This is a really gripping memoir of a lifetime of intimate violence, starting in Puerto Rico and then after she moves to Florida. The vulnerability of growing up with a mother struggling with mental health and addiction is conveyed with deep emotion, while also conveying the toughness that she used in order to survive.  Set against the backdrop of colonialism and poverty, it comments on social justice issues without an preaching necessary--just solid and compelling storytelling.

Recommend. 

Click here to purchase this book and support My 50 Bookish Friends blog project.

This historical fiction about a Mennonite community in which a group of serial rapists attack so many of the women in the closed, conservative community, that the women come together to try to figure out a collective response to the attacks.  The women themselves are illiterate and lack any education, so they enlist a young man as a scribe for their meetings to discuss how to move forward. Even knowing that the author grew up in a similar closed community, I had a hard time finding the discussions between the women believable--in some ways they presented as more aware of feminist theory than I would expect and at other times presenting as much less sophisticated than I would expect. Having the male narrator was also an odd layer to the story, especially as he pined away for one of the women he was interested in romantically.  I just couldn't really get into the book in general.

Not recommended.

I like the way this dual romance, anti-romance book is written, with the voice of two sisters who are both struggling with their love lives.  With their relationship almost-centered, the story has a nice added dimension that is often lacking in romances.  That said, I am truly tired of the grumpy, sullen, but hot and mysterious guy that attracts the sweet, hardworking woman only to find out that there is depth to his character that explains his awful behavior towards her.  This storyline, though, was next to the anti-romances of both sisters disentangling (or not) from unhealthy relationships.  So, sometimes to like here, but not enough to warrant a recommendation.

​Not recommended.

​Click here to purchase this book and support My 50 Bookish Friends blog project.

The premise of this book was quite unusual.  In anticipation of her death, a mother wants her two children to try to repair their relationship with each other, while also explaining a complicated family secret.  The story within the story is told on a recording left behind by the mother that the siblings are instructed to listen to together.  There are so many issues covered here and so many layers to the family rifts and estrangements.  The story takes off slowly, but ultimately the weaving of the two timelines unfolds in a way that I was drawn in and while you know a secret is coming, it isn't necessarily entirely what is expected, as more and more of them keep coming.  Ultimately a story about a dysfunctional family with unresolved intergenerational trauma, it is heavy, but worth the read.

Recommend.

In the world of self-help books about women's bodies and sexuality, this one stands out as especially good for a number of reasons.  The science and data she references is incorporated not only in useful ways, but her writing style makes the material accessible, engaging, and even entertaining.  She addresses survivors of sexual assault and rape in a trauma informed way that is not only gentle, but respectful and what she has to say is way above average in terms of being insightful and likely to be helpful.  

Recommend.

Click here to purchase this book and support My 50 Bookish Friends blog project.

The main problem with this book is that the main story arc is not resolved in the first book, even though the case the protagonist and her boss are working on is solved.  I am not sure I loved the book enough to read the second one and I am definitely concerned that even if I read the next two in the series that that still might not be enough to get to the bottom of the protagonist's storyline.  

The narrator is a former prosecuting DA who left her job after a mental health crisis occurs following the murder of her husband.  She is now a private investigator for a disgraced, but still barred attorney.  They are hired to investigate a murder when the person serving time for the murder recants his confession.  It is a complex storyline that wraps up nice and is intriguing enough to have kept my attention, but even after the twist to that case wraps up, her husband's murder is reopened and left hanging.  So, the question for me is whether I want to continue with that story in the next two--and possibly more--books.

Not recommended.

After seeing Anthony Rapp's one-man musical off-Broadway, I got his book.  He is the narrator for the audio version and both the book and the show were amazing.  My son and I actually went to see the show on Mother's Day, which made for a particularly emotional experience since  much of the story revolves around the death of his mother from cancer and their complicated relationship.  Th book in general, though, focuses on grief--in the wake of Jonathan Larson's death on the eve of the opening night of Rent and in the midst of the AIDS crisis.  The book is very emotional, as was the show, and the book in particular sometimes felt a bit emotionally manipulative in terms of working a bit too hard to pull on my heartstrings, but even with that, i thoroughly enjoyed it and highly recommend it.

​Recommend.

Another memoir of white women living in colonial Africa, this had a slightly different take, as it as written by the daughter in a family where three siblings died while her parents continued to doubling down on their commitment to being white colonizers in a place they were not wanted.  Her stories of her mother's outrageousness and adventurousness are tempered with acknowledgement of the damage their vary presence was doing.  This one was above average in this genre, but not enough to warrant a recommendation.

​Not recommended.

By the time I got to the end of this book, it felt terrible to think about giving it a negative review since the last third of the book was a completely different experience than the choppy and disorganized beginning.  As is my practice, I read this memoir about growing up in Kenya in preparation for my trip there.  From the perspective of that, I really liked this book.  The writing brought to life the essence of the author's culture, family, and life.  His criticism mixed with appreciation felt refreshing and genuine.  In isolation, some of the vignettes were really engaging. Something about the overall structure, though, just felt so disjointed, it was difficult to even stay engaged, but at the end of the book, that seemed to fall away completely and I found the experience entirely enjoyable by the end, not to mention the author being entirely likeable and compelling.  I really wish he could have brought that writing (or maybe editing) to the rest of the book.  That would have been something to recommend.

This is a remarkably complicated story about a childhood friendship between two driven women who end up being tremendously successful.  Set in Pakistan and London, the cultural layers added depth and novelty to what is otherwise a timeless tale of the tension and love found in a long-term friendship that endured a shared trauma.  There was a lot to love here as the author navigates so many concepts--class, immigration, ethics, ambition, and loyalty.  There are a lot of characters and a lot going on for a lot of the characters, sometimes leaving me with a sense that I missed something as the book flies through time. In retrospect, I think an extra few hundred pages would have been helpful to help build out some of the details needed to more easily understand the various characters.  I particularly liked how the various characters deal with the traumatic experience the girls experienced as early teens differently and, in particular, how many of them dealt with it by ignoring it completely and trying to live their lives as if it hadn't happened, all the while being obvious to the observer that its impact is playing out in a variety of ways.  The plotting of this book is better than the writing, but carries it nicely to make it well worth reading.

​Recommend.