauty culture in our current era, but it wasn’t a collection of very short essays that touch as much on Grimes and the first child she had with Elon Musk as they do on YouTube beauty gurus. The writing quality is high, but the essays are too short to ever really go anywhere and often feel repetitive.
The Duke & I: I knew I wasn’t going to have a lot of time for my preferred ponderous bummers, so before I had the baby I downloaded a couple collections of the books that are the basis for the Bridgerton series on Netflix, which I very much enjoyed last year. The first book was honestly much less interesting than the show, which had more nuanced and complex characters. I’ve heard the second one is much better so I’m going to keep reading the series because my brain needs fun stuff right now.
Fire On Ice: This was the autobiography Sasha Cohen, one of my all-time favorite skaters, “wrote” (it seems like probably mostly dictated to a ghostwriter) after her silver medal in Torino. Y’all, it’s basically a book-length Wikipedia article. No tea is spilled, no secrets are shared. The most interesting thing in it is that Sasha loves ice cream.
Small Spaces: I loved Katherine Arden’s Winternight series, so was curious about her MG/YA series and her writing has lost none of its charm despite the obvious reduction in narrative complexity. It’s a kind of horror-lite (like, Goosebumps-level scary) with strong emphasis on family bonds and unexpected friendships. Definitely a book I would recommend for the actual audience that adults can appreciate as well!

In Life…

I had a baby: Cal was born on February 15th and he is the cutest and most wonderful and also most time-consuming. He’s six weeks old and we are exhausted but happy that he is here with us!
Home repair hell: We had an interesting time of it after we got home with Cal! First our dryer went out, and it turned out it was because the heat sensor got tripped because there was a tiny fire in the lint vent! Scary! And then after that, our water heater (which we knew was old but found out was from 1996!) went on the fritz and it took about a week for it to get replaced through our home warranty and do you know how much it turns out you need hot water for when you have a newborn? It turns out a LOT!

One Thing:

Let’s talk about post-partum mood disorders, y’all. I have a long history of depression, and that was a part of what I felt after Cal was born, but more punishing than that was the incredible anxiety I was going through. I was terrified that every decision I made was the wrong one, that I was going to put my baby in danger because I wasn’t washing my hands often enough (I was washing them so often I gave myself broken and scaly patches), or wasn’t sterilizing bottles after every wash, or wasn’t watching him closely enough and he was going to slump wrong and suffocate. I talked to my OB and was put on medication and I don’t feel 100% again, but I feel like a person who is anxious rather than a bundle of anxiety with legs. I am a better mom because I’m not crying all the time. If you’ve had a baby and feel like you’re not in a good headspace, there’s help. Talk to your OB or pediatrician, or reach out for support. It’s hard, but it’s the first step down the road to feeling better.

Gratuitous Baby Picture (don’t worry, we’ll be doing pug pictures again too):

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