 5 stars
If you, too, would like to ugly cry at 12:30am when you finish a book, then BOY—do I have a book recommendation for you. Crying in H Mart is the kind of story that I don't usually pick up. Mainly because I know I'll blubber my way through it. (I did.) But after seeing this memorable and eye-catching cover work its way through the bestseller lists, then the recommended lists, and finally reinvigorating the same cycle with its paperback release... my resolve weakened and I picked up a copy from my local library. This book has relentlessly caught my eye in bookstores, on library shelves, and online. It was time for me, tears be damned. Michelle Zauner's mother died of cancer when Michelle was 25. A year that her mother had always foretold would be a very important year of her young adulthood, that year was instead a year of death and loss. This season of loss was made more complicated with Michelle's inward journey of understanding her mother. After many years of misconnection and strife, they were just starting to recombine into the close mother-daughter bond that they'd had long before. And then—the final stop. Crying in H Mart is about Michelle's life with her mother. The Before, the During, and the After. And through it all, there is one persistent shining light: their connection to Korean food culture. Told in visceral layers, blunt truths, and beautiful descriptions, this book was something to devour in all senses of the word. I recommend to the obvious group—memoir fans—but also to anyone who identifies to family through its traditions, or to anyone who has an enduring love for Korean food (as the food is definitely one of the main characters).
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 4.5 stars
The power of community, the healing abilities of positive growth and shared love. Inciting Joy is a collection of "feel good" that I think is the perfect balm for those struggling in these times. Sense of joy: ★★★★★ Flow of stories: ★★★★ Writing style: ★★★★ There are some books that are both shockingly simple to describe and yet so vastly large they feel impossible to shrink down into the purposes of a review. Inciting Joy is one of those reads. Ross Gay's essays in this collection all have a central theme—joy, of course—but each feels layered, framed through a different quirk of the lens, and reliant on different modes to convey their message. Joy, like all emotions, is a complex and ever-changing thing. Growth and green things are a prominent note in this collection. Ideas of life and growing are no strangers to joy. More surprising to some might be the inclusion of grief and exploration of loss as a means to receive the sharper, more poignant pieces of joy and uplifting emotional resonance. Beautiful, sharp, soft, and layered, Inciting Joy is a unique thumbprint on a world that often focuses on the sharp and critical. Sit down with Ross Gay for a while and feel some love. It'll help... I promise. Thank you to Algonquin Books for my copy in exchange for an honest review.  5 stars
There is something uniquely nostalgic about listening to your first movie crush talk about his time as a child on the set of your favorite childhood fictional world. (If you’re planning on reading this, get the audiobook!!) If you're of a certain age... Then you read, watched, and/or consumed media about a certain series. You know the one I mean. You're reading this review, and it's for a memoir about one of the actors. This series' prevalence in our popular culture has permeated the veil of basic cultural knowledge—for good or for ill—and it is a massive part of my generation's upbringing and cultural sense of identity. More recent news about its creator aside*, I find myself inescapably drawn to news about characters, actors, and stories centered on this world that I adored as a teenager. And, most importantly for this particular review: I was a girl that was absolutely obsessed with Draco Malfoy. Now, let's not dwell on my ~interesting~ taste in love interests. I loved the bad boy, I loved the snark. I thought his tragic backstory had heart to it and I joined the legions of fans who looked into the mirror and saw Draco's hidden good sides. Sooooooo I naturally latched on to Draco's actor, Tom Felton. He was synonymous with Draco, after all. And for this audiobook experience in Beyond the Wand, I found that Tom's voice immediately took me back to that place and that time, when those characters were a yearly appearance and they ruled the world's stage. Beyond the Wand is nothing less than the perfect nostalgic trip through time condensed through the keyhole of Tom Felton's particular experience in an extraordinary childhood and surrounded by the culture of the 1990s, 2000s, and now. Now, don't get me wrong: Tom's life was large outside of his time as Draco Malfoy. And it's had some bumps in the road. This book got much heavier than I expected, and much more honest. Tom's here to share his whole life's story, after all, and not just a part of it. I appreciated that. I feel like Tom and Draco are more separate in my head because of it—and that's probably a good thing. Read this if you were one of those kids like me. It was a wonderful experience, and Tom's narration on the audiobook was perfection. I recommend giving it a listen!  5 stars
Chills. A powerful entry into the nonfiction true crime canon and the fight for justice against murdered women in America. I highly recommend the audiobook. Audiobook narration: ★★★★★ Pacing: ★★★★★ Storytelling: ★★★★★ I am tired of hearing stories of women being raped and murdered while trying to exist on this planet. I am enraged at the audacity of the white men who kill them and other marginalized communities.* And I am here for every expose, every carefully researched dagger into the canon of retribution and justice served in the hands of other voices who are determined to be heard and determined to change history. Welcome to Trailed: One Woman's Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders. In May 1996, two young women, Lollie Winans and Julie Williams, were murdered in Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. They were in their mid-20s, they were much in love with each other, and they loved being in the wilderness. They were experienced trail hikers and they had done this many times before. But this time, they never made it out of the woods. In the years that followed their brutal murder, the National Park Service (NPS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) spent countless man hours hunting for their killer. They settled pretty quickly on Damien Rice. Rice had assaulted another woman in the park. He seemed unstable. He was in the area for the time period of their deaths. The case seemed black and white...to the investigators. It didn't seem to matter that the perpetrator's DNA left on the crime scene didn't match Damien Rice's countless DNA records. It didn't seem to matter that this very organized and sexuality-based hate crime did not fit Rice's M.O. by any description. And it didn't seem to matter that there were several eyewitness testimonies that appeared to contradict the official timeline of Lollie and Julie's final days alive. Journalist Kathryn Miles was working as a college professor at Unity College, an environmental science and wilderness leader in the country, when she discovered the emotional footprint left on the campus by its former student, Lollie Winans. One of the murdered women from Shenandoah. The college continued to grieve Lollie's loss, and Miles found herself pulled into the case with its emotional resonance and endless question marks about validity of the investigating team's justice. Kathryn Miles decided to do some digging. And then she couldn't stop. Meticulously researched, engrossing described, and involving a cast of characters spanning professions, states, and decades, Trailed is a memorable piece of long-form reporting. I devoured it in two days, listening to the audiobook in every spare moment of my day. True crime and mystery audiobook fans will recognize the narrator--Gabra Zackman's voice echoes from her previous works in I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara and other crime stories centered around women such as Sadie by Courtney Summers and The Night Before by Wendy Walker. A tragic story, but one that needed to see the light. Rest in peace, Julie and Lollie. We hope you have found justice here. Thank you to Algonquin Books and Libro.fm for my copies in exchange for an honest review. *The statistics show the murderers skew alarmingly toward cis-het white men, I am not making a personal judgement with that fact. It is also illuminated within this nonfiction text.  4 stars
Our planet's resources are finite, including arguably the most important one: the water. Explained in engaging snapshots and covering several different environmental topics related to water and its use, misuse, and conservation, this book is a must-read for our younger audiences. (And us adults, too!) Concepts: ★★★★★ Readability: ★★★★★ Pacing: ★★★ When the World Runs Dry: Earth's Water in Crisis is the kind of nonfiction read that I hope gets taught in schools. Because I, a fully grown adult with basic knowledge of our water troubles, learned way too much information for the first time. I feel like we all should be well versed in the global situation of water. We need it to survive, it keeps everything alive, and yet... some of us remain ignorant of its journey and struggles in the current state of our Earth. Tailored to younger readers, this slim book had a TON of information processed in easy-to-digest bites. A little bit on the Flint water crisis and its implications in Michigan, USA. A little bit on the history and harms of fracking. A little bit on harmful red algae. A little bit on dry wells. A little bit on a lot of things, told in an accessible and informative way. I certainly learned a lot, and I appreciated the author for her time spent on dosing it down to the entry point level for a lot of very complicated topics. We only have so much water, y'all... A powerful read to absorb on this Earth Day. I recommend for all! Thank you to the publisher for my copy in exchange for an honest review.  4.5 stars
Short stories are little windows into infinite worlds, don't you think? At times heartfelt, at times reminiscent, at times difficult, this selection of contemporary shorts seemed to almost have it all. The world in small doses, each tale a different tone. Enjoyment: ★★★★ Diversity in topics: ★★★★★ Resonance: ★★★★★ So let's start off with a bit of truth from me to you--I am not a contemporary reader. I am a speculative, horrific, fantastical type of reader. I actively try to escape the bounds of this world with new ones (better ones?) and find little time left for stories of the everyday. So why did I read this? There's no dragons, no horrors. There are only people and their stories. And they are so very grounded in reality. Small Odysseys exists because of a different form of storytelling within the same vein—the Selected Shorts program in New York. Pre-pandemic, that program existed to bring to life short stories with the talented voices of trained actors and a live audience through the power of broadcasting. As Neil Gaiman himself states in the foreword, this was truly a delight for anyone interested in stories as it existed in the cross-section of literature, theater, and radio in a way that resonated with lots of people. So because of that gem in our culture, we now have this short story collection curated Hannah Tinti, the brains behind the original concept. Small Odysseys was truly a delight. As they're short stories, it's hard to describe them without giving too much of their contents away so I won't do any summarizing here. Some of my favorites included Un-Selfie by Aimee Bender and Bedtime Story by Victor LaValle. Just dive in, like I did, and enjoy the ride. Thank you to the publisher for my copy in exchange for an honest review.  4.5 stars
Looking at emotions, feelings, love in forms, and concepts surrounding the self, Crushing is a memorable graphic novel. Concepts: ★★★★ Artwork: ★★★★★ Themes: ★★★★ Hmmm. How to talk about a graphic novel that doesn't use words to communicate? Seems ironic to use words themselves to talk about it. But let's give it a go anyway. Crushing is going to mean something different for everyone. That's part of its beauty. Without words, without a harshly formed boundary created by the usual narrative structure, characters, or plot, this is a story that works like a mirror of sorts, reflecting your own impressions back on to you. For that reason alone, it's pretty impossible to describe to others and rate semi-objectively. My rating comes from my own personal reaction to these illustrations and the feelings and memories they evoked in me. This wasn't a feel-good story of romance like we'd usually highlight in February, but love and feelings are not limited to the popular or even the typical. Crushing as a title on its own is an interesting play. Having a crush on someone, but also feeling literally crushed and the acting of self crushing under/within/on—the title is similar to its contents in the way that it waits for you, the reader, to react in order to derive meaning. My review is a bit of nonsense. But this is a graphic novel of feelings, emotions, and reflection. It evoked in me a sense of self-reflection, moodiness, and a strange sense of nostalgia tinged with a complex lingering vibe that I'm still pondering. What will Crushing evoke in you? Thank you to the publisher for my copy in exchange for an honest review.  5 stars
A stunning collection, accessibly told and beautifully illustrated. A must-read for all, frankly, regardless of age. This reader (me) learned a lot and loved the reading experience. Artwork: ★★★★★ Ease of reading: ★★★★★ Enjoyment: ★★★★★ Author Tracey Baptiste starts out this collection in the same way that I'd like to start this review: How much do we, as global citizens, really know about Africa's influence on the world's culture and history? When we celebrate Black History Month in the United States, the narrative is almost exclusively tied to the discussions of enslavement and European-American oppression inflicted on African individuals in the relatively recent past. We rarely, if ever, go further back than that. Due to this limited scope on history—and, as a larger conversation that the author addresses, due to biases and misinterpreted histories that exist of those prior time periods--little is commonly known to this day in popular history and culture about the African continent. In this collection, the author delves into those histories and global ties that bind Africa to our earliest beginnings of culture, language, and civilization. Who molded dynasties? Who built the cities? What African man was the richest man to ever live in the world? What women shaped our earliest cultures? I learned a tremendous amount of information in this slim volume, and frankly I was shocked at my own lack of basic knowledge—in the briefly of introduction examples in the author's first section, she shares the literal size of the African continent without its usual distortions in our most common world maps. Did you know that the countries of the United States, China, India, Japan, Eastern Europe, Italy, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, and more ALL fit within the borders of the African continent? I did NOT. In other words, Africa is second only to Asia in terms of sheer continental size. That is just one brief, yet large, example of the knowledge to be gained from this extremely readable and enjoyable collection of short stories on Africa's earliest figures. I loved it and am thrilled to help spread the word about this collection. Thank you to the publisher for my copy in exchange for an honest review.  4.5 stars
Compelling, transformative, and reflective—this memoir of "the last nomad" is a must-read for fans of memoir and nonfiction. Writing: ★★★★ Engagement: ★★★★★ Pacing: ★★★ 1/2 The Last Nomad is one of those books where it arrived to my house, I said "oh, let me get a feel for the writing...I'll just read the first page" and then 45 minutes later, I realized I was several chapters in and fully, completely invested in the story. The best type of book, am I right? Shugri Said Salh's compelling memoir details her experience as her family's "last" nomad. Now, as she immediately explains, Salh knows she is not the literal "last nomad" in the world. Not by a long shot. But for her familial line, generations of whom had existed similar lives as nomads in the Somali deserts, Salh IS their last nomad—her upbringing as a nomad transformed into her adulthood as a mother living in present-day suburban California. What does it mean to straddle two lifestyles, worlds, and realities so dramatically? From survival to excess, the hunt for water to the overabundance of brand options, the intimate oral histories of your elders to the immediacy of the now at the cost of the internal memory, The Last Nomad highlight's Salh's desire to record her story for posterity and for her children to keep the link to the past within her and her family. And, luckily, for us readers too. She quotes the African proverb, "when an elder dies, a library burns" and with this poignant remark as a touchstone, she walks us through her life experiences. I don't want to get too specific with her stories, as it would merely be a pale regurgitation of Salh's own words, so take my word for it--The Last Nomad is one-of-a-kind. It'll linger with me for some time. Many thanks to the publish for my copy in exchange for an honest review.  4.5 disturbed stars
Amongst Jack the Ripper, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, H.H. Holmes, and the birth of the modern medical movement... there was another man murdering prostitutes and women of no means in London and Chicago. His story has somehow faded in the background of more sensationalized figures—and yet his reign of murders was no less terrifying. Research: ★★★★★ Ease of reading: ★★★★ Contextualization: ★★★★★ "Enjoyment": ★★★★★ "In the span of fifteen years, Dr. Thomas Neill Cream poisoned at least ten people in the United States, Britain, and Canada, a death toll with almost no precedents. Structured around Cream’s London murder trial in 1892, when he was finally brought to justice, The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream exposes the blind trust given to medical practitioners, as well as the flawed detection methods, bungled investigations, corrupt officials, and stifling morality of Victorian society that allowed Cream to prey on vulnerable and desperate women, many of whom had turned to him for medical help." I've pulled right from the book's blurb above because I think it's a near-perfect way to describe the contents of this piece of research. Are you aware of London's Jack the Ripper? Of course. But are you aware of Dr. Thomas Neill Cream? You should be, as he was worse. The only way I can describe my reading experience for this book is: baffling and horrifying. Here was a white man from a rich Canadian family hiding behind a doctor's degree in the late 1800s—who managed to evade justice for literal decades of murdering across three countries. He was suspected, questioned, arrested, and identified as a predator on multiple occasions throughout his reign of global terror... and yet money, corruption, sexism, racism, and more kept him on the streets. How did he do it? HOW did he get away with it, when his murders were nearly identical, he was tied to the scenes of the crime and the victims, and his mental state gave him away at nearly every turn with erratic behaviors and letters of confession sent to the police? Author Dean Jobb takes us on this chilling, ominous journey through immaculately researched chapters and photos detailing every leg of Dr. Cream's life. In a similar manner to The Devil and the White City, this work includes direct quotations in a narrative style—all sourced—and play-by-play journeys from each of Dr. Cream's murderous explorations. The writing style with dialogue and descriptions made for an easy, almost fictional/narrative read, but this is no work of fiction. I found it chilling to see Dr. Cream in photos, and even more disturbing to read the blackmail letters he sent to the police and the documents written down about him at the time. Seeing the plight of the Victorian single woman—often existing at society's fringes in prostitution, one of the few lucrative positions available to her—and her fatal encounters with a doctor whom she thought she could trust... chilling. Dean Jobb has done a fantastic job with this work. I put it right up there with Devil in the White City and The Butchering Art, both nonfiction works dealing with similar subject matter. The only elements of this work that I wish the author had provided more context for were the discussions on sexism and race that played out in Dr. Cream's ability to evade justice. He preyed on white female prostitutes, and in one particular court case his lawyer was easily able to discredit a witness because she was a Black woman. Jobb discusses the sexism at work during these times in an afterword at the end—most likely as a way to keep the editorialization minimal within the "narrative" timeline—but he does not go into detail on the levels of racism at play. Even though we as readers could reasonably take it as a given, due to the time period, it would have been appropriate to give that topic more airtime. Thank you to Algonquin Books for my copy in exchange for an honest review. |
Amy Imogene ReadsJust someone looking for her own door into Wonderland. Categories
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All reviews posted are my own and do not reflect the opinions of any other individual or entity. When applicable, reviewed titles sent to me by the publisher are noted at the bottom of each review.
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