Not much happened to me in 2018…but I did read a lot of books, thanks to my long commute on the T. Here they are by the numbers:
Total books: 182
Fiction: 122
Nonfiction: 59
Poetry: 1
Library books: 162
Books I bought: 11
Books given to me: 7
Books borrowed from a friend: 1
Books won in a Goodreads giveaway (finally!): 1
Rereads: Only 1! (A Wrinkle in Time, which I re-read before the movie came out. I hadn’t read it since I was a kid.)
Female authors: 118
Male authors: 62
Anthologies: 2
Books called Far from the Tree: 2 (one a YA novel by Robin Benway and one a nonfiction book by Andrew Solomon)
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
This was really well-written, and I love how good Celeste Ng is at showing all sides of a tough situation and where every character is coming from, even when you don’t agree with the character’s actions. I usually find books of the suburban-life-isn’t-perfect-underneath persuasion kind of cliche, but this one manages not to be because it pokes fun at how extreme the “planning” of Shaker Heights is while also showing the appeal of living in such a community. It’s set in 1997-1998, and she puts in just enough details from that time period that it doesn’t feel overdone. I have a few nitpicks about the plot, and one of the kids is named Moody- who the hell names a kid that? But this was a great read- my first of 2018 and one of the best.
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
I’ve heard absolutely nothing but raves about this book since it came out, and now that I’ve read it, I can confirm that there’s a reason for that. This book is phenomenal. There have been studies that say that reading fiction increases empathy, and that’s because of books like this one. There have been so many cases of unjustified police shootings of black people, and while getting outraged is easy, it’s harder to imagine what it would be like to lose a friend or relative in that way. But Angie Thomas does a great job not only with creating a protagonist who witnesses her friend’s death at the hands of a cop, but with painting a picture of life in a neighborhood plagued by gang violence and crime. You can also feel Starr’s anxiety about how she presents herself to her rich, mostly white classmates at the private school she attends, and how she feels she has to hide parts of herself from both people at school and people in her neighborhood. The characters are not real people but absolutely feel like they could be. and while this book is incredibly sad, there are some moments of levity, too. The plot, sadly, is very realistic. I hope that someday in the future, people will read this book and see it as a reflection of a thing of the past and not the current reality. But for now, it’s a reflection of the latter.
Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes
I’m surprised by how much I liked this. I don’t really watch any of Shonda Rhimes’s shows, but I really liked how this book was written- she’s very funny and self-aware. Considering that she’s a rich TV executive, she’s surprisingly relatable. The book is, essentially, about realizing that you’re stuck in a rut and learning how you can say yes to things that take you out of your comfort zone. I think everyone can benefit from that.
Accidental Saints by Nadia Bolz-Weber
Oh, this was so good. It was exactly what I needed at the moment I read it- a book by a pastor who admits to her own weaknesses (some of which I share) and is also able to find moments of grace with unlikely people and in unlikely places. She’s great at really digging into what Christian love means in the real world, and there is not an ounce of self-righteousness in what she says.
I almost didn’t give this five stars because of all the gratuitous references to Crossfit. (As they say, it’s the opposite of Fight Club- the first rule of Crossfit is that you never effing shut up about Crossfit.) But she’s so awesome otherwise that I’ll forgive her for that.
Educated by Tara Westover
The first, and so far only, book that I’ve won in a Goodreads giveaway! This was fascinating and very well-written. It occurred to me as I was reading it that Tara’s family is basically every category of annoying people you unfollow on Facebook rolled into one. Crazy right-wing anti-government beliefs? Check. Her dad (whom Tara suspects is bipolar) had them living on a mountain in Idaho, stockpiling food and ranting about communists and the Illuminati- he wouldn’t even let them get birth certificates at first because it would be “registering” with the government. Gun nuts? Check. Misogyny justified by misinterpreting religion? Check. They practiced a version of Mormonism far outside the mainstream- her father insisted on an extreme version of modest dress and thought that women shouldn’t work outside the home. Unschooling and denunciation of public schools and higher education? Check. Anti-vaxxers? Check times a million- they didn’t just refuse to vaccinate but refused to go to the doctor for ANYTHING, even though many of them suffered serious injuries (they all worked at a freaking junkyard on a mountain!). MLM hawking essential oils? Check, minus the MLM- Tara’s mother made her own essential oils and used them and other homeopathic remedies on illnesses and injuries rather than going to the doctor. They are definitely not people I’d like to know in any context, let alone be raised by. Yet despite her parents’ disdain for higher education, Tara’s intellectual curiosity led her to study for the ACT on her own, eventually earning a PhD in history.
It’s interesting that history ended up being her primary interest, since she’d learned so little about it that she started college not knowing what the Holocaust was or anything about civil rights. Even in the writing of this book, her academic background in history shows- when she’s not sure she remembers something right or has heard conflicting accounts of something from various family members, she makes sure to say so in footnotes, even when the issue doesn’t affect her overall point. It’s also important to her to make sure that her own account of her personal history is recorded because of the extreme physical and mental abuse that one of her brothers inflicted on her. The word “gaslighting” is overused these days, but there’s no other word for what her family did to her when she tried to tell them how her brother had hurt her. Some parts of this story are really heartbreaking, but I’ve always enjoyed memoirs written by people who endured traumatic childhoods and still turned out to be talented, successful, functional adults. The fact that Tara became such a normal and knowledgeable adult is a testament to the power of education.
Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
Years ago, I was browsing in Brookline Booksmith and flipped through this book. I liked the concept of it- nothing very unusual has ever happened to me, either, so it amused me to see that someone had written a memoir based around that very concept. Then I forgot about it.
In 2017, though, Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s tearjerker Modern Love essay “You May Want to Marry My Husband” went viral. While suffering from ovarian cancer and knowing that she didn’t have long to live, she basically wrote an online dating profile for her beloved husband of 26 years. Ten days after the essay was published, she died at age 51. And that’s when I realized that she was also the author of Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life.
So this book has taken on some additional poignancy in the wake of Amy’s death. It was published in 2005, when she was 39. At the beginning, she sets the scene with an “Orientation Almanac,” which has lists of things like “Countries in Power,” “Popular Kids Names,” and “Ways We Exercise.” (Some, like “Top CNN Stories 2000-2005,” “Machines We Own,” and “Confirmed Planets” are already outdated.) From there, it’s a collection of facts about herself and her life as well as random anecdotes and observations, all in the form of an encyclopedia. Even though I haven’t had some of the life experiences she’s had (marriage, children, etc.), I found myself agreeing with a lot of her thoughts and laughing out loud at some of them. She finds meaning, humor, and beauty in the ordinary, and she just comes across as a very warm, funny person.
The first entry in the encyclopedia is “Amy,” and the last is “You.” Fun fact: she says that the idea to end the book with “You” came from none other than John Green! (Looking for Alaska was published around the same time as this book, so this was pre-bestselling author, pre-YouTube star John Green.) And I’m just going to quote the “You” entry in its entirety, because I found it deeply moving:
“Perhaps you think I didn’t matter because I lived __ years ago, and back then life wasn’t as lifelike as it is to you now: that I didn’t truly, fully, with all my senses, experience life as you are presently experiencing it, or think about ____ as you do, with such intensity and frequency.
But I was here.
And I did things.
I shopped for groceries. I stubbed my toe. I danced at a party in college and my dress spun around. I hugged my mother and father and hoped they would never die. I pulled change from my pocket. I wrote my name with my finger on a cold, fogged-up window. I used a dictionary. I had babies. I smelled someone barbecuing down the street. I cried to exhaustion. I got the hiccups. I grew breasts. I counted the tiles in my shower. I hoped something would happen. I had my blood pressure taken. I wrapped my leg around my husband’s leg in bed. I was rude when I shouldn’t have been. I watched the cellist’s bow go up and down, and adored the music he made. I picked at a scab. I wished I was older. I wished I was younger. I loved my children. I loved mayonnaise. I sucked my thumb. I chewed on a blade of grass.
I was here, you see. I was.”
Rest in peace, Amy. Your life may have been ordinary, but it sounds like it was pretty happy and meaningful as well.
Would You Rather? by Katie Heaney
A few years ago, I read Katie’s first memoir, Never Have I Ever, about her experiences wanting a boyfriend but not being able to find one. I loved it and found her funny and relatable, and hoped that she’d find someone she could be happy with. Since that book’s publication, she HAS found someone. But that someone is a girl, not a guy- Katie realized that she’s gay. (Well, except for her attraction to Harry Styles- as it turns out, he’s a pretty common guy-crush for lesbians!) This book details the changes in her life since the events of Never Have I Ever (she moved to New York to work at Buzzfeed, went out with a few more guys, and became a One Direction fan), her realization that she wanted to start dating girls instead, the development of her relationship with her now-girlfriend, and how her newfound identity changed how she views the world, in small ways (her wardrobe, noticing other same-sex couples in public) and bigger ones (contending with the political issues facing the LGBT community).
I loved this just as much as her first book. She has such an accessible, conversational writing style, one that makes you want to be her friend. A lot of girls, including me, could relate to the singleness narrative of her first book, and I’m willing to bet that there are plenty of girls who discovered their same-sex feelings later in life who can relate to this one.
Far from the Tree by Robin Benway
The first of two books with this title I read, This was SO good. It’s about three half-siblings with the same mother meeting for the first time: Grace, who has loving adoptive parents but has been wondering about her birth mother since putting her own baby up for adoption; Maya, who loves her adoptive parents and sister but has always felt like an outsider; and Joaquin, who’s finally living with a good family after having a rough time growing up in foster care. I loved and empathized with all of the main characters and everything about the story felt just right. I like all of the different aspects of adoption, both positive and negative, that it touches on. I read and enjoyed Benway’s very funny Audrey, Wait! in 2017, and I’m impressed that she’s also so good at writing a book with a very different tone.
Inspired by Rachel Held Evans
I loved this. Rachel Held Evans is one of my favorite writers on religion, and in this book she addresses the Bible. It’s interesting, because while the Catholic Church doesn’t have the biblical inerrancy doctrines that some evangelical traditions do, I don’t feel like I was taught much about how to view the Bible and interpret its stories. (There is some truth to the stereotype about Catholics not reading the Bible.) A class I took at the beginning of college helped me with it, but even that was just one unit of a larger course. So if you don’t believe it’s inerrant but also don’t believe it’s false, how do you read the Bible?
This book offers a good way to look at it. It’s well-organized, divided into the different types of genres included in the Bible and discussing both how and why they were written and how Christians can view them in the context of today. There’s even a great section about how the Bible is full of resistance stories, which is certainly relevant now! Rachel is relatable and often funny, and I think it’s equally valuable for people seeking an alternative to the way they were taught to read the Bible and for people like me, who were never adequately taught how to read it.
Prairie Fires by Caroline Fraser
Ostensibly a biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder, this kind of turns into a biography of her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, as well. My biggest takeaway from this book: Rose Wilder Lane was NUTS. Seriously, I think she had some kind of personality disorder or something. Whenever you think she can’t get more horrible…she does. She even admitted in writing at one point that she had no conscience. I knew she was a hardcore Libertarian, but it turns out that she was also extremely racist and anti-Semitic, SYMPATHIZED WITH NAZIS, had a few teenage boys she considered “adopted” sons but might have had a much sketchier relationship with (like, no outright proof that she was a pedophile but some eyebrow-raising circumstantial evidence), published rip-offs of her mother’s books behind Laura’s back because she wanted to put her own spin on the story, had this weird obsession with trying to shoehorn the bloody Benders into her mother’s books (the Ingallses lived fairly close to them at one point but never actually interacted with them), wrote these awful biographies of Charlie Chaplin and Jack London with tons of outright fabrications, told plenty of weird lies about herself (like that she was proposed to by the King of Albania), and lots of other stuff I can’t remember at the moment.
Laura DEFINITELY wrote the books, though. Rose was a terrible writer, and although she did edit and influence the Little House books, it’s clear that they were primarily Laura’s creation.
Other interesting tidbits I learned from this:
-I always thought Almanzo was just an old name that fell out of fashion, but turns out it was a weird name even then. The author makes a good case that his mother named him after a hero in a romance serial, which is hilarious.
-Speaking of names, Rose had a boyfriend at one point named Garet Garrett. After Googling him, it turns out that his real name was Edward Peter Garrett, so…why? Why would you do that to yourself?
-Sherwood Anderson, who wrote Winesburg, Ohio (which I love!), actually parodied Rose in one of his other books, which I now want to find and read.
-There’s some dark stuff that didn’t make it into the books. Like at one point, they lived above a saloon where all these sketchy people were coming in and out all the time.
-THEY WERE ALL SO BAD WITH MONEY! Everyone involved made some really terrible decisions!
This 100% deserved the Pulitzer. It’s interesting, well-written, well-researched, and does a great job including historical context. Props to Caroline Fraser!
Honorable Mentions: P.S. I Miss You by Jen Petro-Roy, Little Comfort by Edwin Hill, Far from the Tree by Andrew Solomon (yep, the other Far from the Tree!), Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann, Harmony by Carolyn Parkhurst, The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne, The War that Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley, Why We Came to the City by Kristopher Jansma, Out of My Mind by Sharon M. Draper.