I've been out of the blogging game for a while. I got pregnant then I had a baby then that baby turned into a toddler and that's how almost three years go by without posting significantly on your book blog. Not only was I not able to blog, I was also in a deeeeeep reading slump. Aside from the couple dozen pregnancy/baby books I read at the beginning of my hiatus, I was doing very little recreational reading. I reread the Temeraire series about half a dozen times but other than that, I was just Not. Reading. It was a bummer. However, something just clicked (or maybe even unclicked?) a couple months ago. I picked up a book one of my mom friends lent me, Such a Young Age by Kiley Reid (fantastic book, btw!), loved it, and thought, "Hey, this was a book about a toddler and a mom and caretaking.... I have a toddler and I'm a mom and a caretaker... there's probably more books about ~new mom life~ out there that I'd probably enjoy reading!"

And sure enough, there was!

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not only reading "mom" books, but there have been a few, and it might be helping get out of that reading slump. 

One of the mom books I've read recently is The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan. What a ride! Easily one of the creepiest, most upsetting books I've read in a while. The story centers on a woman who had a "very bad day" in which she makes a grave parenting mistake--one not so horrifying that you lose all sympathy for but one that a self-proclaimed "good mother" would never make. Or at least, admit to ever making. After this bad day, our protagonist is sent to an experimental government-run boot camp/rehab facility that uses some in-the-near-future tech to grade everything from how many sentences you say to your baby to every muscle twitch in any facial expression you might be making at your kid.

It is incredibly bizarre, upsetting, kinda hilarious, and pulls at your heartstrings. I am not being hyperbolic when I say I was weeping by the end of the book. 

el murmullo de las abejas | by sofia segovia

a really lovely study in the ephemera that are memories. segovia had an incredible knack for not only weaving together a non-linear tapestry of several generations of a mexican family but of doing it in a way that people actually experience. not just non-linearly, but in a constant stream of things that happened decades ago, seconds ago, the memories of our parents, grandparents, memories to come, memories of what happened last week, and so on.

also, while i started the english version of this, i decided to switch over to the original spanish after confirming a hunch that i was missing out on some really great cultural idiosyncrasies that were not making it into the translation. if you are a spanish speaker, i highly encourage you to read the original text to get the full experience.

i'll be gone in the dark | by michelle mcnamara

Wow. What a fucking rollercoaster. 

I started reading this book two days ago and I absolutely couldn't put it down even when I was in bed at night, terrified of the shadows in the corners of my bedroom, asking my husband a second, third, fourth time if he had dead bolted the locks on the front door. 

When this book first came out, I had zero interest in reading it. I hate open endings. Michelle was gone, so there was no way she'd ever solve it. The crime was still unsolved, and I just hate how unsatisfying it all seemed. However, only two months after the book had been published, the son of a bitch had been caught. It went on my TBR list, and it wasn't until now that I felt ready to read it. It still pisses me off that Michelle missed this, but like it's repeated over and over in the book by various sources, she didn't care if she wasn't the one to solve. She just wanted it to be solved. 

Well, Michelle, they caught him. And it was thanks to you. 

sabrina & corina: stories | by kali fajardo-anstine

i wanted to pick something special for my 52nd book of 2019. it took me about a week to find something i could connect with and i'm so glad it was this gem. 

this a beautifully written collection of short stories that are all quick snapshots into the lives of latina women living in and around denver. each story is bittersweet. many of them feature domestic violence, societal marginalization, and abandonment but at the center of every story is a compelling young woman caught in the midst of these generational cycles of strife and hoping to break out. 

my favorite story was definitely sabrina & corina, based on two cousins who are raised together but then take different paths as they approach adulthood. after a falling out, the two women are brought back together under different circumstances. each story left me weepy. 

on a different point, i'll be honest, whenever i think of latinas, mexican-american women, and so on, my mind mostly goes towards women in border states (tx, ca, az, nm) and in the large metropolises: chicago, nyc. very rarely do i think of the latinx communities in colorado and it was really lovely to get a glimpse into a culture where it felt like i was looking in a slightly warped mirror: unmistakable similarities but also some fairly significant divergences, mainly those having to do with a seemingly firmer grasp to native american connections. i'm curious to explore more of these perspectives. 

text me when you get home | by kayleen schaefer

This book was great in that I was able to read on paper a lot of the ideas I have discussed with my own close female friends in the last several years as we have begun to realize that the bonds we share are special and precious. I also liked how much pop culture was in there. Bridesmaids is one of my favorite movies ever and I loved all the love it got. I recently rewatched all of Parks & Rec as well where I was able to soak in all the goodness of the relationship between Leslie Knope and Ann Perkins. The author had interviewed the creator of that series to get more insight into that relationship and to discuss the origins of Galentine’s Day. Lastly, they also discussed Life Partners, a film that helped me verbalize to my best friend (who at the time was falling in love with her long term boyfriend) why I felt so abandoned by her.

What I didn’t like about this book was how much time she spent on talking about how for a long time she was a Cool Girl (yes, she does talk about Gone Girl), dismissing women and relationships with them in order to stay ahead. I get that she has a lot of guilt about it and regrets her behavior but honestly it became cringey for me.

the haunting of hill house | by shirley jackson

What a fantastic, terrifying read. It’s all so ambiguous and suspenseful. If you’ve only ever read “The Lottery” by Ms. Jackson, do go out and read the Haunting of Hill House. Or if you’ve only watch the movie The Haunting starring Liam Neeson and very loosely based on this book. It is definitely one of the scariest books I’ve ever read but keep in mind that this a terror book more so than horror. What is the difference you may ask? As Devendra Varma put it: “The difference between Terror and Horror is the difference between awful apprehension and sickening realization: between the smell of death and stumbling against a corpse.

modern love: true stories of love, loss, and redemption | edited by daniel jones

i picked this book on a complete whim while browsing at my bookstore the saturday morning before last. i liked that it was pink and i liked that it was a collection by many writers. i've been having a hard time reading anything other than the temeraire series this summer (lmao) between starting a new job and moving and figured this would be a cute, easy read. oh was i wrong. it was neither cute nor easy but utterly devastating. it made me cry several times and reminded me distinctly that life is fragile and uncertain. it made me want to hold my husband and not let him go for the next 40 years.

my favorites were probably "sleeping with the guitar player," "truly, madly, guiltily," and the entire last section!

my year of rest and relaxation | by ottessa moshfegh

i almost quit this book but am ultimately glad i didn't. a deep character dive into the life of a young woman who, some might say, doesn't have any real problems. so privileged is she that she is able to take an entire year off to experiment with medicated hibernation while living in the upper east side. talk about living the dream! the entire book, to paraphrase the synopsis, dangles over the precipice of 9/11. i really liked some parts of the book, particularly the weirdly/grossly funny moments but other than that i mostly rolled my eyes.

the wedding date | by jasmine guillory

for several months, several people had been recommending a book to me that i wasn't entirely interested in. once the recommendations for this particular book hit the double digits, i thought, "ok, if so many people are suggesting this book to me, they can't all be wrong, right?" but i still had my reservations. this book is unilaterally categorized as a romance novel, and the romance genre is not one i really into which i delve. don't get me wrong, this isn't me trying to be a snob, truly. it's just not my jam. other genres i don't care for: crime thrillers, self-help, and mysteries.

i wasn't crazy about this book as i don't fully appreciate the romance genre nearly as much as i used to. i found it predictable and cliche and cloyingly sweet at times.

however, i do remember that it made me laugh out loud at least once, and it does truly capture the struggles of dating today really accurately. like, eerily accurate. there was this part in the book where either alexa or drew were thinking about how much they'd wish the other person would text and the rush they'd feel when they felt their phone buzz and then the utter disappointment that would crush them when it was someone else, even if that someone else was some other loved one. that was pretty on the nose.

i'll also give it props for touching on the complexities of being in a biracial relationship, particularly that of a woc dating a white man. it went in deeper than i expected with alexa schooling drew on his white privilege. i also appreciated that alexa would ask how many other pocs would be around at whatever social event drew was taking her to. as a woc married to a white guy, i know what that's like.

rebecca by daphne du maurier

Rebecca is one of those books that you always see on those Books To Read Before You Die lists and the type that might be assigned reading in an undergrad lit course. I, however, went through life never having read until now. My best friend had it on her bookshelf, often citing it as one of her most favorite books, but I still did not read it. Finally, for some reason I decided to pick it up this week. It reminded me immediately of Jane Eyre, unsurprising to many, I'm sure. A lonely orphaned humble girl falls for the mystique of an older, brooding gentleman who owns a vast and desolate estate in the English countryside but the ghost of his past haunts their relationship, threatening to ruin them both. I ripped right through it, finding it thrilling and complicated and heartbreaking and contradictory. It's easy to point fingers and say just who exactly the villain of the story is and the hero/heroine, but I think it's not that simple. I want to explore this topic more in my blog so look out for that post in the coming weeks.