The past month has included green (July) and blue (August) books. Even if not all of them were winners, I'm really enjoying how this project is encouraging me to read a wide range of different kinds of books!
Introverted Mom: Your Guide to More Calm, Less Guilt, and Quiet Joy by Jamie C. Martin: If you can get past the narrowly gendered, cisnormative, heteronormative, mononormative language of this book, this is such a beautifully affirming book for parents of any gender who feel overwhelmed by the sensory overload of parenting combined with the external pressures to parent in a very social way.
Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work by Chip Heath and Dan Heath: I like the Heath brothers' books for how they break down complex topics into practical steps with simple phrases and acronyms. In this case, they use a framework of four steps the reader can use to make better decisions, each of which has multiple variations of how that step might be accomplished. I appreciated the takeaways from this book, even if I took issue with some of the authors' assumptions.
A Is for Alibi by Sue Grafton: It turns out that I don't like a hard-boiled private eye any better when they're a woman. I found the ending fairly predictable, and I was confused about some of the main character's decisions. I don't think I'll pick up another book in this series.
Hum If You Don't Know the Words by Bianca Marais: I hoped this would get better, but alas. I hoped this wouldn't turn out to be mostly about a white girl coming of age through the help of Black people teaching her not be prejudiced, but again... alas.
The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick by Mallory O'Meara: This was fabulous! O'Meara intersperses a chronological retelling of Milicent Patrick's life with her own investigative attempts to learn more about this artist who worked on animations at Disney and designed movie monsters in an era with even fewer female names than the industry sees today. Even if you're not a classic film buff or monster enthusiast, I'd recommend this book if you're willing to go along for the ride.
Open: An Uncensored Memoir of Love, Liberation, and Non-Monogamy by Rachel Krantz: This was both fascinating and extremely stressful to read. I think I'd recommend this to a very specific audience, those who are involved in non-monogamy but finding it emotionally challenging, but not those who have experienced gaslighting or other abusive relationship dynamics unless they are extremely well-equipped to handle the triggers of this book.
Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson: I devoured this one in a few days. I enjoyed the dual timelines, enjoyed the mysteries, enjoyed the characters. I should have known going in, given that it was a series, that not everything would be resolved, but it ended with less resolved than I expected. I will likely continue with the series.
The Other Significant Others: Reimagining Life with Friendship at the Center by Rhaina Cohen: This was such a needed book, and I'm so grateful it exists. I hope that the popularity of this book will push more people to rethink what the relationships in their life "must" look or feel like, leading to more visibility and acceptance of non-traditional relationship structures.
How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay by Jenny Lawson: I think this book is probably extremely helpful for writers and other creatives who have ADHD, anxiety, and depression, like Lawson. The further you get away from sharing all those identities, the less relevance this book is going to have. I struggled with the combination of her signature self-deprecating humor with the very earnest suggestions about dealing with severe mental health challenges, but I think this could be very helpful for a lot of people.
Looking back:
One year ago I was reading: You Know, Sex, Dracula, The Name of the Wind, The Knife of Never Letting Go, and Fevered Star
Five years ago I was reading: Weapons of Math Destruction, Womanist Midrash, The Buried Bones Mystery, and Nothing to See Here
Ten years ago I was reading: Bread and Wine, Beyond Consequences, Logic, and Control, and A Prayer for Owen Meany
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