Books, Reading Lists

A Reading List with Political Ramifications

I have been very, very bad at writing reviews for the books I’ve read over the last… two years. Really, super terrible at it. To the point my closet was being over run by books I’ve read and haven’t reviewed, and there was very little room for the books coming in that I have yet to read. So I consulted my board of directors, aka the dogs and I, and we made the executive decision to do a few reading lists instead of overwhelming myself with a to do list that I will, frankly, never do. Working on creating a clean slate for the rest of the year.

Put on my best political outfit and stood in front of Houston’s City Hall. I’m a bad ass… Not really, just pretending.

Anyways, this is a list of nonfiction books I read between 2020 and 2021 quarantine. They all are politically motivated in one way or another. This is one of the few lists that really does not have a stinker on it. Exceptionally well written, interesting, and educational. Pretty much the trifecta of a good read for me.

A Little Devil in America Hanif Abdurraqib
The thing about this collection of essays on the ways Black performance is intertwined into American culture and history in subtle and not so subtle ways. The content of the book is overwhelming and rife with emotion, but it is beautifully crafted. From the way essays are organized to the elegant syntax. Incredible read. 
Book Depository || Amazon

An American Bride in Kabul Phyllis Chelser
An interesting memoir about Chesler’s marriage to an Afghan man and her entrapment in Afghanistan. It’s well written and focuses on her physical and emotional journey, but she could have gone more in depth in all parts. It’s good but could be better. 
Book Depository || Amazon

Bag Man Rachel Maddow and Michael Yarvitz
Spiro Agnew, Nixon’s Vice President, was quite the slimy character. This little book is a riveting exploration of the Bag Man who entered the White House with little political experience and a lot of criminal activity in his past. Highly suggest.
Book Depository || Amazon

Between Two Fires Joshua Yaffa
Russia has always been fodder for conversation and the media, but the reality of living in Putin’s Russia of today isn’t quite at the forefront of people’s minds. Looking into the lives and careers of contemporary Russians, Yaffa is able to paint a picture of the give and take people must deal with daily to get by and even make their dreams come true. Well written and very interesting.
Book Depository || Amazon

Black Futures Kimberly Drew and Jenna Wortham
One of the most impressive books I’ve read; it sticks in my mind as one of the most beautifully written books about Black excellence. An anthology of Black creatives curated by Black creatives, my eyes were absolutely opened to new artists, writers, activists, musicians, and so many other incredible humans bringing meaning and beauty into the world. This is the one you need. 
Book Depository || Amazon

Carry: A Memoir of Survival on Stolen Land Toni Jensen
Jensen is a Native, Métis woman, who has lived her entire life around guns while carrying the weight and knowledge of their violence in her body. As an Indigenous woman, her experiences are not singular but historical. Her personal trauma and that of her people lives on in the body, and she reclaims language on stolen land. Vastly moving. 
Book Depository || Amazon

Charged Emily Bazelon
The balance between prosecutors, defenders, and judges in the American criminal justice system is supposed to be equal, yet prosecutors are gaining more and more power to decide who goes free and who does not. In a system rife with racial injustice, this problem is continuing to grow. Bazelon critiques the failing system in hopes of saving it. Fantastically important read in today’s era.
Book Depository || Amazon

Demystifying Disability Emily Ladau
Disability ranges from visible to invisible and touches so many lives. In a world that is not designed for people with disabilities and continually perpetuates disability erasure, Ladau offers a guide to opening our minds to create a more accessible world so all can enjoy and take part in it. She has an incredible sense of humor and allows space for questions and open dialogue instead of judgment and critique. 
Book Depository || Amazon

An exceptional stack(s) of books.

Dog Flowers Danielle Geller
A memoir documenting Geller’s personal journey of emotionally processing the objects her mother leaves behind after dying from alcohol withdrawals while being homeless. Combining prose and archival documents, she finds herself in her mother’s home, Navajo Nation, meeting family and finding another side to the woman who gave her life. Very moving. 
Book Depository || Amazon

Hatemonger Jean Guerrero
Guerrero documents the incredible rise of one of Trump’s most trusted senior policy advisors and speechwriter, Stephen Miller. Dissecting the horrific immigration policies and the narrowing of legal immigration, Stephen Miller created a terrifying, inhumane, and unwelcoming America he envisioned as a radicalized teenager. Quite literally nauseating; I could only read it in small chunks. 
Book Depository || Amazon

His Truth Is Marching On Jon Meacham
A beautiful tribute to John Lewis, a man who lived from a place of faith and compassion as he fought for racial equity and justice on the streets, among the people, and in Congress. Meacham writes a comprehensive look at the man and how he became the revered activist he is in the memories and hearts of Americans. 
Book Depository || Amazon

How to Survive America D.L. Hughley and Doug Moe
A hilarious and insightful look into what it takes to survive in America as a Black and/or Brown human. From water pollution to voting laws to food deserts to disproportionate COVID rates and many things in between, this book tackles real issues facing communities across the country. Funny yet eye opening.
Book Depository || Amazon

I’m Still Here Austin Channing Brown
Named to give the impression of being a white man, Brown recounts how her experiences are often juxtaposed against defying expectations by simply existing. In a world claiming diversity, she exposes the many ways actions fail to live up to words. Moving and educational. 
Book Depository || Amazon

In Pursuit of Disobedient Women Dionne Searcey
A New Yorker with a family, Searcey becomes The New York Times West Africa bureau chief, throwing all their lives up in the air to find passion and purpose. Working in the field brought her so many experiences, but she tells the stories which moved her most: The stories, struggles, and lives of women. Absolutely loved this book from prose to story.  
Book Depository || Amazon

My Broken Language Quiara Alegria Hudes
Language is a part of being human, but being a woman trapped between cultures creates a unique need and craving for a language that doesn’t quite exist. Hudes explores her search for language and meaning to tell the stories of her life and family as she searches for her own identity as a bilingual, bicultural woman and artist. One of my favorite memoirs.
Book Depository || Amazon

Oak Flat Lauren Redniss
Combining art and prose, Redniss tells the history of Oak Flat and the sacred meaning it holds for her people, San Carlos Apache, and their fight to keep it from being destroyed for capitalist gains. The conflict is ongoing and a haunting representation of what so many Native Nations are fighting for and against throughout history and today. Emotionally devastating in the best way.  
Book Depository || Amazon

The Devil in the White City Erik Larson
Larson tells two seemingly unrelated stories of the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. Daniel H. Burnham, the fair’s architect, had to overcome personal and professional obstacles to construct the White City in time for opening day. Dr. H.H. Holmes, a serial killer, created the World’s Fair Hotel with a crematorium and gas chamber to lure victims. Really well written and hard to put down.
Book Depository || Amazon

The Purpose of Power Alicia Garza
Organizing and activism come with lessons to be learned, and few know those as well as Alicia Garza the woman behind #BlackLivesMatter. In this guide to creating a movement to change the world, Garza focuses on her two decades of experience leading and following as an activist and organizer from grassroots to global movements. A really important read for anyone wanting to change the world.  
Book Depository || Amazon

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In My Own Words, Lifestyle

Four Years Later; Unpublished, Open Letter to My Dad

I walk through this world as a woman.

Today is a joyous, historic day. Joyous because the people spoke. Hatred was voted out of the Oval Office. Historic because the people chose a woman of color to lead us as Vice President. We chose change and progress, love and acceptance, hope and perseverance. We chose to strive for better, to embrace diversity in this country, to trust a woman with an office we should have been represented in a long fucking time ago.

If I am being incredibly honest, it’s not joy I’m feeling today but relief. The depth of which is overwhelming because tomorrow, I will wake up not having to suffer through the quotidian knowledge that the vitriol spewing Donald Trump is President of the United States.

I am not living under the delusion that when I wake up, the world of tomorrow is brand new. No, it is the same world as today. The fight is not over; it has just begun. Biden and Harris will not miraculously change the hearts of every man and woman who voted for Trump, who has turned a blind eye to systemic racism, who has decided police brutality is acceptable, who thinks the immigration policies of the last four years are humane, who has believed women are inferior, who has perpetually chosen to hate. In a world where information is more readily available than ever before, it is a choice to be ignorant of the devastating reality rooted in history, policy, and the heart of America so many people live in on a daily basis. 

This is the world we live in. 74 MILLION Americans voted for Trump. Not just men. Not just white women. People from all backgrounds voted for Trump. 74 million Americans will not disappear or change their hearts and minds by tomorrow morning. Nope. They are still here. They are still our friends, coworkers, neighbors, family, parents. They are all around us, and it is our mission to show them a better world.

I believe in love and kindness and peaceful protest. My activism is fueled by loving those akin to myself as much as those who have different beliefs. In my heart, I believe love and kindness is the only way to change the world, but that doesn’t mean I don’t fight, I don’t call out ignorance, I don’t push boundaries, I don’t stand up for what’s right. It means I do it from a place of love. I also believe in anger. 

I am angry. I am furious that Trump was elected in 2016. It didn’t come as a surprise, but it crushed my soul. I have spoken up in the past four years, and I have marched. Mostly I have read and listened and learned. I educated myself more deeply in areas I have been passionate about but lacked information. On a personal level, I was deeply devastated by Trump’s election. I have not spoken about my life as a rape survivor, a domestic abuse survivor, as a sex worker outside of a brief mention here and there. None of these define me, but they are an integral part of my identity, my career, my activism, my existence. Trump’s election cut to the deepest corners of my pain as a broken woman. This man fueled by hatred was elected to the most powerful role in this country after he proved time and time again that he was unworthy. I am angry because people I love voted for him in 2016 and again in 2020. They’re not bad people; in fact, they’re great people, but they searched within themselves and were still able to support a despicable man. 

On Friday, January 20, 2017, I woke up at 3:43 in the morning in tears. I was filled with the need to write a letter to the man I have loved and looked up to my entire life. A man who is kind and loving beyond words. A man who voted for Trump. A man I call Dad. I have no idea who he voted for in 2020, and frankly, I have no desire to. Even if he did vote for Biden, it wouldn’t change my hurt. This is a letter I never sent. Instead it is a letter to my father and every father who voted for Trump. It is a letter to every man and woman I love who voted for Trump. It is a letter for every Trump supporter. It is a letter that is unchanged, and yet I stand by every word exactly four years later. Biden may have won, but 74 million people voted to reelect Trump.

Dear Dad,

I didn’t need to ask who you voted for. I already knew, but I asked anyway. I couldn’t validate my feelings without knowing for sure. Maybe it was hope that kept me from asking for so long, or I was delaying the depression that I knew would set in the moment you answered: Trump.

It’s there now and always will be. In every hug, laugh, kiss, kind word. You love me, I don’t doubt that. But your vote tells me something else. Whether you realize it or not, your vote showed me where I stand. I am not worth the same as you. Your tiny act of filling out one tiny circle with your one tiny voice as one tiny vote in a sea of other tiny votes is not tiny to me. 

You are my father. You gave me half of my existence. I see you in the mirror and in my mannerisms. I am yours. I carry your last name and my face is recognizably yours. You were with me every day of my life for nineteen years. You watched my first steps, heard my first words, changed my diapers. You woke me up early to breakfast together before work and put me back to bed. You taught me long division and gave me my first coffee. You showed me what perspective is in art and life. You were at every dance and piano recital with words of encouragement. You watched band concerts and sat through cold football games to watch me in the marching band at half time. You were there at high school graduation and the real reason I walked at my college graduation. You have held my hand and shed tears in a hospital room. You celebrated my successes, but bought me ice cream through my failures and missteps. You chose to support me when you didn’t want to. You have been a part of my entire life. You were not an absentee father. You knew me. You raised me. I am your first born. As birthdays passed, your role turned from caregiver to being the person I wanted to emulate more than anyone in the world. You have been the hero, the guiding light my entire life, and I don’t think I can say that today. 

I am your daughter; the only you will ever have. On November 8, 2016, you silently told me I am less than you, less than your son. My future looks different than yours or your sons. Going into the world tomorrow, I will face challenges and obstacles you or my brother have never and will never have to face. Because I am a woman. It shouldn’t matter but it does. My genitals affect my existence in this world, and your vote made that existence even harder. 

Anger is a part of my soul. I am angry for so many reasons. I am irrationally angry that you couldn’t save me from pain men have put me through. With time, I will forgive you for not saving me in the past. I am familiar with the reality that it isn’t your fault, but you are my father. You were there, and I have the human wish that you could have just known something was wrong, someone was hurting me. You didn’t see. I hoped you would look in my eyes and see the pain, the pleas for help, the need to be saved, the desire to be believed. People talk about a parent’s intuition, but you didn’t have it all those days I was silently dying. You never saw the subtle signs as the little girl you watched dance around the house disappeared every time a boy you shook hands hit and raped me. I wish you could have seen all of those things in my eyes because they are your eyes. I am your daughter. I was hiding inside a body that looks like a female version of yours. I forgive you all of these things because I know it was not your fault; just like it was not my fault. Something I will have to continue telling myself everyday until the day I die hoping to believe it myself. You are not culpable for that boy’s actions or any of the other boys who came after. Men have hurt me in ways, I’m sure, you once prayed would never happen. But I carry their actions with me everyday as a permanent part of my psyche and history. 

You didn’t know then. You had no way of knowing. You know now. I have started making a career fighting against the kind of men who hurt me, the kind of man who is being inaugurated today. I speak out against violence against women by using my story to create positive change. You know now; yet, you do not believe me. 

You voted for Trump. You invalidated my struggle as a woman and supported every man who has ever hurt me. You normalized violence in an instant. With your one tiny vote you gave power to predators by electing a predator, a rapist to the most powerful office in this country. You helped make him a role model to little boys and young men. They will say, “Well, the President did it.” and “I’m just quoting the President.” Your vote made it even harder for me to get out of bed everyday because I always wonder if today will be the day I’m going to get raped again. Your vote told me it’s fine for men to act like your president. A man who thinks it’s totally fine for men, like my ex-boyfriend, college best friend, childhood friend, friend from church—all men you welcomed into your home—to take me without my consent because they are men, I am a woman, and they wanted me. 

By voting for Trump, you showed me I am not equal to my brother in your eyes or my country’s eyes. My brother who has just graduated college, who has a better job than I will have for years to come if ever because not only have I overcome being a woman, I have overcome so many obstacles he will never face because our genders differ. I have to worry about employers seeing this to only question if I am a viable candidate, someone who can be trusted to not make claims about sexual assault or cause problems in the workplace. I am shamed for overcoming and surviving repeated rapes and violence instead of being lauded for my vulnerability, transparency, and fight for equity because I am a woman, and this is my plight. My brother and I are not equals in your eyes; your vote told me that. 

Stories of how women prevent rape and assault circulate constantly when men should jut not be raping. I do not walk in fear to my car with keys entwined between my fingers. I do not call friends to chat on the phone so I don’t look vulnerable. I do not ask a friend who is both trusted and male to walk me home. I do not wear pants instead of skirts. I do not back down when men intimidate me. I do not stay in well lit areas. I do none of these things because I am not scared of the worst thing that could happen to a woman. I am not scared because I have already been gang raped. What else could be worse for me? It happening again? It already has happened on repeat for years. I am not scared of men because they cannot bring worse. And being murdered sounds like the most uninterrupted sleep I’ve had in over a decade. You do not know these things because you are a man, and you don’t live them. You could know them, but you don’t believe me when I tell you. Instead you choose to label me a liar, troubled, in need of help. All I need is a world that believes I deserve to be treated like a human. 

Your vote says everything to me because of who you voted for. Even if I agreed with all of his policies (which I absolutely do not), I cannot overlook his humanity. Or lack thereof. You voted for a man who treats women worse than the dirt he walks on. He says it is his right to grab me by the pussy. Well, someone did. 

Someone did for years, and several men after him did too. Some stopped at just grabbing, but others took it further. I have been harassed and groped by male “friends” in a bar while I was sober wearing a turtleneck. But it was fine because they were friends, and I was inexcusably in a bar. A liberal, Black president was in his second term, at the time. A man who believes women are equal and deserve respect and have the right to autonomy. Yet, you voted someone into office who has done what those men have done to me. What kind of world do you think he will create for me? If I was already living in hell? What will this man lead us to? For women, for minorities, for immigrants. I cannot imagine, and I am not looking forward to seeing what plays out. I just pray that we elect someone better in 2020. 

You helped make a man President, and he will be the “role model” for every man, son, brother, father, and everything male in between in this culture that surrounds me, your daughter, who has to live next to these men. I have survived in a world where this has not been the male “role model,” but yet all of these struggles have still been my reality. If this has been my world, what will it look like with this President leading us? Your President believes it’s fair to take me because I am pretty and female. Well, at least, I’m pretty because that means I’m worth being seen. Being a woman is not an asset with this President, who you helped elect.

How do I move forward? I have always been proud to be your daughter. I have always worked to earn your approval. As your daughter, since the beginning of my time on this earth, I have never wanted to distance myself from you because I had always been proud to be your daughter. I don’t know how to feel now. I’m not proud of you. 

I will never again hug you the way I once did because this stands firmly between us. How do I pretend things are fine when you have helped institutionalize discrimination based on the one thing I will never be able to change: my sex?

I love you less because of this. Just admitting that causes me more pain than you or anyone else will ever know because I have loved you intensely, loyally, blindly, and to a fault my entire life. You have been who I have idolized most. In my heart, I have always defined myself as your daughter. Not because you are my genetic benefactor or because we share the same name or because society and culture tell me I have to for patriarchal reasons, but because you are a good, kind, intelligent human. 

I can forgive everyone else their vote. Friends, family, acquaintances, etc. because it is their right in this country to vote for whomever they believe most fit. I can forgive them, though I will never agree. I can’t forgive you this. 

At 25, I now know where you believe I belong as a woman. This will not cripple my future. Your vote showed me I am less than. I cannot forgive you. Even though it is your right to cast your ballot as you see fit, it is still your obligation to protect me as a father. You took on this role willingly not at conception but when you decided to parent me. Parenting never ends. Not when I left for college or when you stopped financially supporting me or when I began a career or moved cross country. You are and always will be a father, and it is and always will be your obligation to protect me. You did not protect me when you voted for Donald Trump. What happens during his presidency lays squarely on your shoulders. It is your fault and every other person’s who voted him into office. 

You failed me. 

My heart aches, but I still love you.

Books, NonFiction

Humanization of Donald Trump in Mary L. Trump’s Too Much and Never Enough

Worth Reading Yes
Length 225
Quick Review Trump governs one of the most powerful countries in the world. His niece, a clinical psychologist, posits he doesn’t deserve any of the praise he’s garnered for himself. 

Too Much and Never Enough by Mary L. Trump in front of Air Force One.

Mary L. Trump is the oldest of Fred Trump Jr.’s children and Donald Trump’s only niece. With a doctorate in clinical psychology from the Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies and a lifetime of anecdotal experience, Dr. Trump explores the complicated familial history that made the youngest Trump, an undiagnosed yet dangerous narcissist with complex pathologies, in her book Too Much and Never Enough; How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man

Before becoming president, Donald lived a life of luxury, but that luxury masked a childhood and life filled with too much and not enough. Donald is one of five and the second youngest child of Frederick and Mary Anne Trump. He, like his four siblings, had a difficult childhood. Their father was cold, domineering, and manipulative, and their mother lacked warmth and had little role in the two youngest Trump’s lives. He, like his siblings, suffered from emotional neglect, causing a lifetime of irreparable damage.

Too Much and Never Enough is more than Donald’s story. It is the story of Dr. Trump’s family, her father, herself. She humanizes Donald by giving context to his inexplicable behavior. His personality, though outlandish and atrocious, is explainable. There is a reason Donald is the way he is, “Child abuse is, in some sense, the experience of “too much” or “not enough.”” Dr. Trump contextualizes childhood development and attachment and how everything went wrong in his particular situation, “…Donald suffered deprivations that would scar him for life.” Donald didn’t experience this abuse in a vacuum, it went back generations and existed for all the children in varying ways and was passed down to the next generation and experienced by Dr. Trump herself. As he grew older, Donald lashed out more and more as there was “… an increasing hostility to others and a seeming indifference to his mother’s absence and father’s neglect. … With appropriate care and attention, they might have been overcome. Unfortunately for Donald and everybody else on this planet, those behaviors became hardened into personality traits…” Into adolescence and adulthood, these traits would affect everyone in his orbit and eventually the globe as he took on one of the most powerful political positions. 

Family dynamics affected Donald, but they affected everyone else in the family as well. Dr. Trump wants her family’s story to be told. Her father passed away a disinherited, family disappointment at 42 from alcoholism. Family dynamics affected Dr. Trump. Even though she was born into a family worth multi millions, she had plead for college tuition. Of all the people in the world, Dr. Trump has as many if not more reasons to eviscerate Donald, yet she makes it known from the beginning that she is not writing this for financial gain but to elucidate Donald’s pathologies for the world at large. Though I believe her motivations, the book still feels rushed. Spreading the word before the campaign or a combination of capitalizing on it, means redundancies and a little bit of the “not enough.” Given more time, the narrative could have been improved. 

Donald, like every person, is a culmination of everything he endured and survived. Dr. Trump humanizes him through reasoning. She provides excuses without releasing him from culpability because he is an adult responsible for his actions. She repeatedly bolsters her arguments through facts, statistics, anecdotes, and quotes. What could have strictly been a family tell-all is a well researched look into her family’s history. 

Air Force One in Cedar Rapids, Iowa from my airplane window.

Dr. Trump never refers to Donald as Uncle or president. He is always Donald. The entirety of Too Much and Never Enough, she keeps her family at a distance and only refers to them by their first name. When she does to their relation, it is solely to contextualize who they are to her and within the family. 

There is a sense of humor to Too Much and Never Enough. In the chapter titled “A Civil Servant in Public Housing” or the phrase: “Unfortunately for Donald and everybody else on this planet, those behaviors became hardened into personality traits…” Dr. Trump finds a way to lighten the mood, even if it’s just for a moment. 

Diagnosing Donald is impossible. Dr. Trump begins Too Much and Never Enough by saying she can’t diagnose him because it would require a battery of tests and cross-sectional diagnosis that he would never sit for. Through reading, you can get a sense of what she believes his diagnosis could be if he would ever admit he has a problem. 

As infuriating as Too Much and Never Enough is, it is a lovely book about the horrible Trump family. Their failures, shortcomings, and history. For Mary L. Trump PhD, it is a story of overcoming and succeeding. Donald Trump is one of the most dangerous and powerful men in the world, but at the end of the day, he is a man who has suffered greatly. 

Memorable Quotes
“The fact is, Donald’s pathologies are so complex and his behaviors so often inexplicable that coming up with an accurate and comprehensive diagnosis would require a full battery of psychological and neuropsychological tests that he’ll never sit for.”
“It’s difficult to understand what goes on in any family – perhaps hardest of all for the people in it. Regardless of how a parent treats a child, it’s almost impossible for that child to believe that parent means them any harm.”
“Nothing is ever enough. This is far beyond garden-variety narcissism; Donald is not simply weak, his ego is a fragile thing that must be bolstered every moment because he knows deep down that he is nothing of what he claims to be. He knows he has never been loved. So he must draw you in if he can by getting you to assent to even the most seemingly insignificant things. … Then he makes his vulnerabilities and insecurities your responsibility: you must assuage them, you must take care of him. Failing to do so leaves a vacuum that is unbearable for him to withstand for long.”
“Donald was to my grandfather what the border wall has been for Donald: a vanity project funded at the expense of more worthy pursuits.”

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

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Title: Too Much and Never Enough; How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man
Author: Mary L. Trump PhD
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Copyright: 2020
ISBN: 9781982141462

Books, NonFiction

The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off by Gloria Steinem

Worth A Read Yes
Length 192
Quick Review Gloria Steinem has been one of the most identifiable women’s rights advocates for over sixty years. She has gathered some of her favorite quotes into this fun and powerful book. 

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My brand of feminism includes not wearing pants whenever possible.

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Spending quarantine reading The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off by Gloria Steinem.

I love quotes. I have a hard time remembering them, but I love them. I think they’re fascinating insights into just about anything, and when they’re really good quotes, they’re insights into everything. Gloria Steinem is quoted often. As a writer, activist, journalist, and all-around bad-ass, she has a lot of great quotes. She took some of her favorites from her career – and a few of her friends’ quotes too – and compiled them into The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off, which is one of her most famous quotes. 

The majority of the book is a collection of quotes. The prologue – like the beginning of every chapter – Steinem talks about moments and experiences in her life, which inspired or informed her work. She also breaks down the statistics, history, political, social, economics behind topics she tackles. The prologue takes the time to explain the title because it’s a quote she wrote many decades ago after being inspired by Vietnam protest signs. The quote went unnoticed for quite awhile until it became a slogan for feminists and others, “In a way, passing on a quote is like putting a note in a bottle and sending it out to sea.” 

Throughout the book some quotes are singled out and decorated with illustrations. The blue lettering used in these illustrations is a fun pop of color. 

The book is centered around women’s rights, but within the feminist realm she speaks to politics, aging, work, family, laughter, power, activism, racism, and more. 

Some might call it arrogant to make a book almost entirely out of your own quotes, but that’s only because she’s a woman. If a man did it, it would be called his greatest hits. I love that she had the lady-balls to say, ‘I like all of these things I’ve written. I like them so much, I want to remind everyone else about these awesome sentences and thoughts.’

A book of quotes is amazing, but it’s kind of hard to review. I highly enjoyed The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off. So I copied down my favoritest quotes, and it was hard to narrow them down because they were all good. It’s a great little book to keep on your coffee table or bookshelf. It’s filled with funny moments, serious topics, and a whole lot of feminism. 

Memorable Quotes
“So many of us are living out the unlived lives of our mothers.”
“A great thing about aging is that all those brain cells that were once devoted to sex are now available for anything else.”
“Democracy begins with owning our bodies. By that measure, women have rarely lived in a democracy.”
“Women can’t have it all if that means doing it all.”
“I hope you find encouragement and company in this lifetime connection of quotes from my speeches, articles, and books, plus some from my friends.”
“The Golden Rule was written by a smart guy for guys, but women need to reverse it: Treat ourselves as well as we treat others.”
“Talent is really enjoying something long enough to get good at it.” Nell Painter

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

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Title: The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off
Author: Gloria Steinem
Publisher: Random House
Copyright: 2019
ISBN: 9780593132685

Books, NonFiction

Becoming by Michelle Obama

Worth A Read Yes
Length 426
Quick Review Becoming is the story of how Michelle Obama grew from a little girl on the South Side Chicago to an icon, a role model. 

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Reading Becoming by Michelle Obama in Houston, Texas. | Skirt | Chambray Shirt | Polka Dot Top | Head Band | Watch | Shoes | Glasses | Earrings |

I read this during Black History Month, but life wouldn’t let me sit in one place long enough to sit and write. It is the first book review of Women’s History Month. Apropos since she has done so much for women and women of color in this country and around the world. 

Michelle Obama is funny, complex, intelligent, thoughtful, realistic, loyal, hopefully, and more. It’s so easy to water down a person to the image presented by the media; more often than not, she was left to be the woman standing behind the man in the white house. Up until Becoming, I knew very little about her life outside of the basics. I loved her as the symbol of hope and change she has been for myself and others. As a human, I didn’t really know who she was. As I turned each page, I saw a great deal of my own qualities in her. Type-A, reader, observer, sense of humor, and not wanting to veer from the path but needing to. Michelle Obama is relatable; someone just about anyone could sit down and have tea with. 

For those wanting a book about Barack Obama, he’s written his own. This is about Michelle. Barack shows up because he is a part of her story, but he is a supporting character. She does not let him over take her story, nor does she speak for him. She is telling her story, and she is a force. 

Michelle Obama grew up on the South Side Chicago, watching the neighborhood change from diverse to predominantly black. From a young age, seh was filled with a drive to reach and garner approval from those around her. She studied vigorously and “miserably at my desk, in my puke-green chair – puke green being the official color of the 1970s…” not only proving her sense of humor but her strength of will to withstand such visual torture. After reaching her entire childhood with the support of her parents, she attended Princeton before Harvard Law to become a lawyer in a law firm in downtown Chicago, where she would mentor and fall in love with her husband. 

There is a vulnerability and strength in her story. Struggle was a part of her life from an early age. Growing up black in a city not known for its kindness towards the black population. Her father battled MS. She was a minority in the Ivy League universities she attended and battled discrimination and low expectations her entire life. Michelle Obama spoke about the decision to leave the law after working so hard to get there. It’s a conversation people don’t often have, but I don’t know anyone who hasn’t fought that battle internally. There were so many moments of humanity, vulnerability, and relatability throughout whether it was miscarriage, in vitro, marriage, family, and career. It’s hard not to feel like you know this woman. Very few people can relate or even know the first thing about being on a presidential campaign trail. What most people can relate to is the stress careers can place on a relationship and family. The struggle to support a significant other when it means letting go of hopes and dreams to create new ones. Michelle Obama makes the unrelatable universally relatable.

This story isn’t just hers, though. Through herself, Obama is telling the story of people of color and more specifically women of color. The problem and cyclic nature of the angry black woman, “The easiest way to disregard a woman’s voice is to package her as a scold.” How hatred is incessant and often unfounded, but through acts of kindness and listening, “I’ve learned that it’s harder to hate up close.” The fact that creating minor change is difficult, but creating large scale change to affect a great number of people, “It was another thing entirely to try and get the place itself unstuck.” The Obamas were reaching to make the world a better place for everyone because they understood the struggle intimately. 

When you’re a public figure, it can be hard to be honest and vulnerable, but Michelle Obama does it with sincerity and an open heart. She tackles the struggles women and minorities face, the problems in society and policy, racism and hatred, and more with kindness and honesty. It was a sad day when she and her husband left the white house for many reasons. I love and admire her honesty about the awfullness of Trump and what his presence in the White House means, especially following her husband’s presidency. 

Throughout Becoming, Michelle Obama reveals herself to be a strong, resilient, intelligent, driven woman with kindness, empathy, and tenderness flowing through her every action. Though she may have not had the same big picture change in mind her husband did, the ripples she created in society have been felt as strongly if not more strongly because of her character, compassion, and willingness to be human, accessibly so.

Memorable Quotes
“I just wanted to achieve. Or maybe I didn’t want to be dismissed as incapable of achieving.”
School counselor telling her she wasn’t Princeton material, “Had I decided to believe her, her pronouncement would have toppled my confidence all over again, reviving the old thrum of not enough, not enough.”
About men: “Hearing them, I realized that they weren’t smarter than the rest of us. They were simply emboldened, floating on an ancient tide of superiority, buoyed by the fact that history had never told them anything different.”
On the pain of miscarrying and speaking with friends, “helping me see that what I’d been through was no more than a normal biological hiccup, a fertilized egg that, for what was probably a very good reason, had needed to bail out.”

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

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Title: Becoming
Author: Michelle Obama
Publisher: Crown
Copyright: 2018
ISBN: 9781524763138

Books, Fiction

A River of Stars by Vanessa Hua

Worth A Read Yes
Length 304
Quick Review A Chinese woman arrives in the U.S. to give birth to her baby, but due to circumstance stays to make her way in the face of adversity in Vanessa Hua’s A River of Stars.

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Reading A River of Stars by Vanessa Hua by the pool. | Dress

Reading books about immigration is important right now. It’s easy to talk about immigrants as a group or an other, but when you’re faced with stories of struggle, despair, children, and the humanity of it all, it’s hard to think of keep them separate from ourselves. The political climate in the U.S. is very …interested in immigration right now. We need these stories. Even though, A River of Stars by Vanessa Hua is a novel, it is very much grounded in reality for millions of men, women, and children living in fear and unknowns here in the U.S. and around the world.

Scarlett is a 37 year old Chinese woman who arrives in the United States to give birth to her bosses baby. She stays at a home for pregnant Chinese women, but it feels more like a prison filled with gossipy, rich ladies. Scarlett runs away with Daisy, a well-off, pregnant, teenage. They end up in San Francisco’s China Town scraping by, giving birth, and figuring it out, while the clock on their tourist visas keeps ticking away. They make friends and learn to lean on one another for help and companionship.

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A River of Stars by Vanessa Hua

There are four fundamental characters in A River of Stars: Scarlett, Daisy, Boss Yeung, and Mama Fang. Chapters randomly alternate perspective allowing each of these characters to tell their side of the story. It humanizes each of them, and shows their motivations, misunderstandings, feelings, and more. If the story had followed just Scarlett, it would have been vastly different. The immigrant story is not one sided but multifaceted and complicated. Everyone is searching for something, and at the core it is a search for identity and belonging. Hua also makes use of transliterations instead of using just English. The Chinese infusion is a lovely addition to the story because immigration stories usually include a language hurdle. Motherhood is an essential element to this story. Without it, the narrative kind of falls apart. Emigration is often heavily influenced by existing children or future children. Parents want the best for their kids. It’s a fairly fundamental emotion.

Vanessa Hua does a great job of creating an interesting story that is both fun to read and right on the nose for the political climate in her debut novel A River of Stars. It’s perfect for the upcoming summer months.  

Memorable Quotes
“Daisy didn’t realize that you might share the same bed, but dream different dreams.”
“She didn’t yet realize aunties specialize in contradictory advice.”

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Title: A River of Stars
Author: Vanessa Hua
Publisher: Ballantine Books (Random House)
Copyright: 2018
ISBN: 9780399178788