Happy Monday! This was a big family-focused weekend, and it was really lovely. I went to my nephew’s birthday party, which took place at a big trampoline park, and I even got on the trampoline for a while, which was a whole lot of fun! I also got to see Mikaela for a writing date, although we had a shortened meeting since the Panera we went to closed at 7! (Our writing dates are usually two hours long, and we arrived at 6.) It’s so weird to see how staffing shortages are affecting companies like Panera. The Panera nearest to me closes at 3 p.m. every day! Crazy. Sunday was spent with the fam, watching football, which was delightful as always.
I finished two books last week, and I’m hoping my reading pace will pick up a little now. I was slowly reading through Caste (25 pages per day) and A Place for Us was a nearly 400-page book that really felt like a slog for me.
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson (★★★★★)
This book is truly excellent. It is so well-researched and well-written, and some of the research truly blew my mind. In this book, Isabel Wilkerson posits that there have been three caste systems in place: the original caste system of India, the caste system established by Nazi Germany, and the caste system in the United States that puts white, wealthy people at the top of the caste and Black people at the bottom (originally established during slavery and continues to this day). The comparisons to the U.S. caste system and Nazi Germany’s were especially chilling—like the fact that the founders of the Nazi party used U.S. race laws as a basis for developing Nazi laws. And even for them, some of our laws (like the one-drop rule) were too harsh. There was also a passage about how people in the U.S. would gleefully send postcards to family members to show and describe lynchings that were happening near them. Or how in Germany, former Nazi leaders aren’t revered. There aren’t statues of them. And, in school, teaching about the history of Nazism is super important. All of that seems pretty obvious things that should be done, and yet, in the United States, we are just now reckoning with all of the Confederate statues we have and the Confederate leaders whose names line streets and schools. Not to mention, even talking about slavery and race is becoming illegal in schools (critical race theory, anyone?). Anyway, this book really blew my mind. It was a hard read but an incredibly important one, especially for white people. We have to read these stories. We have to better understand how we are complicit in this system.
A Place for Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza (★★★☆☆)
Gosh, this book was such a slog for me! I expected to like it more than I did since it’s gotten rave reviews from everyone on my Goodreads list, but it just wasn’t for me. The novel focuses on an Indian-American Muslim family as they gather to celebrate the wedding of their oldest daughter, Hadia. She’s invited her younger brother, Amar, who has been estranged from the family for three years. The novel jumps back and forth in time, spanning decades as we learn more about this family and how Amar came to be estranged. The book read more like a series of vignettes, dropping us into a different time and place every few pages and from the point of view of either Hadia, Amar, or their mother. I think where the novel lost me, though, was in the last few chapters of the book, which take place nearly a decade after Hadia’s wedding and is just a series of navel-gazing chapters from the father’s point of view and honestly, I didn’t care to hear from him at all. Maybe it’s my own father issues at play here, but it felt like a redemption arc that I wasn’t here for. I basically skimmed those chapters and by the end of it, I really think that section could have been removed and the novel would have been just fine. Maybe even better. Anyway, not a favorite for me but most people rave about it, so I am most definitely in the minority here!
What I’m Reading This Week
I’m currently making my way through Rising Star by Susannah Nix, a contemporary romance that takes place in Hollywood, which is one of my favorite settings, especially for romance. Either today or tomorrow, I’m going to start One Two Three by Laurie Frankel. Her previous book, This is How It Always Is, is one of my favorite books but I’m trying to temper my expectations for this one. Surely it won’t be as good as that one, right?!
What are you reading?
My book club is reading Caste in December. I should probably get started on it soon as it may take me awhile to get through it. I don’t see myself reading it exclusively – I think I’ll need to read a bit at a time to process it all.
That is a bummer that A Place for Us wasn’t a fit for you, but it is very very literary and very very character-driven. I actually really liked the section at the end written by the father, so that goes to show how differently people process books and how our personal experiences impact how we experience a book!
I’m almost done with Deacon King Kong and I really am loving it. I have been reading it on my kindle which has helped me keep track of the characters. You can highlight a characters name and it will show you some other passages that the kindle detects as prominent. So that has helped me remember who some of the less-featured characters are. It was a slow start, but by the 25% mark I was very hooked! Next I am reading The People We Meet on Vacation. And then The Reading List which I’ve heard good things about!
I am really noticing the staffing shortages too! It’s nuts, right? Like, completely 100% understandable why they have to chop hours and why things take longer… but it just seems so nuts. It’s everywhere!
Oh my gosh, Caste does sound like a really hard read. None of that surprises me though. Especially the nasty postcard thing. Ick. Some people are just horrible. I need to read what the one-drop rule is.
I just started 11/22/63 and I fear it’s going to take me 2 months to read it. I just finished Count the Ways and it was really good but just heartbreaking!
My friend just recommended Caste to me and it’s on my to-read list. I am a little wary to start it after just finishing Obama’s book. I need something lighter in between.