Books, Fiction

Passing by Nella Larsen

Worth A Read YES
Length 301
Quick Review Irene Redfield is a proud black woman living in the 1920s. She runs into a childhood friend, who no longer identifies as black. 

 

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Passing by Nella Larsen | Dress | Belt | Watch | Shoes 

Some books stay with you long after you read them; Passing by Nella Larsen is one of those books. There’s really nothing I dislike about this book. Small and powerful, this 1920s novel holds up ninety years later.

Irene Redfield and Clare Bellew grew up in the same neighborhood in Chicago before losing touch. They are both black women living in the 1920s with families when they meet again in a whites only establishment. The difference is: Irene is living her life as a black woman, but Clare is passing in the world as a white woman. The novel continues filled with familial, women’s, cultural, racial issues and more. There is never a dull moment in Irene’s life or mental state. 

Passing is told in three parts from Irene’s perspective. Irene is smart, independent, and empathetic but also a product of her time and culture. There is so much emotional variance and abundance throughout the work. Irene is a black woman living in a white world but far more happy in her oppressed circumstances than Clare, who is living as a white woman in a white world with the constant fear of being exposed and a hunger for a community with a shared background. Larsen has so much insight into the human psyche surpassing yet encompassing race.   

Nella Larsen is a beloved author of the Harlem Renaissance. Passing is one of her most well-known works published in 1929. A lot of things have changed in ninety years, but we definitely do not live in a post racial world. So many things ring true in this novel. The conversations held in white living rooms feel like something my racist/bigoted family members might say. Questions along the lines of “Oh! And your husband, is he – is he – er – dark, too?” are still uttered by people trying to be tactful but falling absolutely short. 

Larsen’s use of language and punctuation is incredible. It’s one of those books you want to sit with letting the words roll through your mind reveling in the meaning and feeling of it all. Authors often use punctuation without thinking about it or having fun with it, but Passing has fun with punctuation using it to make points “And the eyes were magnificent! dark, sometimes absolutely black lashes.” I love her usage of commas; they help bring the reader into the angry, confused psyche of Irene

I have so many things to say about Passing. The ending is incredible. The entire book is an incredible piece of literature. I can see why Modern Library included it in its inaugural Torchbearers series. 

Memorable Quotes
“Nevertheless, Irene felt, in turn, anger, scorn, and fear slide over her.”
“Why, simply because of Clare Kendry, who had exposed her to such torment, had she failed to take up the defence of the race to which she belonged?”
“”It’s easy for a Negro to ‘pass’ for white. But I don’t think it would be so simple for a white person to ‘pass’ for coloured.””

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Title: Passing
Author: Nella Larsen
Publisher: Modern Library (Penguin Random House)
Copyright: 2019
ISBN: 9780375758133

Books, Fiction

Sabrina and Corina by Kali Fajardo-Anstine

Worth a Read Yes
Length 224
Quick Review A collection of stories centering around latina women of indigenious descent and their lives as women, mothers, sisters, friends, and as people in the American West. 

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Reading Sabrina & Corina in Galveston, Texas | Bikini Top | Bikini Bottom
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Sabrina & Corina by Kali Fajardo-Anstine at the beach in Galveston, Texas.

Kali Fajardo-Anstine writes a beautiful and haunting collection of stories in her debut book Sabrina & Corina. Each story is a snapshot into the life of latina-indigenious women in the American West. 

The stories are complicated and deeply laced with heartache and perseverance. There is strength in the women Fajardo-Anstine creates, and a fearlessness in the stories she tells. The women live in different times and under different circumstances, but they are all a testament to the scars of their homeland and the truth of being a woman and a minority in an inhospitable land. 

I truly love the way the stories ebb and flow in Sabrina & Corina. Fajardo-Anstine brings voices to a population often left out of the narrative. The world is in dire need of stories about latina-indigenous women.

Sabrina & Corina is absolutely enveloping. I read it in a day because I couldn’t put it down. There are so many things about the stories I can relate to as a woman, and so many things I can’t relate to because I do not share the characters ethnic background. Nonetheless, it is impossible to not feel deeply while reading the stories. 

Memorable Quotes
“I was ashamed of myself that I still wanted her close to me, even after everything she had done.”
“”Dead people,” he said, “are like white people. They can’t dance.””

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Title: Sabrina & Corina
Author: Kali Fajardo-Anstine
Publisher: One World
Copyright: 2019
ISBN: 9780525511298

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Books, NonFiction

Life Will Be the Death of Me by Chelsea Handler

Worth a Read Yes
Length 256
Quick Review Chelsea Handler’s never been afraid of the truth. In her latest memoir, she sits with personal trauma in a way she has not before. Laugh out loud funny with a serious edge.

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Photo shoots with a dog are exhausting. Life Will Be the Death of Me by Chelsea Handler isn’t.

I love Chelsea Handler. I have read several of her books and watched her TV show fairly religiously. When I saw she had a new book coming out, I had to have it. Life Will Be the Death of Me is still laugh out loud funny, but she tackles her mental health in a serious way.

Chelsea Handler has made her living making people laugh. I think it’s easier to make people laugh in person than on the page, but I have always been giggling with my nose in her books. Life Will Be the Death of Me deals with death in a serious way. Her brother died when she was very young, and that experience changed her and her family forever. Throughout the book, she talks about her grieving process several decades after his death. She visits a psychiatrist, who helps her work through her issues.

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We can be cute. I had to hide a treat in my cleavage….

I love her writing style and voice in Life Will Be the Death of Me. She’s one of those people whose voice shines through anything she touches. It’s probably one of the reasons she is so successful. I think for the first time in her books – I have not read all of them, don’t quote me – she spends more time being serious than being funny. Her honesty and self reflection are brilliant.  

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She’s not eating the apple. Treat in my hand. She’s eating my hand.

My two favorite parts of Handler’s memoir are this quote: “How can it be that a swab of saliva can determine a dog’s genetic heritage yet there isn’t a more precise way to determine the age of a dog at this juncture in modern society?” We are both rescue dog moms. As the proud mama of a rescue dog, I identify this on a very deep level. I wish I knew the age of my dog, but I do not. Also one running theme throughout Life Will be the Death of Me is her anger towards Trump. There is a lot, a LOT of anger being funneled in his direction, and I love it. I personally think almost all evil is his fault, at this point in time. Darth Cheeto sucks donkey balls.

If you want some laughs and some insight. I say check out Chelsea Handler’s latest book Life Will Be the Death of Me. If nothing else, you’ll giggle a few times, and there are really cute pictures of her dogs and family.

Memorable Quotes
“Having an older brother is a lot like a crush – in fact, it is a crush.”
“No person is just one thing.”

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Title: Life Will Be the Death of Me
Author: Chelsea Handler
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Copyright: 2019
ISBN: 9780525511779

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What a winner. Dog butt.
Books, NonFiction

Mother Winter by Sophia Shalmiyev

Worth A Read Yes
Length 288
Quick Review A meandering memoir. Shalmiyev talks about the dark side of growing up with an alcoholic mother and the scars that never go away.

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Mother Winter by Sophia Shalmiyev | Jeans | Sandals | Shirt | Sweater

Mother Winter by Sophia Shalmiyev is one of the most interesting memoirs I have ever read, and I have read a lot. I’m drawn to memoirs because life isn’t defined by a single event or truth but the culmination of all experiences. Everyone has their own ever evolving truth, and memoirs are a beautiful exploration of that. Sophia Shalmiyev looks back at her life and how so much of it was affected by her alcoholic mother even after leaving the country and starting a new life.

Mother Winter reads like poetry. It doesn’t necessarily make sense at first, but in its entirety, it is a beautiful story. Shalmiyev was born in Russia during the communist years. Her parents divorced, and her father raised her due to her mother being an alcoholic and unfit to parent. Even so, Shalmiyev never stopped looking, thinking, or yearning for the mother she lost. In her youth, she left the USSR to make a home in the United States.

I speak Russian. I have a fairly vast knowledge of the history, literature, and culture because I studied it in college. For me, the language and culture was very accessible. It’s interesting to know the history of a country and government juxtaposed against the personal experience of a young girl. I love how Shalmiyev transliterated some Russian words instead of translating them; it granted a more insight into the culture.

The prose in Mother Winter is not straight forward. The chapters weave and jump, backtracking and side-stepping. It is a very complicated organizational system, which could have failed miserably, but instead it is the perfect fit. The reader gets lost and regains themselves in the text, in a way similar to Shalmiyev felt, I can only imagine, as a child in Russia between homes and again as a young immigrant in America. Discombobulated in the best of ways. I love how eloquent and transcendent her prose is; then, suddenly there is a bluntness to her sentence where there is no room for misinterpretation. On of my favorite passages can be found on page 46 and 47. Shalmiyev cuts through the bullshit.

She weaves USSR history into her life giving the reader context and understanding of what she went through. She blends history, science, feelings, memories, anecdotes, adjective strings, third person narration, quotes, directives to her mother, and so much more. The amount of knowledge Shalmiyev includes extends from literature, medicine, philosophy, science, and history – I probably missed some.

Mother Winter is an absolute joy to read. I loved it from a personal stance because of the Russian component, but it is also the story of a mother and a woman surviving. I absolutely cannot recommend this book more.

Memorable Quotes
“Yesterday has never ended.”
“a book like Henry and June roasted my throat with the fear that tough and smart doesn’t protect you from subservient and used up.”
“Goods are damaged often by no fault of their own.”

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Title: Mother Winter
Author: Sophia Shalmiyev
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Copyright: 2019
ISBN: 9781501193088

Books

No One Tells You This by Glynnis MacNicol

Read Yes
Length 304
Overview A fabulous memoir about a newly 40, childless, single woman in New York learning to struggle, be proud of, regret, love, question, and live the life she has.

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No One Tells You This by Glynnis MacNicol is a new release having hit bookstore shelves barely a month ago. I jumped at the opportunity to read this, and I absolutely love it.

I’m single, childless, and getting older every day. As a woman of a certain age, I hear “when are you getting married?” “when are you going to have babies?” and “you’ve still got time.” more than often. I’m not searching these things out. We live in a time where I am not forced into a one-way path of female adulthood; I can choose, support, and live almost anyway I desire. This is revolutionary even though it’s not completely unusual. There is a serious lack of variation in female role models. Every path is beautiful and fulfilling and difficult as long as we are able to choose the path we live.

Glynnis MacNicol shares her fortieth year story as she figures out if she’s happy with the life she’s accidentally, purposely chosen. No kids. Single. Her mother’s health is failing from Parkinson’s. Her friends are getting married and having babies. She hasn’t found anyone. Does she even want babies? She spends the year she turned 40 figuring out if she wants to keep going down that path.

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I don’t want to tell you too much, but the book is amazing. MacNicol is incredibly honest with the good and the bad. She taps in to her inner voice in an incredibly sincere way. She can be sad and funny in the same moment. There are incredibly touching moments, which will resonate deeply for women of all backgrounds and lives about finding happiness and being true to oneself.

The group of friends MacNicol describes is amazing. I hope to have a support group as deep, loyal, and wonderful as the one she describes. I also love how she often goes off on tangents describing her life in terms of “if my life were a rom-com.” She has no fear in tapping into the hilariously ludicrous inner voice we all have but would probably not want thousands of people knowing.        

I highly suggest you add this book to the top of your reading list. It’s perfect for any woman and should be read by men too.

Memorable Quotes
“Women alone always seemed to be seen as an advertisement: open space, please fill.”
“What cultural markers were there for women other than weddings and babies?”
“Women my age were always being accused of getting tell serious too quickly, but in my experience, men were just as guilty of it, maybe even more so.”
“People leave, but they also come back.”

Title: No One Tells You This
Author: Glynnis Macnicol
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Copyright: 2018
ISBN: 9781501163135
Books

The Sweetness of Tears

Difficulty: II
Length: III
Quick Review: When a conservative Christian family’s secret is revealed by science, Jo’s path changed drastically opening her mind as she navigates life in a Muslim country.

I’ve read a bunch of not great books lately… So I approached this hesitantly because I was temporarily, literarily jaded. Thank goodness, this lifted my spirits considerably. I loved it! 20180420_131241.jpg

In The Sweetness of Tears, Nafisa Haji weaves complicated stories to create a beautiful novel full of truly human experiences. In today’s society, Christians and Muslims are viewed as opposites and even enemies. Haji contradicts these assumptions through parallels, by placing the two in the other’s worlds, by creating situations calling for openness and understanding instead of hostility and animosity.

Jo March is a twin raised by a conservative Christian family with a legacy in the evangelist circles. When she studied genetics in high school, she learned the impossibility of her brown eyes by her blue eyed parents. When she found the answer she was looking for, her life changed. She studied Arabic and Urdu in college before embarking on a career as a translator in the Middle East during the beginning of war. Her time there lead her to seek out the answers to questions she had been to scared to ask before. I won’t tell you more because you should read the book, and I don’t want to spoil anything.

I found it addicting from the first page, which rarely happens. I shy away from books with conservative Christians at the center because well, it’s just not my cup of tea. Haji confronts those stereotypes of intolerance, close-mindedness, and more the way she confronts similar to those that plague Muslims.

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Haji writes for a largely American audience with the assumption they have a Christian upbringing. She explains Pakistani and Islamic customs for those who are not familiar, but she does not condescend or dumb down her culture. There are so many themes, ideas, customs, and cultures running through the book, I would be a fool to try and talk about them all. She is truly a wonderful storyteller. She is able to put questions in the reader’s mind while waiting to answer them until the time is right.

One of the most overarching themes in the book connects to the way Haji wrote the book. The present is hard to define without first knowing the past, the choices, the situations, the people which created the present. Whether we like it or not, we are products of our parents and grandparents choices and experiences.

Other things I really appreciated: the character of Grandma Faith. She is what a good Christian should be: loving, accepting, and kind. I loved everything she said and stood for, though I am not a Christian myself. None of the characters in the book were dislikable, except for maybe Uncle Ron – the stereotypical evangelist.

I truly can’t recommend this novel enough. In today’s America, there is an overwhelming amount of mistrust, fear, and hostility when it comes to unfamiliar cultures. Haji writes a beautiful story about opening oneself to new and different, to accepting culpability, to being an intersectional world. It’s amazing.

Memorable Quotes:
“family values- only thing I ever saw being values when I’ve heard those two words getting thrown around is the act of not minding your own business.”
“Belief is about closing yourself off – a lie you tell yourself to make the world fit in with how you’ve decided it should be.”
“Real change in the world, real justice, cannot happen without the participation of women.”

Title: The Sweetness of Tears
Author: Nafisa Haji
Publisher: William Morrow (HarperCollins Publishers)
Copyright: 2011
ISBN: 9780061780103