As I was looking over the 150+ books I’ve read this year, trying to narrow down my top 30 (not an easy task!), I was struck again with why books are so important to me. In a world that is constantly getting more fraught and contentious and where the gap between rich and poor becomes more extreme and where good doesn’t always win despite what we were told to believe as kids, books have become a refuge. Not just a place of knowledge and transportation and expansion and new viewpoints and perspectives, but, especially in fiction, a world where the plot usually ends with the good winning and the bad paying their dues. It’s a way to feel some fairness, some just and honorable endings, in a reality that is anything but fair.

Many of my reads are light-hearted books that end in a neat bow. I love that for myself. I need levity in my days. But the books that stood out to me as top of the list are not necessarily the ones that neatly wrap up. Many are more complex, more intense, some even ending in a frustrating “what just happened?” And, of course, the memoirs are ongoing, right? Even if the book wraps up delightfully, life keeps going and you can only hope that the ending of the book continues in real life for that person.

I can’t tell you how much I love books and how glad I am to have reading be part of my regular, daily life. I have grown as a human being because of books. This quote from last year bears repeating: “I’m so grateful to books, and I’m so grateful to have grown up in a family where my love of reading was not only accepted but fostered. Reading fosters such curiosity, such thirst for knowledge outside of one’s own life. Through fiction we discover entire worlds. Entire dreams.  

“These days, especially, as we desperately seek to understand each other, I remain convinced that no one who has made reading a part of their lives is ever too far from the ability to see and appreciate the humanity of a stranger and their people. I don’t say this to be a snob (a usually credible accusation when it comes to me), but if I had to pick one thing that has consistently made me and my life better, it is reading. Accessing other people’s stories, other people’s words, other people’s experiences — it opens up your mind in a way nothing else can.” – Clara, colormeloverly and One More Chapter Podcast

You can find me on StoryGraph. In no particular order, here are my favorite 30 books from 2024.

The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese

I waited for months for this audiobook to become available from the library and then, when it finally did, I passed it to the next person in line not once or twice, but THREE TIMES because every time it kept popping up for me, I was too intimidated by its size. (It’s 736 pages; a mammoth 31+ hours of audio!) I have learned my lesson and will never make this mistake again. (When my friend Gail finished reading it, she messaged me to urge me to read it—“I thought of you a few times reading this, thinking, ‘I think this is one Emily would REALLY love!’—and it was the nudge I needed to tackle it.) 

It is a masterpiece. 

Even that feels like a word not encompassing enough for what Abraham Verghese has penned.

I felt like actual years had passed when I came up for air at the end. (Verghese described this perfectly in a podcast: “The magic of a big novel is you enter this portal and you live several lifetimes, decades, and you come back after this long, long experience and it’s still Tuesday.”) It covers such expanse of time and characters that, truly, I had to blink my eyes and remind myself where I was and who I am. The landscape of South India’s Malabar Coast so lush and harsh and people like Big Ammachi, Philipose, Elsie, Mariamma, Baby Mol, and Digby became so real in my mind. I feel so forever and deeply impacted by them. The ongoing whiplash of events, highs and lows, made me gasp aloud. 

Thanks to Gail, I also dove head first into Oprah’s 6-part podcast series with Verghese about his work, his experience in medicine, and his own thoughts on the book. A NYTs article Gail sent me about him further made me so glad I chose the audiobook route for this one: “During the height of the Covid pandemic (whose only silver lining was what it did for reading and for baking sourdough bread), I was biking or walking to work and I got into audiobooks. I could seamlessly pick up where I left off on the physical page the previous night. Listening to a book has made me even more attuned to the sound of what I put on the page. It led me to audition for narrating the audiobook of ‘The Covenant of Water.’ Happily, I got the role. It’s harder than most people realize: One has to perform the book and convey who is speaking using pitch, tone and accent but without overdoing it. Five hours a day for two and a half weeks and communicating by sign language in the evenings to restore the voice.”

James by Percival Everett

“Why did God set it up like this,” Rachel asked. “With them as masters and us as slaves?”

“There’s no God, child. There’s religion, but there’s no God of theirs. Their religion tells that we will get our reward in the end, however, it apparently doesn’t say anything about their punishment. But when we are around them, we believe in God. Religion is just a controlling tool they employ and adhere to when convenient. … There might be some higher power, but it’s not their white god. However, the more you talk about God and Jesus and heaven and hell, the better they feel.”

The children said together, “And the better they feel, the safer we are.” 

“Folks be funny like that. They takes the lies they want and throws away the truth that scares them.”

“But my interest is in how these marks that I am scratching on this page can mean anything at all. If they can have meaning, then life can have meaning, then I can have meaning.”

“With my pencil I wrote myself into being. I wrote myself to here.”

Percival Everett…slow clap. This was a recommendation from Gail and I went into it only knowing that it was a retelling of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from a new perspective, that of the enslaved Jim/James. It absolutely blew me away. 

To note, despite the Goodreads blurb that calls this book “ferociously funny,” I found nothing to laugh about. That’s not a bad thing, but just, don’t go into it expecting it to be comedic. It is a serious, intense novel that feels like a hundred lifetimes in the matter of a couple of weeks (months?). I was riveted and terrified, but never laughing. 

Gail’s review says it best: “This book is brilliant on so many levels (those final chapters especially!) that it’s not hyperbole to describe it as a modern-day masterpiece. I particularly loved how Jim’s speech in it was an exercise in calculated code-switching, and how ‘writing himself into being meant leaving Huck, and much of Huck, behind.’ (Source)

“The New Yorker piece cited above is a solid study of both Everett and this buzzy new release, one I’m sure will scoop up a number of major literary prizes for 2024. Perhaps the insight from that article I enjoyed best is the writer noting that, as an ‘experimental’ author, Everett cites Twain as an inspiration, with both men interested in trying stuff out and confounding their readers along the way.

“In that sense, it feels like a karmic match Everett offered his readers the long overdue ‘other side’ of this American classic—a side that makes for a far more interesting ride down the mighty Mississippi.”

Lady Justice: Women, the Law, and the Battle to Save America by Dahlia Lithwick

“Just as it was looking like history for women was unraveling like a cheap sweater, something else was happening. Women lawyers, were turning on a dime…. to organize a new type of resistant cases that would play out in the courthouse and elections.” 

Women fought back during the Trump years with a vengeance. They fought back hard to protect our rights:

… the right for freedom against violence and discrimination.

… voters right

… equal wages and economic empowerment

… sexual harassment

… reproduction rights

… crimes against female genital mutilation

… racial equality

… disability rights and justice

… protection of our rights, safety, health, families and communities

…

Somehow this book managed to not only inform—highlight and refresh some of the shocking horrific things we have all witnessed—but Lithwick entertained us and gave inspiring hope! Much needed in this summer of 2024 when we daily (it feels like!) lose more rights and it appears that goodness will never beat out evil.

*Note: turns out, we’re going to need a lot more of this energy to survive the next four years.

The Secret Bridesmaid by Katy Birchall

It might be because, as a wedding photographer, I am very fully immersed in the wedding world, but I found this book to be DELIGHTFUL. Sophie is hilarious and such an honestly good person (the first person POV is my favorite to read so bonus for that!) and Cordelia is the perfect rich girl storyline. Tom is swoony, of course, but this is very much more about friendship (Sophie and Cordelia) than romance (Sophie and Tom). 

Funny Story by Emily Henry

Emily Henry continues to be a win every single time. I particularly loved that, in this book, neither lead is particularly extraordinary in the way books often do. You know, comes across a bunch of wealth, wins a contest and gets money, is so gorgeous or smart or sexy or successful, etc etc etc. Daphne is an amazing children’s librarian. Miles is a friendly, lovable bar tender who also sources local food for the restaurant he works at. Neither are by typical standards “exceptional.” But that is partly the draw, right? You can see their realistic struggles and feel that keenly along with them.

The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown

Reading this during the 2024 summer Olympics made this extra special. It is a long book and, though I understand why the backstory was necessary, I was bored during parts of it. Nevertheless, my patriotic Olympic spirit was at maximum capacity for that unbelievable 1936 race. The movie adaptation of this is wonderful!! 

Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez

One of my favorite bookstagrammers is @em_jacobs_reads and what she says perfectly sums up why I love this book so much: “This book and these characters and THEIR LOVE 🥹 swept me up in the best way. Abby has such a gift for writing with grace and love about incredibly heavy things, allowing readers across so many different spaces and experiences to feel *seen*. I cried before I was even a quarter of the way through. My heart broke and was lovingly put back together. We are so lucky that authors like Abby Jimenez exist and give us the gift of stories like this.“

Paris: The Memoir by Paris Hilton

Do not dare to let the pink cover or your memory of the Paris of the aughts fool you. She is intelligent, strong, and incredibly brave. I had similar feelings of hopelessness as I did when reading Britney’s memoir; the extensive help-seeking only to be returned to hell against her will.

A huge part of Paris’ life (and now, as a result, her advocacy in legislature) was in her teens when she was (you guys, I feel sick even thinking about this) violently woken during the night by two strangers who grabbed her from her bed and took her. It turns out, her parents shelled out a ton of money for her to be “taken” like this to a behavioral health center, which, as we now know, includes the most degrading behavior, emotional torment, and cruel and unsafe conditions. The times she repeatedly managed to escape from the school, only to reach out to her parents or another “safe” person, only to have them turn her back in to the “school.” If you don’t know about Provo Canyon and other schools like this, please read this book.

She also talks openly and extensively about her ADHD and how that shapes things she struggles with as well has given her superpowers in her business dealings and the things she enjoys. 

This book will open up an entirely new view of who you think Paris Hilton is. I highly recommend the audiobook as she reads it and that’s always the way to read a memoir: listening to the author themself.

Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt

The way Frank McCourt wrote was absolutely…i don’t even know. While the topics were obviously tragic (a drunken, deserting father, hunger, poor living conditions, multiple deaths, etc.), the way he put words together had me laughing out loud in snorts throughout the whole book! 

Please listen to the audiobook of this as McCourt himself read it and it just adds to the whole book being a complete treasure. 

“What’s the point of a grandmother who won’t go blind to get a government radio?” 

“Shakespeare is like mashed potatoes. You can never get enough.”

“It must be great to be in America where people have nothing to do but sing and dance.”

The Americans in the Irish ship with the constant “god damn”s. 🤣 Please listen to this in Frank’s voice!!

And lastly, in the prologue, there is reference to an Irish saying that I adore: “death is not fatal.” I want that in my elegy.

The Women by Kristin Hannah

“Thank god for girl friends. In this crazy, chaotic, divided world that was run by men, you could count on the women.”

Easiest five I’ve given. I’m a big Kristin Hannah fan, but, even as a fan, when someone puts out something new, I always wonder, “Will I love it as much as their previous work?” And the answer here was definitely YES. 

It was a roller coaster. I knew little about the Vietnam War and Hannah shows the atrocities of the war, both in the war itself and how we treated the veterans when they returned home. The gaslighting of women was so frustrating and angering (Seeking help from the VA hospital and being told by staff that you can’t be seen because “There were no women in Vietnam.” ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!) You know I am deep-diving into the 50s, 60s, and 70s history right now in my immediately-post-book era. 

As my friend Gail said, “Come for the history lesson about women and men who served in Vietnam, stay for the twists, turns, and melodrama that will leave you gasping out loud as you read this one late into the night.”

The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff

“Here there is nothing, only land, all the earth and mountains and trees remain innocent of story. This place is itself a sheet of parchment yet to be written upon.”

“The wind passed, even as it is passing now, over all the people who find themselves so dulled by the concerns of their own bodies and their own hungers that they cannot stop for a moment to feel its goodness as it brushes against them. And feel it now, so soft, so eternal, this wind against your good and living skin.”

“It is a moral failure to miss the profound beauty of the world.” 

I admit, I nearly gave up on this book. The start was confusing and I felt like I just couldn’t grasp what it was about. The entire book is written without dialogue, which was an entirely new style of reading to me. But the composition of words was so so beautiful and, beyond that, my friend Gail has never steered me wrong when it comes to book recs and she raved about this one, long before it was listed on Barack Obama’s book list. 

So I kept going. And then, about 1/3 of the way in, I got snagged. Truly snagged. I couldn’t put it down. I was obsessed. (I read the entire thing in less than 24 hours.) I can’t even say what it was specifically that got me, but I can say with absolute certainty, you too should read this masterpiece.

Honey, Baby, Mine: A Mother and Daughter Talk Life, Death, Love by Laura Dern and Diane Ladd

I listened to the audio book on this one (read in conversation format by Laura and Diane), but I also got the hardcover from the library because there are lots of photos in it and it was interesting that the audiobook is not read directly from the book. It follows the same path, but the wording has been formatted and edited for written word in the book. 

(For the record, I am VERY team Laura on the haircut situation.)

“I’m telling you, my angels pushed that door open. So help me God—they pushed that door open and they said, ‘Take off your stockings!’ I was set up by my own angels!”

“OK, Mom! Your angels opened your door and made you take your sexy stockings off in a sexy way?” 🤣🤣🤣 This whole conversation had me dying with laughter. 

The sea is wide

And you can’t step it

And I love you

And you can’t help it

And if you love me

Like I love you

Nothing

In the world

Can cut out love in two

“It will never be enough. I will always want to love you more.”

The Block Party by Jamie Day

You start the book knowing there’s a murder, but you don’t know who, why, or how. You’re rewound a year among the lives of the folks on the Alton Road cul-de-sac and then you quickly realize, as the secrets and intertwined lives and scandal unfold, that everyone has a motive. It could be anyone who murders and anyone who is murdered and I promise you’ll be wholly invested in finding out the answers.

The Small and the Mighty: Twelve Unsung Americans Who Changed the Course of History, from the Founding to the Civil Rights Movement by Sharon McMahon

I pre-ordered this books months in advance and checked my mail constantly on release day. I’ve been following Sharon McMahon (sharonsaysso) on Instagram since early 2020, right as she was on the cusp of completely blowing up with followers (I remember when she hit 100k and now she’s well over a million!), and have been a huge admirer of both her vast historical knowledge as well as her voice of reason and truth when the world gets too much. She is never someone who panics or clickbaits; she speaks non partisan truth with impartiality so that it’s no wonder people of every political background avidly follow her.

I have learned so much from her (Instagram, podcast, and now book!) and it has truly helped me to grow as a person in my understanding of our country, its laws, how government works, and how to try to compassionately hear the “other side,” even if you greatly disagree. 

I highlighted a lot of parts of this book. Here are some of my favorites.

“And yet, when the sun crested the horizon and light filled the sky, the auroras didn’t disappear. I just couldn’t see them anymore. … The colors were still there it’s just that daylight made them hard to see.” – Introduction, p.9

“For eight weeks, nearly sixty-year-old Clara walked. … Not only did she walk the entire seven hundred miles to Colorado…” – Clara Brown, p.35

“Why not do the unheard-of thing? … And what a question that is. Why not do the unheard-of thing? Why not do what no one else is doing? Why not leave behind the old ways that are no longer serving? Why not be the first?” – Rebecca Brown Mitchell, p.120

“The women did not try to conceal their identities, didn’t come armed, didn’t break any glass or invade any private offices. They weren’t there to kidnap members of Congress; no faux gallows waited outside the building. They came peacefully, stayed in the section designated for visitors, and left peacefully, confident that they had made their point.” – Inez Milholland, p.125

Regarding mobilizing the four million women who had gained voting rights in the West: “…and convince them that voting against the interests of women was morally wrong.” – Inez Milholland

“Liberty cannot die. No work for liberty can be lost. It lives on in the hearts of the people, in their hopes, their aspirations, their activities. It becomes part of the life of the nation.” – Inez Millholland, p.133

“For women of every belief and stripe: justice and freedom—suffrage—was not granted, it was seized. Suffrage was not a gift bestowed, delivered in a basket on a doorstep. Suffrage was the hard-won harvest of seventy years of toil.” – France, p.142

“Progress doesn’t arrive unbidden, carried on the back of a silvery bird, deposited in our doorsteps during the night. Progress is birthed. It is conceived of and labored for. It is the work of multitudes.”

“None of us can do it all. But all of us can do something. And it might as well be the next needed thing.”

“But quiet lives can sometimes leave the loudest echoes.” – Anna Thomas Jeanes, p.159

“Progress is usually born out of struggle. Old doors close but new ones will open.” – William James Edward, p.163

“Education was liberation, and the enslavers knew it.” – Booker T. Washington, p.174

“‘I am interested in America,’ he said. ‘I do not see how America can go ahead if part of its people are left behind.’” – Julius Rosenwald, p.183

“Why? Fear is the simple and all-encompassing answer.

“Fear of people who didn’t look European.

“Fear of people who spoke an unrecognizable language.

“Fear of people whose traditional dress was different.

“Fear of people who had different religious practices.

“Fear of people taking their jobs.

“Fear that someone else’s success threatened their own.

“Fear of people not being ‘American’ enough.

“Fear, the most powerful motivator of human behavior.” – The Inouyes, p.197

“‘I didn’t want our country to do to others what had happened to Norm.’” – President Bush speaking of Norman Mineta’s influence on presidential policy post-9/11, p.220

“‘His physical courage was matched by his moral courage. I don’t know of anybody else I can say that of. … With the exception of my father, there are few people I have ever looked at and said, “I wish I could be more like that man.”’” – Then-Vice-President Joe Biden speaking of Daniel Inouye at his funeral in 2012, p.220

“Before [Norm Mineta] passed, he said, ‘The word compromise today is a bad word. People think of it as a weakness, rather than a strength to get something done.’ … What will history remember with kindness? The leader with the most cunning tweets? The one with the most self-aggrandizing speeches and the biggest audiences? No, it’s not the cynics who emerge the heroes, but the people who spent their lives in service to others. It’s those that fight for justice for someone whose reflection they don’t see in the mirror.” – Norman Mineta, p.222

“‘History kept me stuck to me seat,’ [Claudette] recalled. ‘I felt the hand of Harriet Tubman pushing down on one shoulder, and Sojourner Truth pushing down on the other.’” – Claudette Colvin, p.226

“As Claudette recalled it, one of the most pressing questions of her children was, ‘How did white people come to dominate the South?’ Adults often told her that Black people were cursed. Claudette was like, ‘Immediately no.’ She just knew that it couldn’t be true. She told the minister of her church that she didn’t want to serve a God who cursed people.” – Claudette Colvin, p.227

“Education wasn’t only liberation, she came to realize; education was self-sufficiency. It was independence. It reduced your vulnerability, because it was much harder to cheat someone who could read and do basic sums. It was connection, allowing you to read and send letters to your loved ones. It was faith, because it let you read your scriptures.” – Septima Clark, p.241

“”I can even work with my enemies because I know from experience that they might have a change of heart any minute.’ … That despite current evidence to the contrary, their enemies were capable of change. But only if they refused to quit. Only if they chose to hope.” – Septima Clark, p.244

“‘The Nazis took a sustained, significant, and sometimes even eager interest in the American example in race law’—racial segregation laws like the ones present all over the South. In other words, the Nazis looked to our racial discrimination policies and liked what they saw.” – James Q. Whitman, America, p.249

“White supremacy and white Christian identity are inextricably linked in American history. Facts don’t require our personal approval for them to be facts.” – p.256

“You’d be mistaken if you believe that Black women did not speak up. You’d be mistaken if you thought that Black women did not risk their personal safety to work for justice. You’d be mistaken if you thought these facts were never going to see the light of day again, swept under the rug of today’s moral panic, the moral panic of learning about the real, true, beautiful, infuriating, horrific, meaningful history of the United States and calling it by some other boogeyman name like Critical Race Theory (it’s not) or labeling it as a divisive concept (it’s only divisive if lies and cover-ups benefit you in some way).” p.269

“The civil rights movement would be nowhere without the courage of people with the least amount of political, social, and economic power. Those whose very lives breathed oxygen into justice and freedom, whose cumulative actions worked to unfasten the padlocks of centuries of oppression. None of them could do it all, but they all could do something. These are the small and mighty. And we can be too.” p.278

A Love Song for Ricki Wilde by Tia Williams

“He was music I could listen to forever.”

I did not expect to fall so hard for this story. The first 1/3 of the book, I just could not understand what was happening. But when it clicked, I was locked in and could not put it down. It’s a beautiful love story mixed with time-bending (I’ll never see leap day the same again). It’s a love song not only for Ricki Wilde, but for Harlem as well. Ricki, Ezra, Tuesday, Ms. Della…this cast is sooooo good!

Big Gay Wedding by Byron Lane

Growing up in a small midwestern town with a heavy ratio of churches to people, it wasn’t hard to immerse myself into this book quickly and easily. So many of the LGBTQ+ loathing, fear-mongering, and “hate the sin, love the sinner” was drilled into all of us from birth. (For the record, I am pleased to say I am happily and healthily recovering from high-control religion.)

I had heard rumors of this book giving Schitt’s Creek vibes so I went into it expecting it to be comedic. And though Barnett and Ezra’s relationship definitely connected dots to David and Patrick, I think my own upbringing made me see the realness in it all more than the comedy. (That being said, lol to Nichole—”spelled n-i, like the element, and c-h-o-l-e, as in the Punjabi word for chickpeas, but pronounced traditionally ‘Nicole’ like Scherzinger.”—and her wedding ideas. Very Alexis.)

So, yes, while there were definitely funny parts, this is also a story about a gay wedding in a small town with strong “traditional married” views and bigotry, along with a side dose of vandalizing. I was proud of Chrissy’s character arc. Was she perfect, not even a little, but did she grow a lot in 13 days? Absolutely. The Chrissy at the beginning of the book is not the Chrissy at the end and that gives me hope for the rest of the Chrissys and Lionels and Clays of the world. 

“Don’t be sorry. My first impression of you was your laughter. Laughter! Joy! That’s what laughter is, that’s what you brought with you. You brought laughter to this little farm. And shouldn’t we be so lucky that all our laughter is loud.” p.207

“I wrote ‘woke.’ But I’ve learned that’s just another word for being a good neighbor, for caring about other people.” p.208

“Every night I slept in this room as a kid, I would fall asleep thinking about how I’d have a lonely life. How, because I was different, I’d never be able to love or get married. And now. God. Look at you. Look at us.” p.231

“‘You people,’ she says. ‘You’re hypocrites and assholes. You’re bad neighbors. You’re bad Christians—Jesus was friends with prostitutes, beggars, murderers—the fun people! Is your presence here a reflection of that? No! You’re the angry mob Jesus scolded! Your behavior out here is shameful, dishonorable, undemocratic, and poorly styled.

“‘But,’ Victoria continues, ‘you’re also victims. You’re also confused. You’ve all been misled. Probably by some generic-looking old white man who gets paid a lot of money to tell you to hate someone else. What could be more evil than that? And why? Why would someone hold up an old book, originally written in a language he can’t understand, and tell you what it says? And why would you believe it sight unseen? And why would you take his orders and take aggressive action on them? And this? Why this sin? Because it’s an easy target. You’re all tools for a bully. Straight married men are the biggest threat to your children—straight married men are the most likely to be pedophiles! Straight men are, by far, the most common perpetrators of assault, murder, domestic violence, child sex trafficking, and white-collar crimes that rob your pensions. Are you protesting them?

“‘In summation,’ Victoria says, ‘gay people have been around since the beginning of time; quite acting surprised! Religion is a huge, profitable business and always has been. No one can turn you gay, just like no on turned you straight. Shame on all of you for your willful ignorance, wasting everyone’s precious time, and causing so much unnecessary suffering. Now, unless you have something relevant to present, get the hell off my gay future son-in-law’s property! Posthaste!” p. 234

Go as a River by Shelley Read

In 1948, a chance meeting between seventeen-year-old Victoria (Torie) Nash and a young man by the name of Wilson (Wil) Moon, a drifter of Native American descent triggers a sequence of events that changes Torie’s life forever.

“Just as a single rainstorm can erode the banks and change the course of a river, so can a single circumstance of a girl’s life erase who she was before.”

“Strength, I had learned, was like this littered forest floor, built of small triumphs and infinite blunders, sunny hours followed by sudden storms that tore it all down. We are one and all alike if for no other reason than the excruciating and beautiful way we grow piece by unpredictable piece, falling, pushing from the debris, rising again, and hoping for the best.”

This book is so stunningly beautiful. It is heartbreaking and resilient and lovely and sad all at the same time. We follow Torie’s life over the course of decades and what a stunning story it is. The beautiful, but harsh landscape of mountains and forests surrounding her home (a place where Torie finds refuge after a tragedy) adds much to the storyline, and is almost a character in itself.

This is a wondrously descriptive novel. “The landscapes of our youths create us, and we carry them within us, storied by all they gave and stole, in who we become.

Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa

“How was it that a man could not walk onto his own property, visit the grave of his wife, eat the fruits of forty generations of his ancestors’ toil, without mortal consequence?” p.48

With the current, horrific crisis in Gaza, the timing of reading this book couldn’t have been more apt. I am embarrassed that it took reading this book for me to realize that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land has been going on since the 1940s. As an American, media has historically been pro-Israel, so I appreciate reading a much-needed Palestinian perspective. This book without doubt gives voice and humanity to Palestinians. It is heartbreaking and violent, filled with so much love and loss. It yet again expanded my worldview, as the very best books do. 

“‘Thank you,’ I answered, unsure of the proper American response to her gracious enthusiasm. In the Arab world, gratitude is a language onto itself. ‘May Allah bless the hands that give me this gift’; ‘Beauty is in your eyes that find me pretty’; ‘May God extend your life’; ‘May Allah never deny your prayer’; ‘May the next meal you cook for us be in celebration of your son’s wedding…of you daughter’s graduation…your mother’s recovery’; and so on, an infinite string of prayerful appreciation. Coming from such a culture, I have always found a mere ‘thank you’ an insufficient expression that makes my voice sound miserly and ungrateful.” p.169

“I placed my niece at her sleeping mother’s breast and watched my brother, turgid with affection, look back and forth from his wife to his newborn daughter. In that refugee camp, which Israel would label a ‘breeding ground of terrorists’ and a ‘festering den of terror,’ I bore witness to a love that dwarfed immensity itself.” p.190

“‘Amal, I believe that most Americans do no love as we do. It is not for any inherent deficiency or superiority in them. They live in the safe, shallow parts that rarely push human emotions into the depths where we dwell. I see your confusion. Consider fear. For us, fear comes where terror comes to others because we are anesthetized to the funs constantly pointed at us. And the terror we have known is something few Westerners ever will. Israeli occupation exposes us very young to the extremes of our own emotions, until we cannot feel except in the extreme.’ 

“‘The roots of our grief coil so deeply into loss that death has come to live with us like a family member who makes you happy by avoiding you, but who is still one of the family. Our sadness can make the stones weep. And the way we love is no exception, Amal.’

“‘It is the kind of love you can know only if you have felt the intense hunger that makes your body eat itself at night. The kind you know only after life shields you from falling bombs or bullets passing through your body. It is the love that dives naked toward infinity’s reach. I think it is where God lives.’” p.193

“He looked on in silence at the proof of what Israelis already know, that their history is contrived from the bones and traditions of Palestinians. The Europeans who came knew neither hummus nor falafel but later proclaimed them ‘authentic Jewish cuisine.’ They claimed the villas of Qatamon as ‘old Jewish homes.’ They had no old photographs or ancient drawings of their ancestry living on the land, loving it, and planting it. They arrived from foreign nations and uncovered coins in Palestine’s earth from the Canaanites, the Romans, the Ottomans, then sold them as their own ‘ancient Jewish artifacts.’ They came to Jaffa and found oranges the size of watermelons and said, ‘Behold! The Jews are known for their oranges.’ But those oranges were the culmination of centuries of Palestinian farmers perfecting the art of citrus growing.” p.263

“Dalia gave all her children dark, round eyes that could fill endlessly with sadness.” p.264

“Her entire family had been murdered during the holocaust of World War Two. The irony, which sank its bitter fangs into my mind, was that Mama, the mother who gave birth to David, also survived a slaughter that claimed nearly her entire family. Only the latter occurred because of the former, underscoring for me the inescapable truth that Palestinians paid the price for the Jewish holocaust. Jews killed my mother’s family because Germans had killed Jolanta’s.” p.273

“On March 20, a suicide bomber had killed seven Israelis in the Galilee, which was in retaliation for Israel’s killing of thirty-one Palestinians on March 12, which was in retaliation for the killing of eleven Israelis on March 11, which was in retaliation for Israel’s killing of forty Palestinians on March 8, and on and on.” p.292

“They murdered you and buried you in their headlines, Mother. How do I forgive, Mother? How does Jenin forget? How does one carry this burden? How does one live in a world that turns away from such injustice for so long? Is this what it means to be Palestinian, Mother?” p.317

Foolish: Tales of Assimilation, Determination, and Humiliation by Sarah Cooper

Like not everyone, but a lot of people, I first stumbled onto Sarah Cooper’s hilarity in 2020 when she lip synced Trump’s more infamous intensely-idiotic statements (a plethora to choose from for sure). (One of my favorites, lol: https://www.instagram.com/p/CA-UJmtA_NW/) Her humor jumps off the pages in this book and I was laughing out loud (quietly-ish, in the library) when I opened it up and started reading the introduction. As far as memoirs go, this was a solid 5, in part because I couldn’t put it down and ended up reading the entire book in one afternoon. Anything that grabs me that intensely deserves all the stars, especially in the non-fiction world of books.

“Life is not a competition of power. It is a competition of knowing yourself. The better you know yourself, the more powerful you are. So, yeah, I guess it is a competition of power? Whatever, I’m not a thought leader! You can’t get to know yourself without some trial and error or without allowing yourself to make a mistake. And the more foolish you are, the more mistakes you make, the more you learn about yourself and the more powerful you become. You know, within reason.” p.249

None of This Is True by Lisa Jewell

Whaaaaaaaaaattttt?! 

If you want a book that you cannot put down, this is definitely it. But if you want a book that wraps in a nice, tidy bow, this is not it. You will be riveted because you know some really bad stuff has happened and/or is about to happen, but you don’t exactly know what that bad stuff is yet… You just have this gut feeling that you’re about to go over a cliff. 

The audiobook is amazing for this one as it has a full cast, music, background noises during the podcast interview parts, etc. It’s all done incredibly well.

Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books by Kirsten Miller

This book boasts a large cast of characters, but you’ll see why as you continue reading. It’s set in a small Southern town with one woman’s quest to ban books and the events it sets in motion throughout the town and lives of the townspeople.

“When you have everything, the only luxury left is taking things away from others.” p.39

“As far as he was concerned, if your faith was shaken by foul words or sex scenes, then you must not have had very much to begin with.” p.45

“’I am exactly as God made me,’ Elijah heard Isaac inform the preacher. ‘I will not question God’s wisdom and neither should you.’” p.55

“‘Using fear to control people is about as old as time.’
“Elijah thought of his mother. ‘What if you showed them there’s nothing to be scared about?’
“’You could do that,’ Bella said. ‘But first you have to get them to read a book.’” p.61

“’Well, you have sixty-four great-great-great-great-grandparents. I promise you they weren’t all monsters. You get to choose whose footsteps you’ll follow. Find a set that went in the right direction. Somewhere out there, you have an ancestor who made the world better. Whoever they are, decide to take after them.’” p.94

“‘What matters is never letting people tell you what to think. Don’t let them convince you that one way is right and another way is wrong. Gather as much knowledge as you can, because information is power. And choosing how to use it is freedom. The more you know, the freer you will be.’” p.125

“‘He’s not the man you think he is,’ Delvin told him. ‘He’s a coward who can’t feel big unless others feel small. Someone like that doesn’t deserve your respect.’” p.215

How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair

To say this is a powerful memoir is not doing this book justice. It is so harrowing and riveting and the whole time I had to remind myself that I was listening to the author herself read this to me which means there is a happier ending than feels possible throughout. 

Safiya Sinclair recalls her childhood and adulthood growing up in a very strict Rastafarian household in Jamaica where she and her sisters were subjected to many, many rules to maintain and keep their purity. Everything from how they were allowed to dress to who they were allowed to speak to, which all keeps getting progressively more suffocating as her father gets more and more controlling (to the point of them not even leaving their home). She showcases how this upbringing impacted every part of her life and how she was able to break free, but even more importantly, how she has healed and found a way to give grace and extend forgiveness toward her father, which feels absolutely unfathomable to me as a reader.

The Woman in Me by Britney Spears

Thirteen f**king years. Do you even realize how long that is? More than anything else—more than JT, more than the media, more than anything—my empathy-despair was in full force during Britney’s conservatorship. I honestly asked myself many times, could I have done that? Could I have been strong enough to survive that? Would I have had the strength of willpower? She was treated like an animal. *By her own family.*

Michelle Williams narration of this was tremendous (!!) and I was especially pricked in my conscious when Britney recalled the “is she crazy” period of her young motherhood time. “No one seemed to understand that I was simply out of my mind with grief.” And wouldn’t you be too if your babies were being taken from you? 

How many of us were mesmerized by that shitstorm without truly acknowledging the person behind the pain and trauma that was happening right in from of us (and also, as we now know, behind closed doors as well). 

Two final thoughts: when Britney found out that people were starting to talk about her conservatorship and the “Free Britney” movement started gaining momentum, she wrote, “If you stood up for me when I couldn’t stand up for myself, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.” 🫶🏻

And finally, Jamie Spears deserves life in prison.

Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera

First things first, this should definitely be digested via audiobook. I loved the incorporation of the podcast and, at times, I kept forgetting if I was listening to a book or a real podcast. It is really well done. 

In brief, one night Lucy showed up covered in her best friend Savvy’s blood. Savvy was brutally murdered. Lucy had a head injury and doesn’t remember anything from that night. Lucy was never convicted of murder, but in the court of public opinion, she was outcast as a murderer in her town. She left her old life behind and moved to LA. But now, a very popular true crime podcast “Listen for the Lie” is doing a season on Savvy’s murder. “Lucy is forced to return to the place she vowed never to set foot in again to solve her friend’s murder, even if she is the one that did it.”

From the book and actually a pretty good summary: “Men don’t protect us, not really. They only protect themselves, or each other. The only thing men ever protected me from was happiness.” I genuinely didn’t know how this would end and was absolutely rapt.

The Grace Year by Kim Liggett

It’s giving Handmaid’s Tale mashed with Hunger Games and there was not even a moment of exhale throughout the entire book. From the very start, I was hooked and it took me less than a day to read the entire thing. I could not put it down and my roller coaster of emotions was evidence.

The Paradise Problem by Christina Lauren

Is it the fake-to-real relationship trope? Yes. Is it absolutely delightful? Also yes. I am a huge Christina Lauren fan and the witty banter in this book is so good. In the tone of SNL’s Stefan, it has everything: fake dating, marriage of convenience, friends to lovers, tropical island, billionaire, family drama, opposites attract, only one bed…

The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center

The way Katherine Center writes made me LAUGH so much. What a delightful book!!! Emma is all of us and I adored how real she was. (The bit with her being mad at her sister and holding onto her anger killed me. WE ARE ALL THIS PETTY AND WE KNOW IT.) I want every book to have this much humorous internal monologuing.

Also, petition for a new cover. Please, please, please don’t judge this book by its cover.

This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel

Emily May’s thoughts on this book echo my own so exactly. 

“At its heart, this is a book about all seven members of the Walsh-Adams family. I love family drama/saga style books so this was right up my alley. They are a loving, hilarious, complex and dysfunctional family, all trying to do right by one another (and screwing up many times along the way). I was utterly charmed.

“After four boys, Rosie and Penn are sure their fifth child will be a girl…until Claude arrives. It would be a few more years before they realize that their first predictions weren’t exactly wrong. Drawing from her own experiences, Laurie Frankel explores how the family reacts to the realization that Claude (now Poppy) is transgender. Rosie and Penn instinctively try to protect their child by moving to the supposedly more liberal Seattle. However, instead of celebrating who Poppy is, they keep it a secret and urge her brothers to do the same. 

“It’s an emotive read, but it also explores a lot of practical issues. Like the decisions parents can and cannot, should and should not, make for trans kids. Or kids in general. Throughout, Penn keeps up a long-running fairytale of Grumwald and Stephanie, painting in some rather obvious messages and parallels for his kids, which I suppose is what some would consider “sickly sweet” but hell, if he isn’t the best dad ever.

“I loved them all. I loved Rosie and her scientist’s logic as a way of dealing with problems. I loved Penn and his sweet romanticism and hopefulness. I loved messed-up Roo and all his mistakes. I loved precocious Ben and how much he cares for Poppy. I loved the goofy twins who offered so much light and cheer in this book. And I loved Poppy. Of course I loved Poppy.”

From Here to the Great Unknown by Lisa Marie Presley and Riley Keough

As with (IMO) all memoirs, this is best as an audiobook with readings from Lisa Marie Presley, Riley Keough, and an assist from Julia Roberts. As someone who didn’t grow up on Elvis, this was an emotional and beautiful generational family story. I learned so much and am in awe of how Riley so delicately and genuinely took on the task from her mom to finish this book as a true collaboration. One of the best audiobooks I’ve ever listened to. Truly.

The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, 83 1/4 Years Old by Hendrik Groen

Hendrik lives in a care home in Amsterdam, and his book gives a lively look at a year in his life from his own perspective. Although he’s finding it increasingly hard to get about, he’s far from dead, and just to prove it, he and his friends set up the ‘Old But Not Dead’ club, which is my absolute favorite thing ever.

I laughed a lot (oh my gosh, the fish tank!!!) at the general shenanigans of these cantankerous old people, but it was also such a heart warming story that felt vulnerable and honest.

Also, not for nothing, when this was first published, it was published anonymously which may well have had something to do with the criticisms in the book of how the Dutch elderly are treated. (And before you get any feelings of superiority, the United States is even worse.)

“The choice is either dying young or enduring an endless string of funerals.” p.24

“Old people, like children, are always losing things, but they no longer have a mom to tell them where to look.” p.87

“Mrs. Aupers is relatively new here. She has taken to reading aloud the newspaper obituaries at coffee every morning. I am waiting to see who’ll be the first to say something to her. Not everyone is keen on being subjected to such a jolly start to the day. … As for me, I am moved only by death notices for children. They make me think of my little girl. Obituaries of big shots with dozens of tributes from all the companies they steered or boards they sat on leave me as cold as their cadavers. Heave-ho, in the ground you go. Now see how important you are.” p.202

“A nation’s level of civilization can be measured by the way it treats its oldest and weakest citizens. … We live in one of the richest countries in the world, but again and again the message is, Your care is unaffordable.” p.248

“The sentiment that everything was better in the old days tends to run rampant in old-age homes and is impossible to eradicate. It’s a kind of comfort for old people who find themselves shunted aside.” p.259

On the topic of euthanasia … “Evert’s offer of pills was greeted with suspicion. Most of the residents don’t need his pills for an overdose anyway; they’ve got plenty of their own. Almost everyone in here has one of those day-of-the-week pill dispensers. Some old coots take their pillboxes downstairs every morning, plunk them down on the table, shake out huge handfuls of pills, and, with a great deal of huffing and puffing, wash them down with gulps of lukewarm coffee. Sighing about ailments and maladies, misery and death. So if you were hoping to have a good day, best stay out of their way.” p.272

“This morning seventeen old people sat in church for an hour complaining that the minister was late. They had forgotten to set their clocks back—it’s the end of Daylight Saving Time!” p.316

“Over the course of my lifetime, the number is people on earth has escalated from two billion to seven billion. In one generation the world population has more than tripled. This may possibly be the most drastic change the world has ever seen.” p.321

“I went downstairs for a cup of pea soup. It went down great, but I had to listen to at least ten stories about mothers and grandmothers whose pea soup was so much better. The past, they’re always going on about the past. Live in the present day for a change, you mummified nitwits!” p.356