What I’m Reading (5.24.22)

Hi, friends! I had one of those reading weeks that spanned the gamut; in fact, I have three books to talk about today, all of which have different ratings—a 5-star read, a 4-star read, and a 3-star read. How fun!

Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted by Suleika Jaouad (★★★★★)

This book, you guys. It gave me a similar reading experience to Chanel Miller’s memoir, Know My Name, which recounts the time she was sexually assaulted by Brock Turner and the ensuing trial. Both memoirs are so beautifully written and so powerfully raw. Neither hold any of their emotions back and show you the messy, gritty side of trauma. In this book, Suleika recounts her experience of being diagnosed with a rare, aggressive form of leukemia at age 22, right when she was starting her life after college. She spent the next few years in cancer treatment and afterwards, she takes herself on a solo road trip to visit the people who reached out to her and helped her during her treatment. What I appreciated most about this memoir is that Suleika doesn’t hold back with her emotions. She exposes the dark side of being a sick person; how you can grow to hate someone who is giving you life-saving treatment because it’s going to make you sick, how debilitating it can be to be so dependent on other people at a time in your life when you’re supposed to be experiencing total independence, and how it can be so hard to understand the lives of your caregivers, their need for time away and time apart, when you can never get “away” or have time “apart” from your illness. She doesn’t aim to be this beautifully serene and strong cancer patient or wrap up her treatment in this pretty package; she’s honest about the times when she was hurtful to the people around her and unable to understand their needs. I found the chapters on Suleika’s road trip to be less compelling than her cancer treatment (which feels weird to say…), but I am so grateful that she was able to find the words to talk about this time in her life because I can imagine it will help others better understand the lives of cancer patients (especially young cancer patients) and be a balm to those who have gone through cancer treatment themselves.

All the Feels by Olivia Dade (★★★★☆)

I really liked this contemporary romance, especially since it featured a plus-sized main character and her weight wasn’t a central plot point. In this novel, Lauren has been tasked with “baby-sitting” a celebrity named Alex, as a favor to her cousin. Alex has gotten into a few public spats and Lauren’s cousin (who is also the showrunner for a very successful Game of Thrones-esque TV show that Alex stars in) is hoping that Lauren can keep him from getting into any more trouble until the show is over. Well, this is a romance so we know what happens from here: Lauren and Alex end up falling in love… but can their relationship survive the rigors of Hollywood? This novel definitely gave me “all the feels” (heh), most especially because this book was about more than Alex and Lauren… it was also about Lauren’s inability to take up space, her belief that she’s not worthy of attention and love and support. Watching her come to terms with these feelings and make an effort to stand up for herself was really beautiful. And the love story itself was so sweet, too, and had a supremely satisfying ending.

Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez (★★★☆☆)

This novel came highly recommended from Sarah of Sarah’s Bookshelves Live. We don’t have very similar book tastes (sometimes her five-star reads are a hit for me and sometimes they are a huge miss), but this novel sounded interesting and very prescient. The novel is a fictional retelling of a real-life case (Relf v Weinberger), which involved the involuntary sterilization of young girls at family planning clinics in the South. This novel follows a young nurse named Civil who is fresh out of nursing school and takes a job at a family planning clinic. Her first day on the job sends her to a one-room cabin where a family of four is living, and she’s tasked with giving the two girls there (ages 11 and 13) birth control shots. It’s only after she’s given the shots that she learns about the side effects of this drug, and she begins to grapple with her role as a nurse. Do these girls really need to be on birth control so young? What is in this drug the clinic is giving out to poor Black women? This grappling will take her on a journey that will lead her to a courtroom that will set a precedent that holds true to today. It’s a powerful story but I struggled to connect to these characters and feel the emotion behind what was happening to them. I felt a bit distant from the action, which made it hard for me to get really invested. I also wasn’t a huge fan of the structure of the novel. Like all historical novels these days (or so it feels like), there was a present-day storyline (2016) and a past storyline (1973), and I just don’t think the present-day storyline was necessary. A lot of times, it spoiled what was going to happen throughout the novel, which was disappointing. I think this book would have been better served written as a straight historical fiction novel with perhaps an epilogue to show us what happened to everyone involved afterward. All in all, this was a good novel that shines a light on a piece of history that needs to be told, but it’s not one I’m rushing out to recommend.

What I’m Reading This Week

• Cream and Punishment by Susannah Nix (e-book) – I’m loving this contemporary romance by one of my faves. It’s exactly the kind of romance I love.
• Flight of Dreams by Ariel Lawhon (print) – I just started reading this book last night so I don’t have much of an opinion about it just yet. I picked it up to fulfill my reading challenge of reading all of the books I added to my Goodreads TBR before 2018.

What are you reading?