Five stars, read in April 2019. There was a lot about this that was depressingly familiar to me. I grew up in the same religion as Tara, though her family believed in it much more literally than mine did. Relatedly, her childhood was more violent than mine was; my version of the story is mostly…
Category: 5 Stars
Moranifesto, by Caitlin Moran
Five stars, read in April 2018. It is possible that, as an American under the age of 40, I have been so deprived of sensible and ethical political discussion that what seems like earth-shattering brilliance to me is just common sense to the rest of you. But as I read this book, Caitlin Moran officially…
We Were Eight Years in Power, by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Five stars, read in November 2017. This book covers the eight years of Barack Obama’s presidency. For each year, there is an article Coates wrote for The Atlantic, preceded by an essay (“a sort of extended blog post,” I think is how he describes it) in which he looks back on his own work and assesses…
ME, by Tomoyuki Hoshino
Five stars, read in January 2018. I’ve had this post in my drafts for a few months now, because there was so much for me to work through. I did not expect the direction this book ended up taking, on more than one level. It was brilliant, disturbing, astonishingly incisive commentary on human nature and identity—and…
Trainwreck: The Women We Love to Hate, Mock, and Fear . . . and Why, by Sady Doyle
Five stars, read in January 2018. This book was like an electric jolt to me. I was genuinely frustrated every minute that I couldn’t be listening to it on Overdrive, and I wish it could’ve been twice as long. I don’t follow much pop culture, so although I’d heard of most of these stories in…
Boy, Snow, Bird, by Helen Oyeyemi
Five stars, read in February 2018. Nobody ever warned me about mirrors, so for many years I was fond of them, and believed them to be trustworthy. Despite one of the best first lines I’ve ever read, I’m certain I wouldn’t have finished this if I hadn’t read, and been so impressed by, What is Not…
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Americanah, read April 30 – May 1, 2014 I go back and forth between 4 and 5 stars, I think because the ending didn’t have as much of an impact as I was expecting. But then I remember how I basically devoured this book, loving every minute that I was reading, feeling completely absorbed and…
We Need—I Needed—N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth Trilogy Right Now
Five stars each and for the series as a whole; read mostly in December 2017. I read this series for the past two weeks of 2017, and it is so annoyingly perfect that The Stone Sky was the first book I finished in 2018. My stony, cynical heart doesn’t want to feel as hopeful as this…
Aerial Geology: A High-Altitude Tour of North America’s Spectacular Volcanoes, Canyons, Glaciers, Lakes, Craters, and Peaks, by Mary Caperton Morton
Five stars, read in December 2017. I took this book home intending to flip through its beautiful large pages, look at the photos, and return it in a day or two. I’ve ended up keeping it three weeks, reading a few pages a day, because there is so much interesting information presented in easily-navigable layers…
Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy, by Cathy O’Neil
Five stars, read in December 2017. I’ve read a lot of nonfiction this year that I consider to be important, even essential to the goal of social justice. There was Bertrand Russell, Christopher Hitchens, Susan Jacoby, and Sam Harris on the damaging nature of religion and anti-intellectualism; Angela Davis, James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison,…
November Mini Reviews
Long Way Down, by Jason Reynolds. Five stars. Oh, wow, I loved everything about this. The premise is such a cool one, with the elevator and the chronological ghosts; the verse is skillful and adds visually to the story; and the protagonist’s voice is just so painfully young and real. God, if only we could…
The Dorito Effect: The Surprising New Truth about Food and Flavor, by Mark Schatzker
Five stars for the outstanding information and research, though I’m questioning now whether I should have deducted a star for the pervasive and very off-putting fat-shaming. Read in November 2017. I brought this book home after reading the blurb on the back and realizing that this must be, finally, the thing that would explain my…
The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For, by Alison Bechdel
Five stars, read in July 2014. For the first 50 pages it seemed like I wasn’t making any progress—it’s one of those books that looks longer than it is, so you feel like it will never end. Once I got to the last hundred or so pages, I was hoping it never would. It’s funny, really, because several of…
The Bedlam Stacks, by Natasha Pulley
Five stars, read in September 2017. I’ve never read anyone who writes male characters the way Natasha Pulley does, and it’s irresistible to me. This book took longer to get going, but it’s also more polished than her first book; by the end, I’d fallen in love with Merrick and Raphael nearly as hard as…
The Bonesetter’s Daughter, by Amy Tan
Five stars, read in October/November 2017. It’s been several years since I last read Amy Tan and I was starting to wonder whether her books were a phase I’d grown out of. They are not. I deeply loved everything about this book, including (especially) the fact that in the audiobook, LuLing’s sections are beautifully narrated…
That Old Ace in the Hole, by Annie Proulx
Five stars, read in October 2017. I started with this at four stars, planning to bump it up to five if it stuck with me after a couple weeks. Annie Proulx is just . . . a master. How did I just read a book about all the things I find least interesting in the…
Notes on a Harry Potter Reread
These are small posts that come from my old blog, but which I hadn’t previously reposted here, from the last time I reread the Harry Potter series (in 2014). Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone I wish I could remember exactly how many times I’ve read the earlier books in the series; obviously it’s more…
An Autobiography, by Angela Davis
Five stars, read in April 2017. Yes, once again a post has taken me this long to write. For years I have been meaning to find out more about Angela Davis, and as so often happens, now that I’ve finally met her books I cannot believe it took me so long—or that in all my reading, she’s…
The Fire Next Time, by James Baldwin
Five stars, read in June 2017. First lesson learned from listening to James Baldwin on audio: I cannot listen to James Baldwin on audio. Jesse Martin’s narration is excellent (I knew I recognized his voice but had to look him up to learn that what I know him from is Rent), but James Baldwin is…
So Far This Year (Plus Mini Reviews)
This was meant to be a Top Ten Tuesday post, but I’m about a week and a half late and deciding to share it anyway. As usual, putting together a mid-year list of the best books I’ve read makes me think that my end-of-year list will be impossibly long—although admittedly, there are a few books…
Human Acts, by Han Kang
Five stars, read in April 2017. I kept not returning this book to the library because I wanted to go back through and get quotes for this post, but when I tried to do it, I felt like it was too late. This book is much too intense an experience to just dip back in…
Milk and Honey, by Rupi Kaur
Five stars, read in May 2017. Man, I have not been keeping up with things lately. I’ve started a new job and no longer have all the blogging time I used to, but the only computer we have at home is a shitty laptop that is so shitty I never want to use it. So…
Women, Race and Class, by Angela Davis
Five stars, read in March 2017. I can’t believe how readable this book is, considering how dense it also is in historical detail. The research that went into it must be astounding, but it flows like a conversation with a (really well-informed) friend. Along with many subjects I am familiar with, I was absolutely fascinated by…
My Brilliant Friend, by Elena Ferrante
Five stars, read in October 2016. Gorgeous. Such a fascinating relationship between the protagonist—smart, insightful, but noticeably young—and Lila—who’s more like a force of nature than anything else. I love how not pretty the book is, how it’s about the violence and smallness of life. The dynamics of Elena Greco’s neighborhood act out the tension, the…
In the Miso Soup, by Ryu Murakami
Five stars, read on the last day of September 2016. I should have written about this back then, because now I won’t be able to remember details. But this book was so notable that I still feel I need to post something about it. For several years Ryu has just been the other Murakami, the one who gets in…
Why We Can’t Wait, by Martin Luther King, Jr.
Five stars, read in January 2017. If you want a perfect example of why this book is (STILL) necessary, consider this: It’s a book about the same time period, the same issues, as To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee—the book nearly every person in the United States had to read in school. While I…
Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right, by Jane Mayer
Five stars, read from November 2016 to January 2017. Well. If you want to know why the United States looks the way it does in 2017, this is your book. (All emphasis in quotes is mine, and all the sources are named in the book.) Charles and David Koch. Richard Mellon Scaife. John Olin. Richard…
Jessica Jones: Alias, by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Gaydos (+ The Pulse)
Five stars, read throughout 2016. Jessica Jones is one of my absolute favorite characters from Marvel comics. She is superhumanly strong, angry, and utterly unapologetic. She has relationships, and they are in no way the focus of her story. She is dealing with trauma, which makes her vulnerable, but never delicate. She wears heavy boots,…
Why I Am Not a Christian, by Bertrand Russell
Seven hundred stars. Read in January 2016. Just kidding: It’s only five. I’ve just never read a book that I agreed with so closely. This is what my book looks like now that I’ve finished: And probably half of those blades of grass represent two or more sections on the same page spread. I think I’ve…
Shelter, by Jung Yun
Five stars, read in November 2016. This book was my choice for fiction in the first two rounds of the Goodreads Choice Awards, but it was eliminated from the final round. I read for two hours past my bedtime because that’s how long it took to find a place I could bear to put this…
Meanwhile the World Goes On 