Category: Read This Book

Lulu and Milagro are two sisters who couldn’t be more different, and they both have exciting plans for spring break: Lulu is headed out on the school’s cross-country college road trip, and Milagro has finagled a way to stay home alone so she can finally lose her virginity. But when Milagro’s plans fall through, she finds herself tagging along on the trip, much to Lulu’s horror and Milagro’s annoyance. As they try to get along on the road trip, Lulu is bent on learning the truth behind the fallout between their mom and oldest sister—her hopes of attending school out of state depend on it. Meanwhile, Milagro discovers there are many different paths in college, and maybe a college career is in her future after all.

This novel is told in dual POVs, allowing you to get into both Lulu and Milagro’s heads. Velez does a great job of making each girl sound unique yet similar enough that you can buy that they’re sisters, and their perspectives on the world will make you laugh and also have you empathizing with their struggles, which aren’t as dissimilar as they might believe at first. While Lulu is very focused and Milagro tends to be the fun-loving sister, they teach each other that there is value in exploring your academic options and in taking the time to socialize and venture outside of your comfort zone. There is plenty of excitement on the road when the trip gets underway, but underneath it all is a big question: Why did their older sister Clara stop talking to the family after she went off to college? And what is their mom not telling them about Clara? It was just enough of a mini mystery to pull the story along and add some great tension to this story of discovery, and the truth will have readers contemplating what it means to work towards the future, and how if a plan falls apart, then it’s okay—you just make a new one.

The tl;dr version? Read this book if you like sister stories, humor, and soul-searching alongside family secrets.

Zuhur is an Omani woman attending university in the United Kingdom. As she tries to fit in with her classmates, she feels caught between two places. In her first person narration, we learn about her friends, their love interests, and the intersecting lives of the residents of her building. As Zuhur discusses her life, she’s drawn back to Oman and her family.

In these moments when she contemplates her family’s past, we learn of Bint Amir, a woman who Zuhur thought of as an adopted grandmother. Abandoned by her father at a young age, Bint Amir was forced to learn to survive on her own, eventually finding a home with Zuhur’s grandparents, where she became a wet nurse to Zuhur’s father.

The structure of this slim novel moves back and forth between Zuhur’s present and Bint Amir’s past. Eventually, we also learn more about the other women in Zuhur’s life who helped make her the person she is in the present.

Zuhur’s life in the present revolves around a friend of hers who has decided to marry a man who her parents think is not good enough for her. But as she helps her friend find moments alone with her beloved, Zuhur begins to enjoy his company too.

The strength of this novel lies in its approach to intimacy between characters. In just over two hundred pages, Alharthi gives us an intricate family saga. Somehow, I feel like I know these characters so well that I must have read a much longer novel. But that just illustrates Alharthi’s skill in characterization.

So if you love family saga and nonlinear structures, then this book will be right in your wheelhouse.

If you didn’t recognize Quinta Brunson’s name when this book came out in June 2021, you would probably recognize her now considering her incredible success with the Emmy award-nominated sitcom Abbott Elementary. Prior to that, if you are a person who has been on the internet at all in the past half dozen years, then you’ve likely seen or heard one of Quinta Brunson’s many hilarious viral videos, many of which were from her time working at BuzzFeed.

I have a soft spot in my reading heart for memoirs by comedians. I’ve read so many of them by some of my favorite comics from Margaret Cho to Aisha Tyler to Jo Koy. I’m definitely adding Quinta Brunson’s book to this beloved list of mine. I honestly doubt she has peaked and I’m so excited to continue following her career. She’s only in her early 30s, which pops up in the book during the parts where she talks about pop culture things (films, music, etc) that are meaningful to her.

Brunson grew up in Philly and she writes a lot about her family and upbringing. Her elementary and high school experiences were really remarkable in ways that 1) don’t exist anymore and 2) ways I can’t even fathom having access to when I was in school. Her education experiences really shaped who she is and what remains important in her personal life.

One of the most relatable parts of her book is where she talks about the culture shock of moving from Philly to Los Angeles. I’m from the San Francisco Bay Area but I went to college in LA and I lived in LA for years. The scene down there is… unique. And so are the people, especially if they work in entertainment.

A big theme of this memoir is around Brunson staying true to who she is, what she stands for, and the family she came from. It makes for a strong first memoir and yes, there are definitely some moments where I’ve laughed out loud. I want to note a quick content warning for gun violence.

Tessa lives an ordinary life in modern Belfast: She’s a single mom to an infant, a sister, a daughter, and a dedicated producer for a BBC news show. She’s used to getting a ribbing for working for the Brits, but the violence of the IRA doesn’t really touch her life until one day a robbery hits the news. It was carried out by the IRA, and Tessa’s beloved sister Marian is caught on camera pulling a mask over her face. Tessa’s life implodes as she goes into shock, then denial. There’s no way that Marian could be a member of the IRA…but if she is, that means Tessa must reconcile everything she thought she knew about her family with the tenuous reality of living in a country marked by violence.

I became intrigued by the Troubles of Northern Ireland a couple years ago when I happened to catch a documentary that touched on them, and I’ve recommended the nonfiction book Say Nothing: A true Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe in this newsletter before. But other than the contemporary aspects of Keefe’s book, I hadn’t read much about the Troubles that wasn’t firmly rooted in history, and I thought this was a really fascinating look at modern life shaped by these struggles. What struck me was how most people learned to just live against this backdrop of violence, while it deeply affected others in very different ways, inciting them to action. And then I realized that to those living in Northern Ireland, life in the U.S. must feel similar from afar, given how often our country faces unexpected and jarring gun and police violence.

In this novel, Tessa really has to dig deep into her own thoughts and feelings about how far she’ll go to protect her own family, and how deep she’s willing to wade into this conflict in order to buy herself and her loved ones some peace. The writing is elegant and also gut-wrenching, and I sped through the chapters because I truly had no inkling of how it would end. I highly recommend this if you like a more literary, interior thriller that looks at social and political issues.

In 1980s Tokyo, Takiko arrives at the hospital all alone to have her baby. She often finds herself repeating, “No, I have no husband” as the nurses repeatedly inquire as to why she is alone. After her son is born, Takiko faces an uphill battle as a working class single mother trying to escape her family’s suffocating home. Her father is often physically abusive and refuses to get a job, leaving Takiko’s mother to financially support their family.

Takiko feels determined to leave her parents house and make it on her own. But neverending logistics around childcare, healthcare, and finances repeatedly seem to make her goal of leaving her parents’ household farther and farther away. She moves from job to job, struggling to find something that will work with her daycare’s hours and the various doctor’s visits her son needs with his ongoing health issues.

Tsushima uses imagery around light to communicate her protagonist’s desire for independence and freedom from societal expectations.Takiko constantly feels that society wants her to give up everything, even her own personal identity, for her son. But Takiko believes she will be a better person — a better mother — if she still holds onto her sense of self.

The translation is incredible, and I often paused at the beautiful prose. And ever since I finished the novel, I haven’t been able to get Takiko’s story out of my mind. I will definitely be picking up more of Tsushima’s work in the future.

There are a number of books on the Black Panther Party and on (and by) its members. It can be hard to know where to start because the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was incredibly complicated. This book organizes the information with neither overly glorifying nor sugarcoating the complexity and I think it’s a good entry-point.

The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (later shortened to the Black Panther Party) was a radical political organization that was founded here where I am, in Oakland, CA. Many people associate the Black Panther Party with violence and while that is not completely unfair, it is definitely not the whole picture. I think that’s one of the things that I really love about this book. It gives you the tough stuff right alongside the wonderful, truly transformative stuff that the Black Panthers did.

It is very notable that the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense rose as a response to and in contrast to the non-violent civil rights movement. Congressman John Lewis’ and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s non-violence stance did not mean there wasn’t violence. The activists practiced nonviolence but their opposition, the police and others who upheld white supremacy, were still incredibly violent. This context is what gave birth to the Black Panthers: that Black people have the right to protect ourselves and our community from brutality. This graphic history has the text of the original Ten Point Program, of what the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense wanted and believed. I’ll be honest: reading that was really hard because it’s stuff we’re still fighting for decades later.

This book teaches about so many radical things the Black Panthers accomplished, like the free breakfast program, community clinics, and schools. We learn about many of the key members and how the Black Panthers inspired other such groups around the nation as well as satellites of the Black Panthers themselves. Readers also learn the many ways in which the party was taken down, both externally and internally, much at the hands of the FBI.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the artwork, which is perfection. There are so many people mentioned that I could not fully keep track of all the moving parts without the artwork. It helped the story feel more real, especially when at least in my life it always felt a bit like legend.

Content warnings for violence, police violence, racism in particular anti-Blackness, and substance use.

Alice is on the cusp of her 40th birthday, dating a man she likes but not well enough to marry, and dissatisfied in her career. But the worst thing about her life is the fact that her beloved father is terminally ill, and no one knows how much longer he has. When she goes to sleep on her fortieth birthday, she’s stunned to wake up on her sixteenth birthday again. Alice is intrigued and unsettled, but she has to admit there is one perk: Her father is healthy and alive, and she can talk to him again. No matter what led her here, this seems like an opportunity too good to pass up…but whatever changes she makes at sixteen will have serious consequences for the future.

I thought that this was such a great premise that allowed Straub to really take her characters in interesting places, and it’s all set against the interesting backdrop of New York City, particularly NYC in the 1990’s. Alice’s dad is a famous sci-fi writer of time travel fiction and while his books bear little resemblance to Alice’s situation, it does mean that Alice has some really intriguing conversations about time travel with the people in her life, and I thought that Straub approached the time slips in a really clever way. It was like sci-fi lite for people who might not be into the genre, but it also had enough nods to the genre that those who come to the book for the time travel will be satisfied. I loved the way that Straub examined how decisions we make as young people can inform our world view, which can have a profound impact on our futures…but that doesn’t mean things are always set in stone. This is a great novel that looks at identity and possibility and mortality in a moving way, it’s perfect for fans of The Midnight Library by Matt Haig!

Bonus: Marin Ireland, narrator and actress, voices this audiobook and her performance is excellent!

We’re introduced to Hilary Mantel as a child living with her parents in rural England. Much of Mantel’s childhood is marked by her Catholic upbringing and how her family’s faith shaped her mind. In incredible prose, she shares the wild dreams she had that fueled her anxiety about the supernatural forces the nuns said were around her.

While much of this memoir focuses on Mantel’s coming-of-age story, the second half of the book focuses on her experience with endometriosis and thyroid illness. She grew up a sickly child, so the severe cramps she experienced with her periods seemed par for the course. But as the pain grew more severe, she thought, this can’t be normal. It wasn’t.

However, doctors refused to believe that she was in as much pain as she was, instead referring her to psychiatric care. Eventually, she found a doctor who was willing to try some treatments with her, but it was all very touch and go. We follow Mantel’s frustration and anguish as she tries to untangle her many symptoms from the side effects of her medications. Her body type completely changes. And when she goes to the doctor, now they blame her symptoms on her weight.

Mantel’s story reflects the ableism, sexism, and fat phobia that the medical industry has embraced for a long time. Like Mantel describes in the book, she was eventually able to get the care that she needed. But at what cost?

As someone with similar chronic illness experiences, I deeply connected with Mantel’s story. She’s able to articulate the feeling of constantly being in pain but disbelieved by medical professionals. Being Mantel, her prose is perfection, her insights incredible. This is definitely a memoir you won’t want to miss.

Don’t forget you can get three free audiobooks at Audiobooks.com with a free trial!

Kindred is one of my favorite pieces of speculative fiction. It’s one of those books that is so intense that I find myself frequently clenching my jaw or holding my breath while reading. The book is pretty violent both physically and psychologically and this graphic novelization adds multiple new levels to the terror.

The first page is the prologue. It is artwork of our protagonist, Dana, in a hospital bed. The words, “I lost an arm on my last trip home” are the only words on the page. The artwork is a gut-punch and if you haven’t read Kindred at all, you won’t know why until much later.

The present time in the book is June 1976. Dana, a Black woman author, and her husband Kevin, who is white, just moved into a house in Altadena, California down in Los Angeles County. Dana and Kevin are working on unpacking boxes and Dana starts feeling funny, like she’s going to pass out. She suddenly finds herself not in her new house but on the bank of a river and there’s a little boy that looks like he’s drowning. His mother is screaming his name (Rufus) and Dana jumps in the water, grabs the kid, and brings him to shore. His mom starts hitting Dana and yelling that Dana killed the kid and Dana starts administering CPR and saves Rufus’s life. Suddenly there’s a voice yelling “What’s going on?” and a click. Dana turns around to see there’s a rifle in her face and then instantly she appears back in her home with Altadena a few feet from where she had disappeared right in front of Kevin. She’s wet, covered in mud, and terrified. Kevin says Dana had disappeared for a few seconds, but to Dana, it felt like she was in that other place for a few minutes.

Some time later, maybe a few days, it happens again. Dana disappears from her dinner table with Kevin and suddenly finds herself in a bedroom, where Rufus, who is a bit older, has put himself in danger and Dana saves him again. Rufus and his mother were both white, and the clothes they were wearing look like they’re from a hundred-fifty years earlier. Dana learns that it’s the year 1815 and they are on a plantation, owned by Rufus’s father. Dana’s present and Rufus’s past are inextricably linked as she keeps getting sucked back to this awful, terrifying time to save his life.

Content warnings for graphic violence, racism, suicide, and sexual assault.

This is a novel told from two viewpoints, across two timelines. First, we have Lore Rivera, a thirty-something international banker from Texas who makes frequent trips to Mexico City for work. She’s holding her family—husband and two sons—together by a shoestring back home, but when she meets a dazzling man in Mexico City it’s not long before she is living a double life, falling in love and then, against her better judgement, marrying him. For three years she splits her time between Mexico and Texas, no one any wiser, until her double life is discovered and one of her husbands kills the other.

Don’t forget you can get three free audiobooks at Audiobooks.com with a free trial!

In present day, Cassie Bowman is a true crime journalist looking for her big break. When she reads a retrospective about Lore’s case, she’s disgusted by the sloppy telling and intrigued by Lore—what would inspire a woman to risk everything for a double life? And is she really completely innocent in the murder of her husband? Cassie sets out to convince Lore to tell her side of the story, but not everything is as cut and dry as it seems.

I really loved this book, and I was drawn to it for the same reasons that Cassie was drawn to Lore’s case: The concept of a woman having two husbands and a double life is not nearly as common as a man having two families. In alternating chapters, we learn about Lore’s past and the circumstances that led her to meeting her second husband, falling for him, deceiving him, all while trying to hold together her family back home. Lore clearly loves both of her husbands, and she’s under a lot of pressure to provide for her family during a recession, leaving her little room to be wholly herself. This is not an excuse for her actions, but rather the very intriguing set of circumstances that lead to her choices, which will have a devastating effect on everyone involved.

Cassie does come across as a little mercenary and voyeuristic at first. She’s aware of the problematic nature of murder as entertainment and her part in perpetuating stereotypes that women are victims. But she has her own reasons to be drawn to true crime, and skeletons in her closet that she keeps locked away. She truly wants to understand Lore, and Lore in turn forces Cassie to face those skeletons. Soon, they both become so enmeshed in each other’s stories that it’s impossible to walk away, and Cassie and Lore began to wonder if sometimes, telling the truth isn’t necessarily the same thing as obtaining justice.

I loved this book for the big questions it asks, the layered characters, and the vivid depictions of Laredo, TX and Mexico City in the 1980s. After reading this book, I would pick up anything that Katie Gutierrez writes! Bonus: The audiobook was excellent, with seamless dual narration!