DEE'S 2020 BOOKS BREAKDOWN!

            Happy New Year! 

            I’m going to do my best to put this delicately: 2020, overall, was a fucking disaster. Nowhere is this more evident than my blog. Seriously. My last post was this exact post for the previous year. A lot happened in 2020, and I’ll do my best to recap the bigger chunks as this year goes on, but trust me. Last year was a dumpster fire.

            Well, other than the baby I had. But we’ll get to that.

            For now, I’m going to tackle a topic that’s fairly easy for me to dig into: Books!

            Despite the chaos of the world spiraling toward a plague-ridden fascist apocalypse, I was able to get quite a bit of reading done. I topped off at 65 books—two less than in 2019, but the books were bigger on average. I tackled a number of 1000-page tomes. This was also the first year in a while that I decided to re-read some of my favourites; namely, A Song of Ice and Fire. Life was hard, escape was needed, and there are fewer all-consuming rabbit holes to jump down than the world of Westeros. Trust me, it was much-needed.

            So now, with a new year beginning, it’s time for me to look back on the other worlds through which I escaped the 2020 hellscape. Let’s do this.

            Little Note: I think it’s best for me to eliminate re-read books from this list, especially since they’re usually old favourites and therefore sit at the top of many of these categories.

 

Theme of 2020

            Two big themes stuck out this year, in fiction and nonfiction.

            Fiction: Fantasy is good, actually.

            I’ve avoided reading in the fantasy genre for most of my life. Medieval-esque worlds, humanoid races with baked-in personality traits, GOOD vs EVIL, low-key idealization of the upper class and monarchies…it just wasn’t for me. Though A Song of Ice and Fire blew a hole through the Snob Wall I’d built, it didn’t seem to truly come down until this year. I read three straight-up fantasy series this year and a few stand-alone novels in the genre. I even re-read The Fellowship of the Ring for the first time since I threw it out the window in the 7^th grade, which…well, we’ll get to how that went.

            Nonfiction: Why are we like this?

            With little exception, my nonfiction choices gravitated around why our culture and country is the way it is. In a highly contentious election year, it makes sense that this would be on my mind, though my reading choices definitely didn’t do much to reduce my stress. I dug into racial dynamics in law, Evangelicalism and the government, the history of poor whites, and toxic masculinity this year. I feel extremely well-informed, but in 2021 I really should try to find at least a few light-hearted books to balance out my bleaker selections or I’m going to launch myself out a window while screaming, “OUR COUNTRY IS DAMAGED BEYOND REPAIR!”

           

The Best

            I read some wonderful books this year, folks, but there’s no contest: It has to be Lovecraft Country.

 

            This book. Seriously. If you watched the HBO show allegedly based on the book, do your best to erase it from your mind. The book is better by unimaginable margins. In chapters that read like their own short stories, a small family of black characters live through their own Lovecraftian nightmares that are brilliantly tied to the history of black oppression in this country. This book is so brilliantly written, engaging, and…ah, brilliant! Me continuing to describe it is just window dressing. Read it, treasure it, thank me. My absolute favourite chapter is Dreams of the Which House, which the show mangled unforgivably. Seriously, friends, do yourself a favour and read this book. I’ll undoubtedly be re-reading it in 2021 for the sheer pleasure of it.

 

            There’s only one downside to this, and it’s a “woke” dilemma: The book, which deals in the history of black oppression, as I mentioned, in great detail, is written by a white guy. In the hyper-liberal community, there’s a lot of discussion surrounding whether or not white people “should” write about racial relations from the perspectives of characters of colour. I myself have mounted a high horse on this subject (fuck you, Tarantino.) As a liberal white person who tries her best to be anti-racist and uplift voices of colour…I’m super torn on this one. I adore this book, as you can plainly see. Not only is it enjoyable, but it’s very enlightening. But. It’s about black characters surviving the Jim Crow era, struggling to overcome the countless layers of oppression heaped on black people throughout this country’s entire dark history…written by a white guy. I want to beg you (seriously, beg you) to read it anyway, but completely understand if this is a hard line for you. I’m definitely wielding my White Privilege card in being able to overlook it.

 

The Worst

            I’m thrilled to report that I didn’t read anything this year that made me want to vomit in rage and/or disgust, so this category was a little difficult.

            From the fiction end, we have Red, by Kate Kinsey.

            Earlier on in the year, I developed a random goal to find a novel with BDSM that was actually…good. Not just good at portraying BDSM as the healthy, consensual kink that it is (instead of thinly-veiled abuse, as it appears in most fiction,) but well-written. After a few rather uncomfortable Google searches, I found Red, a whodunit cop drama about a serial killer brutalizing his way through the BDSM community of…ah, fuck…somewhere in the Bible Belt, I’m so sorry, I can’t remember where, exactly.

            Prose-wise, Red is solid. There’s a beginning, middle, and end. A climax (ha.) It hit every beat of its genre at the right moment. Nothing stuck out, either good or bad, about the nuts-and-bolts of the writing. Can’t complain.

            However…

            Well, I wanted realistic BDSM, and I got realistic BDSM. Too realistic. The BDSM community of Bible Belt Town is incestuous, gossipy, and cannibalistic. Not a scene went by in that underground without a character bitching and spreading rumours about another: This Person is all the rage on Fetlife, but IRL, they’re so basic. This Person calls herself a Domme but she has no idea what she’s doing. This Person has run Big BDSM Club for 20 years, but it’s getting SO STALE. This Person and That Person haven’t spoken since That Person cheated on This Person and This Person threw her collar in his face!, All these new kids don’t do REAL BDSM—they just do stupid pet stuff and orgies. Where’s the good Old Leather guard? Where’s the PROTOCOL? Etc, etc.

Ladies and gentlemen, the first aesthetic paragraph break of the year.

Red’s BDSM community was exactly as catty and mood-killing as most long-lived BDSM communities tend to be, and…well, kudos to Kate Kinsey for capturing that reality so incredibly well, but…look, if I wanted to read the petty drama of gatekeeping kinksters, I’d dust off the ol’ Fetlife profile and browse the local forums. I was looking for a book that portrayed the fun realistic side of BDSM, and sadly, it wasn’t there.

On top of that, the murder mystery storyline was stale and predictable, complete with monologuing baddie with a completely unrealistic motive. Yawn.

 

For non-fiction, we have Birth Without Fear, by January Harshe.

 

This one’s pretty straightforward. I mentioned earlier in this post that I gave birth this year. This time around, I was shooting for a vaginal birth after the C-section I’d had with my twins, and I wanted to see how an unmedicated birth would go (without putting pressure on myself, because if I was in pain, then fuck you, I’d be getting an epidural with ZERO guilt, thank you.)

I scoured the internet for actual hands-on techniques for getting through contractions without medication and found nothing but anti-hospital propaganda sprinkled with allusions to breathing, the occasional suggestion for visualization (“Imagine each contraction is an ocean wave…”) and lists of “technique classes” with hundred-dollar price tags.

I had hoped a highly-rated book would hold the techniques I so desperately desired, so I bought this on Kindle, cracked it ‘open,’ and…found more of the same shit, though this wasn’t as anti-hospital as most of what I found online. Sigh.

If you’re pregnant and you’re looking on a book that spends 99% of its time selling you on the idea of unmedicated birth with success stories, pseudo-philosophy, and basic white girl affirmations, then this is the book for you. If you’re looking for actual techniques, skip it.

 

Must-Read

            I can’t choose just one this year. I just can’t, folks, I’m sorry. I read too many eye-opening books that I believe everyone should explore. So, in no particular order:

The Color of Law, a Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, by Richard Rothstein

            We all have that one friend, relative, or coworker who says shit like, “Black people choose to live in ghettos. If they don’t like it, they can move!” or “Neighborhoods aren’t ‘black’ or ‘white,’ they’re ‘rich’ and ‘poor.’ How is it America’s fault if black people choose shitty jobs?”

            Well, tie that asshole to a chair and read this out loud to them.

            The Color of Law is a deep dive into the shameful not-at-all-distant history of our government creating laws upon laws upon laws specifically designed to segregate people of color (but mostly black people) from the white population. If you think it’s just about right after the Civil War, or the Jim Crow era, think again. This book goes straight through today.

            This book blows massive holes in the much-beloved idea that after the Civil War, or maybe the 60s, all racism against black people was merely from individuals with pointy white hoods throwing impotent parades. It proves that racism is undeniably baked into the foundation of our government, our housing system, our healthcare, our law enforcement, our everything. It explains how even if active racism vanished today, that our country’s history of oppression still puts black people at massive disadvantages that, without our government actively enacting policies to correct these sins, such as reparations, will continue to ensure that black people remain underfoot in this country.

            It’s depressing as fuck, but everyone should read it.

 

White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America, by Nancy Isenberg

            Think class doesn’t exist in America? That we’re a meritocracy that rewards hard work? That if someone is poor, they just have to pull themselves up by their bootstraps? Think the American Dream is accessible to everyone if they just work hard enough?

Think again, honey.

            I read White Trash because I realized just how angry I’d grown toward poor, rural whites in the past four hellish years of the Trump presidency. My ire had grown to the point of near-prejudice. For me, prejudice is a weakness of character that must be eliminated if I want to grow, so I choked back all my “POCs have it way worse, fuck you rednecks” instincts and picked up this book. I’m so glad I did.

            Like The Color of Law, this book reveals a history of America that will never be found in a K-12 textbook. You’d likely have to dig deep to find a course that even mentions it at the collegiate level. Like race, it appears that classism is similarly baked into the foundation of our government, starting largely with, sorry, musical fans, Alexander Hamilton. This book was eye-opening. I never knew that our government literally tricked people into moving to rural areas and buying farmland with the promise of massive stipends that never came, for example. It also discusses the hijacking of the poor white demographic by the Republican party via scapegoating people of color and the use of the “bootstraps”/American Dream myth. This book will break your heart and, if you’re like I was and low-key supported that article that discussed seceding from Red America a few years ago, it’s absolutely worth the read.

            And yes, it goes without saying that persons of colour have it far, far worse in this country than poor whites. But try your best to put those thoughts aside if you want to understand why rural whites behave the way they do and always seem to vote squarely against their own wellbeing.

            However, if a bleak plummet into the history of our country isn’t grabbing you, try:

 

            This book was written in the 90s, and it’s infuriating how relevant it still is today. It’s basically White Trash, the personal story. If you want to humanize the statistics and history cited in White Trash, read Bastard Out of Carolina. This book is what Hillbilly Elegy should have been (but instead that book is just self-congratulatory bullshit feeding into the “bootstraps” myth.) It’s exceptionally well-written, deeply emotional, and handles the depressing subject matter without giving the reader a sense of overwhelming bleakness. Special note: This book is technically fiction, but the author borrowed heavily from her own life.

 

Jesus and John Wayne

 

            This book may have made me the angriest of all the nonfiction I read in 2020; not because it’s the most unjust or the most relevant to our time or the most important (The Color of Law takes that cake,) but because Christian hypocrisy has been a rage-trigger for me since adolescence and oh, gods, oh, gods, oh, sweet sassy Satan, does this book just rip back the curtain of Evangelical self-righteousness and reveal the dick-head wizard.

            Yeah, that metaphor didn’t take. I’m angry just thinking about this book and it’s making me less eloquent. That’s my excuse. Moving on.

            Jesus and John Wayne is a rage-inducing blow by blow of American toxic masculinity hijacking Christianity and warping it into the slimy cesspool that is Evangelicalism in the US.* Impeccably researched and cited, the book reads like a clear, obvious, and inevitable timeline to toxicity that has poisoned the highest offices in our government, our laws, our lives. If you’re a Christian, this will piss you off. If you’re not a Christian, this will piss you off more. But it’s an incredibly important read for every American.

*Though many people I know have made something good of Evangelicalism for themselves and their families. Good on you, Jesusy friends, I love you, don’t hate me. But do read the book. I’m actually incredibly curious about an insider’s thoughts on what it has to say.

 

The Man They Wanted Me to Be, by Jared Yates Sexton

            A single word to describe this memoir: Gut-wrenching. Using himself and the men of his family, Sexton guides us through the multigenerational layers of the culture of toxic masculinity, a tragic Virgil to the reader’s Dante. If you’re someone who is skeptical of or confused by the term “toxic masculinity,” this book is for you. Seriously, I swear, it really is. It presents the dangerous elements of masculinity with an air of tragedy rather than condescension or self-righteousness. I recommend this to every cis man in this country, and any parent of boys. As a cis woman and a feminist, it helped foster in me a sympathy toward men who find themselves trapped in the bowels of our masculine culture and opened my eyes wide to the trials my sons will face as they grow, especially if they appear deviate in any way, shape, or form from the straight cis box. I found myself highlighting multiple passages and thinking, “Oh, my God, my cousin/brother/dad/uncle/husband/father-in-law/male friend says/does that all the time.” A horrifying but necessary read.

Funniest

Buffering: Unshared Tales of a Life Fully Loaded, by Hannah Hart

 

            So, full disclosure: This memoir isn’t all that funny. Hannah Hart (of Drunk Kitchen fame) lived in crushing poverty, raised by a mother with severe unchecked schizophrenia, and she doesn’t hold back on the tales of her broken family. The truth is that I didn’t read one single humourous book this year. Not a one. So, Hannah’s moments of levity in this book, and her quick and witty prose, makes it the closest thing to humour. The book is well worth a read, regardless. Hannah Hart is a beautiful person and has a wonderful voice in this memoir.

Guilty Pleasure

A Court of Thorns and Roses series, by Sarah J. Maas

 

All right. Full disclosure: I’ve mentioned I don’t often read fantasy. A Court of Thorns and Roses was one of my tumbling baby steps into the genre this year. I actually almost put this series into Biggest Surprise, because I was taken aback by how it dove psychologically into its characters. I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that the characters’ adventures gave them trauma, and it wasn’t just in the form of a nightmare or two. I found that very well done. Other than that, I found the world, the high fantasy ‘rules,’ the storylines of fae and lords and ladies and magic and all that, to be…fine. It was fine. Nothing mind-blowing, but the story was an enjoyable little escape from daily life. There were fairly decent sex scenes in there, too, though be prepared for a lot of “totally perfect romance novel big-dick” sex.

 

I put this series in the guilty pleasure category for one reason: A coworker of mine mentioned that she followed a YouTube personality who absolutely despised these books. The personality apparently trashed the series as chock full of tired old fantasy tropes. I honestly had no problem with them, finding the fantasy elements to be archetypes rather than stereotypes. But as a mere fledgling in the realm of fantasy books, I don’t feel I have the authority to argue with an apparent lifelong fan of the genre. So, I thought these books were fine. I’d describe the entire series as “Acceptable.” But if you’re a frequent reader of fantasy, or romance, you may not enjoy them, apparently.

 

Best Audiobook

The Sandman Audible original

 

Look, this is an audiodrama and may not count, but fuck it. I adored it. I fucking adored it. It’s brilliantly cast and brilliantly written. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how to translate comics into an audible format, and they did it, and it’s perfect. If you haven’t listened to it, do.

 

They’d better do the entire Sandman series. Seriously. Same cast. Do it, Amazon.

 

Runner-ups in this category are actual audiobooks:

My Cousin Rachel, by Daphne du Maurier

 

            This is a lovely book if you love Maurier, though I enjoyed Rebecca much more, personally. I put My Cousin Rachel in this category because this is one of those audiobooks where the narrator just straight-up nails the main character. Philip Ashley is a high-born spoiled little manbaby who doesn’t know he’s a spoiled little manbaby, and the narrator hit that tone just perfectly.

 

The Good House, by Tananarive Due

 

            This just has excellent narration. Spot-on acting that doesn’t distract from the prose. I found the book itself to be bitterly disappointing, but only due to the ending. Right up to the climax, it’s a well-written and deeply engrossing horror novel with shades of racial tension that never come across as preachy or shoe-horned in. But that ending. Ughhhhh. If anyone decides to read it, and I think it’s worth a read, I’d love to know what you thought of the ending. This may be an instance where my arrogant little I-went-to-college-for-writing-harumph streak is ruining a good book for me.

Skip It

The Roanoke Girls, by Amy Engel

 

            I suffered from built-up expectations while waiting for this book. I saw it on a friend’s Goodreads list, read the caption, and found it fascinating: Being a Roanoke girl carries a terrible legacy: either the girls run, or they die. For there is darkness at the heart of Roanoke, and when Lane discovers its insidious pull, she must make her choice...

            Ooh! How delightfully mysterious, dare I say even gothic? I was on a huge modern gothic streak at the time (and still am; give me all the gothic novels!) When I hunted the book down on my library app, I had to put it on hold and wait for weeks. I found that even more intriguing. Ooh! Everyone’s reading this. It must be good! Well, when I finally got the book in my hands, I plunged in, aaaand…

            Heads up for spoilers.

            SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS aaaaand it’s incest. Weeeeee. The grandfather fucks his sister, his daughters, and their daughters, and the girls either run away, commit suicide, or, in the case of two, are murdered by their grandmother—one in their crib, and I cannot with the dead baby trope.

            SPOILERS ENDED.

            Anyway, the description promises a dark mystery. The book delivers a trope that has been done to death, and not often done well. Though this trope is often a feature of gothic literature, I’ll admit, in this novel it just felt…blah. Maybe because it was brought to light in the second or third chapter and not treated as the ‘hook’ the description promised. I’m not sure. But the book, solidly written, is more about a young woman who ran away from home returning a decade later and rediscovering herself. Maybe if I had gone into the book with those expectations, I’d have been less disappointed with the flaccid mystery premise. No idea. But because of what I had hoped to get in reading this and what I ended up getting, I condemn it to the Skip It category.

Most Feels

            There are two, and they are tied.

In the Dream House, by Carmen Maria Machado

            A gorgeous dive into the murky grey depths of emotional abuse, each chapter of In the Dream House reads like a different literary genre. It’s raw, poetic, and gave me flashbacks to my most emotionally abusive relationship. It’s haunting. Content warning for those who have been through an emotionally abusive relationship, of course. This book will hurt. But it’s beautiful. And it’s a good reminder that LGBTQIA relationships aren’t exempt from abusive elements.

My Dark Vanessa, by Kate Elizabeth Russel

            Beautiful and uncomfortable, this book’s references to Lolita are well-placed. It’s fiction, but Jesus tap-dancing Christ, it feels real. It feels so real. It’s about a young woman who was sexually abused by a teacher in high school, but how she feels about the abuse is…complicated. Complicated is the perfect word for this novel. Like Lolita, you’re going to be incredibly uncomfortable reading this. Like Lolita, it flips the script on what sexual abuse is ‘supposed’ to look like: Victim, Predator, horror, fear, trauma. But unlike Lolita, the story is told from the perspective of the survivor rather than the obviously sleezy and unreliable Humbert Humbert. Vanessa is deeply in denial about her abuse…but is it denial? Was it abuse? It was, of course it was…was it?

            I highly recommend this novel, but reader beware: This is one of those areas that people don’t like to see in anything other than black and white, and you will be uncomfortable sifting through the shades of grey.

 

Biggest Surprise

The Ghost Bride, by Yangze Choo

 

            I picked up this book on a total whim at the very beginning of the year. I’d never heard of it, didn’t know a Netflix series was in the works (nothing like the book, sadly.) I just liked the description. I ended up really loving this book. It’s about a young woman in British-occupied Malaya whose once-wealthy family is down on its luck. Her well-to-do neighbor proposes that she and her eldest son marry. The problem? Her eldest son is dead.

            This book was absolutely fascinating. The main character is more than a little passive, but I was happy to go along with her through this world about which I knew so little: Not only Colonial Malaya, but an afterlife mythology so very unlike the one I’m used to. I absolutely loved the journey, though the story itself was very unstructured and just kind of…ended. I recommend this book for anyone who wants to read something from a different culture’s and a different era’s perspective. Loved it.

            Also, read it before watching the Netflix series, if you’re going to bother. I was really disappointed in the show because of how horribly it deviated from the book. Though I have to admit, the actor who plays Lim Tian Ching is devastatingly hot. Like, two-syllable damn! Hot.

            …just saying.

 

Biggest Let-Down

The Power, by Naomi Alderman

            Another early read in the year, and…woof. This book is so well-loved by critics and big-name authors like Margaret Atwood and…wow, did I not enjoy it.

            The plot is described as a feminist revenge fantasy, essentially: Women everywhere suddenly develop the power to electrocute, which apparently turns the patriarchy on its head immediately.

            Now, to its credit, this book is extremely well-written and is extremely…well, ‘feminist.’ It delves into the tiers of patriarchal power both overt and subtle—political, religious, domestic, etc--and details how one character or another shifts that particular tier, and how that goes awry.

            My issue with the book is entirely personal. I’m ashamed that I couldn’t divorce my own feminist beliefs from what is a very good fiction novel. My big problem? That the book’s entire overarching idea: That women, given control, would be just as vicious, brutal, violent, trigger-happy, and oppressive as the patriarchal world in which we currently live.

            I…disagree. I disagree. I do. I’m not saying that the shifting of power to women would lead to a feminist utopia and everyone would live in harmony. Not at all. I just…disagree with so much of this novel. I disagree that physical power is the main reason for patriarchal societies, as the novel suggests with women suddenly being more physically powerful than men. I disagree that women, who have been oppressed and understand how it feels, would turn around and do the exact same thing, rather than try to build up a more egalitarian society. I’ve had the Women would be just as bad if we were in a matriarchy tomorrow! argument with plenty of people and I just don’t buy it. I do think the world would still have plenty of problems, of course, but I don’t think it would just be the exact same problems executed in the exact same manner.

            Aaaaand I hate disagreeing because this is a fictional novel and isn’t actually trying to make arguments, just tell a good story. I hate that I can’t get past that. Either way, this book was a let-down for me, but it is a very good book. I may try to revisit it once I get the stick out of my ass.

 

Finally Got To It

The Fellowship of the Ring, by—come on, we all know.

 

            So. I hadn’t read Fellowship since I was in middle school. I didn’t remember much about it—only that I threw up my hands in bored defeat once Tom Bombadil ground the burgeoning plot to a screeching halt and never tried to read it again. But now, as an obsessive of ASOIAF and with a few other fantasy series under my belt, I said to myself, hey, this is the perfect time to revisit the trilogy that started the genre. So many of my friends, all of whom I admire, adore this series. It is the foundation of modern fantasy. Hell, George RR Martin wrote the series I love so much practically as an homage to Tolkein. There’s no way LOTR is as dry and dull as I remember from middle school.

 

            Welp. I got through it. I can at least say that.

 

            I’m sorry, folks. I don’t know what it is, but Tolkien reads like a dusty encyclopedia to me. I was incomprehensibly bored the entire time. The worst part is that I was listening to it on audiobook and Fellowship is filled with songs. Filled. With. Songs. Songs that have multiple verses. Songs that have fuck-all to do with the plot. Songs that murder the plot in its cradle. And with an audiobook, listening through my Alexa, I couldn’t freaking skip them.

            It was just…Hey, it’s Elrond, thanks for coming all the way here. It’s time for us all to sit down and decide the fate of Middle Earth. But fiiiiiiiirst…Bilbo wrote a little song, you guys! Let’s listen to all 48 verses, shall we? I mean it’s not like we have anything important to get to! Come sing your boring fucking song, Bilbo!

            I can’t. I can’t. I desperately wanted to read the Trilogy, but I’m throwing in the towel. I’m raising the white flag. I am anti-intellectual plebian trash. Tolkien bores me to tears and Middle Earth is not my home. I respect Tolkien as Daddy Fantasy and I understand that they’re brilliant books, but they’re just not for me. Burn my basic ass at the stake if you must, Tolkien friends. Just know that I really, really tried.

 

And that’s all she wrote—read—in 2020! I have a few honourable mentions—books I enjoyed, but didn’t make this list, in no particular order, down below. See you in 2021, darlings. Let’s hope it’s better than 2020. Either way, I’ll be reading through it.

 

Inheritance Trilogy, by NK Jemisin: Highly recommended to me by so, so many people, I found this trilogy to be…okay. I really liked the first book and didn’t really enjoy the rest. Fantasy lovers should absolutely check them out, though, and I’ll likely be reading another series by this author soon.

 

The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein, by Kiersten White: Frankenstein retelling through the perspective of Elizabeth, Victor’s love interest. It’s…interesting. Dark, fun, but wow, does it go hard off the rails at the end. Maybe worth a read if you’re a huge fan of the original, as I am, but it isn’t fantastic. Spoiler alert: White gave the monster a name, and the name is—you guessed it—Adam. How. Fucking. Original. Thanks I hate it.

White Fragility by Robin Diangelo: An important read for all white people in this country. This book has been heavily criticized, but all the criticisms I’ve read are just…well…white fragility rearing its ugly head. This is in incredibly difficult read—you will get defensive—but for me, it was a good first step toward being more anti-racist. I don’t think one can grow without discovering one’s blind spots and overcoming them. White Fragility helps with that.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, by Taylor Jenkins Reid: The life of a bisexual starlet in Old Hollywood. That’s all you need to know. You’re welcome.

Mexican Gothic, by Silvia Moreno Garcia: A gorgeous modern gothic tale that takes place in Mexico. Anything else will give too much away. If you like gothic horror stories, you’ll like this.