BOOK IT! Vol. 4

I asked for this, honestly.

I am here, at the tail end of this first week of May, to eat my words. I should have known that when writing last month that I did not read any fiction, and that maybe I’d have better luck next month(!), the universe would receive that as an invitation.

Back in January, I put my name on the library’s hold list for a couple of books I’d heard some buzz around. They weren’t in my typical genre, but I resolved to diversify what I read. Only in theory, though, since both waitlists sat at nearly 200 people. And so I went about the first quarter of my year, reveling in the feeling of committing to change without actually changing, knowing at some point I’d have to read fiction but today wasn’t that day! Until it was. Until all the books became available at once. Until, at the beginning of April, I had three books of fiction in my possession and 20 days to get through them.

You can find me under a tree this summer, at Barton Springs, reading a library book.

Sometimes we need to eat our own words. In fact, these past couple of years, I’ve found it to be a consistent practice in my life: eating my own words. It is rarely anything but humbling. And, perhaps, it’s not a terrible place to be—to be humbled by the things in my life I feel in my gut I probably should be doing and finally summoning the courage to drag myself through doing, bitching and moaning and sometimes kicking and screaming, and coming out the other side better for it. I’m not saying reading fiction is a courageous act, but I am saying there’s a metaphor here and maybe I should pay attention to it.

The Long Goodbye by Meghan O’Rourke

I loved this memoir; it follows the writer’s experience of losing her mom to cancer and documents her grief in the first year following her mom’s death. It is beautifully written—a visceral and unflinching look at grief through its most potent time. There was one quote I haven’t been able to get out of my head, so much so I feel the need to share it with you: “Time doesn’t obey our commands. You cannot make it holy just because it is disappearing.”

🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕 7/8 pizza slices

North Woods by Daniel Mason

Based on craft and structure alone, this was an artistic feat. However, I felt more appreciation for the effort and thoughtfulness that went into the craft than I felt compelled by the story itself. It took me about 150 pages to really get into it, and if this were not a recommendation from a friend, I likely would have given up sooner. But I take book recommendations seriously. I want to give you, my friend, the benefit of the doubt. It’s vulnerable to tell someone, “I love this book, please read it.” And I’m glad I kept with it, truly! The ending threaded it all together so beautifully, in a way that had me tearing up, and that alone made it worth the read.

🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕 5/8 pizza slices

Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close by Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman

I’m not sure how I ended up with this audiobook in my phone’s library, where it’s sat for years untouched. The two authors have a podcast I have never listened to and so this audiobook was tailored to its listeners, I believe. The writing was more conversational in nature, which, frankly, I did not enjoy. This lived somewhere in the murky land of not-quite-memoir and not-quite-self-help and not-quite-educational. I left with some interesting tidbits, but I’m not sure there was enough there for me to recommend this in the end.

🍕🍕🍕 3/8 pizza slices

Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

Every bookshop I have walked into for the past year has prominently featured this book and I am always pulled to it because the cover design is so good. That’s not a cool thing to admit! That I loved the cover and finally decided to read the book because of it! But credit where credit is due, that designer did a great job. Luckily for my ego, within the first few paragraphs I felt pulled in by the writing. All the characters have such rich, complex, complicated lives. The book switches points of view, and there were some characters I felt more drawn to than others, but each POV felt important and necessary. This was a book that made me want to read more fiction.

🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕 7/8 pizza slices

All Fours by Miranda July

When I picked this book up from the library, I shot off a text to my friend letting her know. Her response? “Go with God. I felt like I was trapped in the mind of someone I hated.” I believe there is a skillset in writing characters that are wholly unlikeable but that you cannot stop reading about, and that was my experience with All Fours. This is not a bad book—it is well written; Miranda July is good at her craft. But Wednesday night, the last evening of April, I made it my mission to read the final 150 pages of the book because, as I said to my friend, “I need to know and I need it to be over.” I did, if anything, walk away from this book with a renewed motivation to be consistent with strength training, for the sake of bone health.

🍕🍕🍕🍕 4/8 pizza slices