Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson is a short, readable, excellently written book that takes readers on a deeply human journey while also layering in historical context. One can’t really ask for me.
It seems like responsibility often skips a generation. One generation scrimps and saves and works to build generational wealth, and then the next generation can relax in that security, and then the next generation is driven to work and save, etc., in order to regain a sense of security, and then their children can relax again, and so it goes. For me, this book captured that.
Strangers by Belle Burden might be the most written about book in recent memory, so I’m not sure I have much more to add. Everyone seems to have an opinion, and Burden is either lauded as a feminist truth teller or a woman who got a fair divorce and needs to move on.
What do I think? I think women should tell their stories, and I think this was an interesting and important story to tell. I think most insightful relationship stories are engaging, as long as the writer is insightful, and this one is.
I also think the institution of marriage is rife with challenges. Divorce rates are high, and the concept seems difficult to make work. I am jaded! None of the crazy stories surprise me at this point.
As you know, I’ve also been thinking more about the immense privilege in writing and how therefore we get a disproportionate view of that world of privilege. And it is an interesting world! Still, there are so many other stories that can’t get told due to lack of access, and that’s a shame too. This book makes me think of that.
Will I read more from from Burden? Yes. In fact, what’s more interesting, perhaps, is seeing what she’ll do next.
Remember the movie Silver Linings Playbook that everybody loved, but I didn’t because I thought it was too dark, but it seemed to give audiences optimism? This book, I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You by Courtney Maum, was like that (and written around the same time too!). The similarities were that there’s a main character who is the protagonist and who is also really flawed and who lacks self awareness, and while the plot of the work goes on to tie the book up in a tidy little bow (it’s upmarket fiction after all, so reader’s aren’t without their challenges, but still), we can see that little, if any, growth or learning has occurred, and so we can assume that the same horrors will continue to occur and that is far darker than the tidy surface of the story.
In works like these, it seems like most audiences enjoy the “happy” ending, but I leave them with a little raincloud over my head at the helplessness and hopelessness of humanity. To me, these are some of the darkest books to read. This book was like that. That said, I think most readers will like this story.
There’s also a voyeuristic quality to this author’s depictions, who seems to be neither British, nor French, nor male, and yet these are the views that are so portrayed in the novel. So I continually found myself more interested in the author’s gaze on these characters and scenes at times than on the story. I also simply have never met a man who seems to care and pine and yearn and regret in these specific ways. Maybe they’re out there! These are a few things that pulled me from the story and made me think. So anyway, this is an interesting and self-aware book in ways that seem both intentional and not.
While the internet freaks out about Lindy West’s new novel, I decided to go back to the archives and read her book Shrill. This book first entered my radar as the TV series starring the amazing Aidy Bryant. I didn’t entirely connect all of the dots back to Lindy West until reading this book Shrill.
First, I want to say that I think West, and voices like hers, have been incredibly powerful for feminism and for how we think about comedy, teasing, cruelty, and oppression. I think her smart social commentary has made some difference in the world! As a Northwesterner myself, I identify with much of West’s story–comedy nerd, reading nerd, proud nerd, Western Washington scenes, The Stranger, and many other regional and cultural touch points. While there are also distinct differences in our lives, and I don’t always see the world the way that she does, nor come to the same conclusions, I feel some camaraderie with West due to all of those aforementioned touch points. I feel like I get a lot of the scenes and references that have shaped her thinking and her work. They’ve shape mine too!
So, I liked Shrill and even think it is a must read, probably especially for millennials, and I look forward to seeing what’s next from West. Yes, I will also be reading Adult Braces asap.
It’s probably been a few decades since I read Willa Cather, and I probably read it for my undergraduate degree. So, I was surprised and delighted to get so much more out of the work now with more life experience and interest. O Pioneers! tracks the lives of immigrant farms in the heartland.
In recent years, I’ve been reading more U.S. history and have been especially interested in women’s stories and women’s journeys. This book was perfect: excellently written, lovely scenes to spend time in, and people whose stories I cared about. I could hear her influence in rural writers like Wendell Berry.
I also spent more time learning about Cather. And of course now I want to read more.
This book, That’s All I Know by Elisa Levi, was a bit of a departure for me. I think it got pitched to me as literary horror. And, one could argue that it is. But strong emphasis on the literary and the fiction. This book brought me into a compelling world, one where (perhaps?) the world is ending, and it is very hot, and strange things are normal. Readers of literary works works will appreciate this book, and that’s all I know.
I followed up Sheila Heti with some more Sheila Heti. Heti’s Pure Color is basically a work of contemporary theory. I appreciate the work that Heti and others like Maggie Nelson are doing in this area (and I secretly would love to join these authors in this form/genre).
For me, Pure Color read somewhat like How Should a Person Be?, which also was a book that was more *unique* than it was *pleasant* to read, imho. I had a hard time with the main character in the latter, but I found the main character to be…purer in Pure Color, and so I found that was all more palatable to me (which says more about me than about the quality of the book).
To me, Motherhood was by far my favorite and most resonant Heti book. Even still, that’s three Heti books in the past six months, so I think I’ll take a break! I might eventually check out Women in Clothes, but oof, it’s long!
In many ways, Motherhood by Sheila Heti felt like a continuation of my recent readings on motherhood and middle age from Miranda July and Claire Dederer. This book fit perfectliy within those conversations. These are people who grapple with the big question of whether or not to pursue motherhood when one is an artist, intellectual, and/or otherwise passionate about their career.
Needless to say, these philosophical wonderings, coupled with a gentle narrative thread, speak to me loudly. I recently read Heti for the first time last year. I appreciated when she was doing then, but I think this is the book I was meant to read.
Women’s Voices from the Oregon Trail by Susan Butruille is one of the more niche books I’ve ever read, but what can I say? I was pretty engrossed all the way through. The writer drives the Oregon Trail from Missouri and shares diary excerpts and insights of what the trail was like, especially for the women. Butruille stops at historical sites and shares photographs and more insights inspired by those visits.
As a daughter of pioneers, I imagined my own relatives making a similar trek, imagined their lives and relationships and hardships. I think this book is even more relevant to those of us with that personal connection. A broader audience might be interested in the history. I think the rigid role of wife as domestic servant will be especially striking to some readers as well.
Normal People was my first foray into Sally Rooney’s writing. I spent the first half wondering what the big deal was, then realized I was in for some sort of deep human insight and transformation, and ended the book appreciating that Rooney did deliver on those hunches.
I’m a little scared to read any more of her work, at least in this moment, because a few close friends have referred to it as tough, intense, and gutting (but great)! This is an author I’m sure I’ll return too, though, when I come across her work.
SHEREWIN 