Books, Fiction

A Flawed Diamond: The Learning Curve by Mandy Berman

Being a woman in the world can be exhausting, but it’s nice to see the reality and complexity of our existence reflected in literature like The Learning Curve by Mandy Berman. | Jumpsuit | Sandals | Earrings |

Worth a Read Eh
Length 400
Quick Review An exploration of womanhood, friendship, sexuality, loss, and greater meanings of loyalty and sisterhood. 

In theory, I like The Learning Curve by Mandy Berman. In reality, I found it relatable but boring. The plot and characters failed to capture my attention even though it incorporates many of the elements I want and search for in a strong female driven narrative. A flawed diamond, beautiful but not worth it upon further inspection.

Told from the perspective of three women, The Learning Curve follows the lives’ and internal struggles’ of Fiona, a grieving senior at Buchanan College, Liv, the girl-next door and senior at Buchanan College, and Simone, a mother, academic, and long-distant wife of a lecherous teacher at Buchanan College. These women lead drastically different lives, yet they intertwine and impact one another in expected and unexpected ways.

Two aspects of the novel stand out to me. Characters and the rape. 

Often, authors choose for their characters to act in petty, childish, or irresponsible ways, which is rarely reflected in my own interactions with people. That being said, I have been witnessing a higher frequency of childish and catty behavior in my personal relationships, so maybe authors are doing a better job of portraying reality than I had previously imagined. Berman creates characters with sophisticated emotional interiors and allows those characters to interact with each other in mature and communicative ways. They don’t lack for differences in opinions, views, and communication styles, but the plot is not driven by immature women playing into the misogynistic stereotypes we’re so often given. 

Rape is one of those topics people skirt. Authors employ it in a variety of ways. More often than I’d like, rape is portrayed poorly and even offensively. Sometimes, authors get it right. The Learning Curve does excellent work creating a rape situation that is often overlooked in literature and is rarely talked about in life. Fiona struggles with grief—after losing her younger sister—by drinking and escaping reality with various sexual partners. One night, she drinks and goes home with a guy. What starts consensually turns into rape. Berman calls consent into question. Is it given once? Can it be taken away? Is it ongoing? What should be a part of sexual education and in the quotidian conversation about sex and consent is rarely in the conversation at all. Berman illustrates rape in a way that many authors would not choose because it’s gray, it’s tricky, and it’s emotionally charged. How many girls have found themselves in Fiona’s position? How many don’t call it what it is: rape? How many chalk it up to a bad night and pretend it never happened, while they deal with the trauma for years to come?

The Learning Curve by Mandy Berman

One of the most poignant moments in this inherently feminist novel is when Berman calls out English for it’s sexist nature. English is not a gender neutral language. Throughout the history and evolution of English, the “neutral” has always been “he” or of the male gendered pronouns and nouns. A lot of this has to do with the fact women have not been able to hold property, inherit, vote, have jobs or careers, be leaders, and don’t forget women have been considered property to be held by men. It’s more than a linguistic oops; it is a reflection and amalgamation of our society, culture, and history. Men are the de facto and women are hidden. Berman broaches a discussion of this sexist and exclusionary facet of English and how it is used without realization by men and women every day. 

The book is riddled with grammatical errors of varying sizes. I can’t tell if the grammatical errors are narrative and character motivated… But I found it distracting. I would like to know where the copy editor was, what they were drinking, or a transcript of the conversations they endured.   

The Learning Curve really is an exceptionally well thought out book. I just can’t bring myself to love it emotionally, even though I do on a technical level. Though exceptionally thought out, I found it largely lackluster and forgettable the moment I put it down. Even in the middle of reading, I had to remind myself what was happening. I really wish I could say I loved it, but it fell flat for me. I definitely suggest it on so many levels because Berman calls attention to truly important topics and themes in women’s lives. 

Memorable Quotes
“Fiona wondered what it might be like for your ideas to be so valuable that other people would pay to read them, or would show up on a Thursday night, when they could be drinking or having sex or sleeping instead, to hear them.”
“These days she wondered how people raised more than one child. Just one was a second full-time job.”
“She was learning that attraction didn’t discriminate—that often, in fact, it bloomed in the most perverse of circumstances.”
““Complicated”: an adult code word for I don’t want to talk about it.”

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

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Title: The Learning Curve
Author: Mandy Berman
Publisher: Random House
Copyright: 2019
ISBN: 978039958948

11..., Lifestyle

11… Books for Women’s History Month

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Hanging out in the Iowa State Law Library in Des Moines, Iowa. | Skirt | Sweater | Shoes |

Every year, I like to read books dedicated to a few of the heritage months. Last month, I did not read as much for Black History Month as I’d hoped, oh well. I use the heritage months as a way to educate myself. 

The one month I don’t celebrate through my reading list is Women’s History Month. I don’t need to. Not that I’m the most educated person on the topic, most of the books I crack are written by and about women. I find them more interesting. Gender studies is one of my favorite topics to read about. I tend to have to go out of my way to read books by and about men in the fiction genre – history is another story altogether. I just don’t care as much about the protagonists when they’re men. Sorry, but not actually. I have always thought a woman’s story, no matter who she is/was, is far more engaging to me than those of men. Men are great, sure, but I’d rather spend my time reading about my people. 

I completely and full-heartedly support Women’s History Month, but I don’t make a point of dedicating my reading list to it. My entire reading list, all year long is a devotion to women, our history, our issues, our future. If you want to read more books about and by women, here are eleven of the books and authors who opened my mind and enthralled me as a young reader, as a student, and as an adult!

  1. Rose in Bloom Louisa May Alcott
  2. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Harriet Jacobs
  3. The Awakening Kate Chopin
  4. Funny in Farsi Firoozeh Dumas
  5. All The Single Ladies Rebecca Traister  
  6. Americanah Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
  7. Reading Lolita in Tehran Azar Nafisi
  8. Homegoing Yaa Gyasi
  9. Herland Charlotte Perkins Gilman
  10. The Second Sex Simone de Beauvoir
  11. To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

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