April Book Round Up

     April book reviews here we go. I read fewer books this month, but three of them were over 400 pages, so it felt like a hefty month. Snippets of Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole by Susan Cain were also tossed around in between each book, or simultaneously. I try not to read fiction during the day, save it for the evening and write or use my own brain (or lets be honest, just get things done around the house). But I do allow myself nonfiction during the day as I feel like my brain fires a bit better on bigger ideas and can spur my own thinking when I'm not totally wiped out from the day. Enter Susan Cain. I didn't finish that book, I'm sure the review will be next month, or even the month after, it's slow, moody, absorbing, with that one, so rich and good (so just go get it already). To start off the month, two holds from the library popped up so I started with them, as the best rule goes, library first, your own books second - especially those popular holds. I'd waited 5 months to get Fault Lines, I wasn't losing that before I could finish it. In general however, I've had a hard time getting into fiction lately. I think I'm beginning to shift a bit more to the nonfiction I adored before the pandemic/pregnancy had me jonesing for escapism. Now I want a story that's really saying something, that's going to make me feel and think. This month didn't disappoint in that category.

    First book of April, Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo was outstanding. I'm not even sure where to start with it. Evaristo tells the story of twelve different characters, a feat in itself, all British Black women, winding their stories together somewhat like tree roots. Connected by life in some way. Many of the characters are a mother/daughter combo which I loved, going deeper into a generational story. I don't know much about racial history in Great Britain but between this book and Black Cake I'm learning more. It doesn't seem to be as bad as in America, but still nothing brag about. I feel like Girl, Woman, Other also gave me (clap for emphasis) an education (clap again) on the Trans world. Definitions, ideas surrounding it, the characters asking the stupid questions I would ask so I don't have to, while another character calls her out and educates. I appreciated it. Also just the level of knowledge of women, ages and culture of London Evaristo has and shows expertly is amazing. How she can channel an adolescent girl undergoing horrific events, a university-aged woke girl, a ninety eight year old women who hasn't left the farm her entire life, middle aged lesbians... it's, again, outstanding. There's a reason she won the Booker Prize for this one. Her humor. Her deep sense of humanity. I laughed, I cried, I felt my heart expand. One woman has a dream about a female army of maids coming to clean the world, literally and figuratively. The environment, the people who do harm... it was the most moving chapter in the book. It's a world we all dream of, long for. With clean water, green fields, plenty of food for everyone, kindness all around. Her eloquence with worlds had tears streaming down my face. Five stars for Girl, Woman, Other.

    The second book I finished was Fault Lines by Emily Itami was another solid read. I beginning to sense that while I do love a good, easy, fun, quick read, I tend to get bored with them too fast. I really do enjoy fiction that makes my brain work, makes a think a bit deeper. A book that has sentences, paragraphs or chapters that make me catch my breath or literally physically hold my heart. That happened in this book. Right before Mizuki puts her hand to her heart while watching something emotionally moving and dear to her, my hand went to my heart. When an author can make something mean that much to you, as it does the character. That's it. That's damn good writing. The premise of this book is a frustrated, lonely housewife who's husband works ridiculous hours and they're all just playing their role in Japanese culture, except she's not up for it any more, she wants more. An exploration of an affair, how it happens, why it happens, does it work out or not? Is it worth leaving the family for. All the complex feelings of a wife, mother, woman in this world who wants more out of life than what a culture values in a woman. When do we be happy with what we've got and when do we push for more? This book make me want to visit Tokyo so bad. The descriptions of the culture and city had me aching to live on the 32nd floor of a sky scraper in a city that comes alive at night and speaks in whispers during the day, try out something totally new. I could also deeply relate to Mizuki's feelings on being a stay at home mom. One chapter she describes being out as the sun is setting, riding bikes with her kids from park to park and instead of heading home to do the dinner/bath/bedtime routine, she opts to stay out. But her description of being out at that time of day, feeling the hope and energy in a setting sun, being out of the house and not stuck in the thick of cleaning up, screaming kids, how after years of that a depression can settle in, but seeing the changing colors of the sky, seeing the day in, energized her. I related to that so much I turned on Maggie Roger's Color Song and might have cried a little. Hello, yes, I'm an enneagram 4 ha. But I loved this book. It was short yet packed a punch. 

    Calling all fans of Circe, gather 'round, next up, Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel. This book was a blast to read. There's magic, there's gods and goddesses, there's feminism in the ages of the men. It's a long book, pushing 500 pages, so perfect to take on a beach trip and get utterly lost in. Kaikeyi (I did google how to pronounce that because I always come up with my own pronunciation and then when people call it by it's proper pronunciation I'm like, nope never heard of that) is a Indian princess in a family full of men, increasingly so when her father, the King, banishes her mother the Queen. It's not a huge surprise, although a bit given the times, when she would rather ride horses and learn to fight than do needle point and sit through teas. You see her desire for power, for a say in her own life emerge. She'll do anything to be the staring voice in her own life, made all the more easier when she discovers she has a secret power. It was so fun reading her life twist and turn through an arranged marriage, becoming wife number three, infertility, a visit from a god granting all three women's wombs open, the impact said visit from the god had on all of them, raising four boys as a village. It was so beautiful, some passages made me laugh out loud or even cry a bit. Patel captured motherhood so sweetly, a woman coming into her own in a world of men perfectly. Naturally, there's literal demons to be fought, wars and death, gods to pray to and offer whatever you may. It's an epic rendition of an Indian mythological story and Patel did some deep research. From what I gather, her version of Kaikeyi is humanizing the villainess, and I am here for her story of feminine strength not cowering to men in a world that demands it.  I also got a bit lost on the inter webs googling images of Indian princesses after a description of what Kaikeyi wore to be presented to her husband... good gracious they are beautiful. The gold, the adornment, the colors, move over Sleeping Beauty, these princesses know how to dress to impress. The best part about the timing of reading this book is that I was kid-free for a full two days and got to fully absorb myself in this book. It was magic.

 

    The last book I read (technically I finished it May 3rd, can that still count for April?) was Booth by Karen Joy Fowler. I got this book a few months ago and have been excited to read it, yet just not that excited that it trumps other books that come my way. It was my goal to get it done this month. It reads a bit like a history book, albeit, a fun, at times meandering, history book. Fowler tackles a historical fiction story around John Wilkes Booth, yes President Lincoln's assassin, and his family. Mostly his family as he didn't really start to be consistently mentioned until almost halfway through. I actually enjoyed the spinning of his family's history, nine kids, a handful dead before they were very old. The family story is one of loss, heartache, some madness and occasionally poverty. I never knew his father and older brother were famed actors in the early America and even across the pond in London. I learned some American history, such a actually learning (my high school self must not have paid very good attention) to what the Dred Scott v Sanford case was about, and hearing, for the first time, of the New York Draft Riots in July of 1863, where essentially the poor men of New York, largely immigrants, who couldn't pay $300 (around $6,000 today) to have a substitute fight for them, were drafted into the Union Army. It was hard to not see some of the same fights back then are happening again today. The class and race issues. The Booth family seemingly sticking their head in the sand about it all, just making sure they're making their own money and doing well. Well, everyone but John and we all know how that turned out. There are many Lincoln quotes and backstories I didn't know as well, which were fairly eye opening to my idea that Lincoln was such a freedom fighter. He was, sure, just not as radical, even withholding equality, as I'd imagined as a kid learning about him. It was a bit of a slow read and at times I had to force myself to keep going, but I'm glad I read it. The overall feeling at the end of the book was sadness. There was just too much in this book to be sad about. To quote a Frederik Douglas quote from the beginning of the book, "America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future." The disappointment I've had in my country the past few years solidifying more. So. Not ending on the lightest note, almost 500 pages of that can bring you down, ha, but always things we need to listen to, pay attention to, learn, relearn.