I love reading just about everything (okay, you won't see any mystery or sci-fi picks on here), watching things that make me think and especially if they make me laugh, and wholeheartedly embrace the podcast. I also enjoy hearing about what other people are reading, watching, and listening. Here's my two cents worth.
READ
She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story that Helped Ignite a Movement
This book - by the reporters who broke the Harvey Weinstein scandal and ignited the #metoo movement - is so important. It is not a fun read. Some of it is kind of really awful to read. But telling women’s stories is so important. And reading about their reporting process was fascinating.
Where the Crawdads Sing
*Unpopular opinion alert* I don’t understand why everyone has gone apeshit over this book. It was…fine. three out of five stars, maybe. I finished it and had the feeling I’d just read a Jodi Picoult novel: unlikely female protagonist culminating in a dramatic courtroom trial with a twist ending. Which is fine! I actually really like Jodi Picoult! But I don’t understand why everyone keeps talking about this like it’s the Great American Novel. Also, the romance part of the plot read very YA to me (Which, again, I love a lot of YA! It’s fine!) but felt weird for this book that was supposed to be all literary genius. I’ll give credit to the beautiful prose describing the natural world and the hint of the independent woman we saw more towards the end. I guess I’m more confused about all the hype than anything. Tl;dr: this book was fine, I don’t understand all the praise.
Learning to Walk in the Dark
This was a quick read for me. It’s not my favorite Barbara Brown Taylor book, but I did appreciate her laser-focus on the topic of darkness. I feel like I was a bit jaded because our pastor has preached a couple times on the beauty of darkness recently, so this topic wasn’t exactly revelatory for me. Still, she’s a beautiful writer.
The Best American Food Writing 2019
I love these essay round-ups. I have to say I enjoyed the 2018 version more, I actually skipped a couple of pieces in this volume, but it was still well worth the read. It was also fun to re-visit some pieces I’d already read this past year when they were first published!
Ask Again, Yes
I had to go to Amazon to refresh my mind on what this book was about. I literally sat here and drew a complete blank for several minutes. I’m not sure what that says about this book. (Also, I read this in February and February was just an intense month for me. So maybe don’t hold it against this book) Now that my memory has been refreshed, I do remember enjoying this one! I’m always in for a family saga - or a couple-of-families saga, as this book chronicled two neighbors and their friendship (or lack of) through the decades. That said, the characters fell kind of flat for me. Though this book spanned decades, there wasn’t much growth. Though maybe that’s more true-to-life, anyway.
Such a Fun Age
This book was interesting in that I didn’t love any of the characters. Honestly, I found them all pretty annoying. That’s to be expected with one of the main characters, Alix, who is the epitome of white feminism in heels. But even Emira, her black babysitter, was hard for me to get behind. Her life choices and lack of introspection often had me rolling my eyes (though not as hard as I did at Alix!). My favorite character was actually Briar, Alix’s daughter. I appreciated her dialogue - it felt super believable, which isn’t easy to do with a toddler character, so full props to the author there! While this book explored topics that are important to me - namely racism and the ways we are so often blind to the prejudice within ourselves - it was just hard for me to care because I didn’t like the characters.
Daisy Jones and the Six
This was a fun read. At first I wasn’t sure about the format. It was like the longest magazine interview you’ve ever read. I got into it pretty quickly, though. I missed the description you would typically get with a narrator, but it was definitely interesting to have all of these different points-of-view woven together.
The Most Fun We Ever Had
Another family saga. This was a long one - there were some parts I slogged through and others I adored. Overall I really enjoyed it. Maybe just because (in fact, probably definitely just because) it was a story of a family with four daughters, but it read in some ways like a modern version of Little Women. I can see why some people have called it boring but this is one of my favorite types of writing.
The Dearly Beloved
LOVE this book. I love the characters, I love the narrative, I love the story in a Christian setting that isn’t Christian fiction (gag) or trying to sell me on theology. They’re just people who also happen to be pastors, or married to pastors. One of my favorite reads in awhile.
WATCHED
Cheer
Yup, I drank the Kool-Aid. Go Navarro! Go Dawgs! This mini-series is fantastic and I want Jerry to be my BFF in real life.
Marriage Story
UGH what a gut-wrenching film. Don’t get me wrong, it was absolutely fantastic, but it was so emotional I don’t think I can ever watch it again. I would also take Laura Dern as a BFF IRL.
Miss Americana
Even before this documentary my love for Taylor Swift ran DEEP. Story about a woman who played the “good girl” role her whole life until she listened to and learned how to use her own voice? Um, hi. * raises hand * So. Good. (I’ll also take her as a BFF, duh.)
LISTENED
Finding Fred
I am 100% all-in on the Fred Rogers-mania we’ve found ourselves in lately. This podcast was FANTASTIC. Just listening to clips of Fred’s voice helps bring my blood pressure down.
Armchair Expert
I ADORE Josh Gad and this episode had me laughing out loud throughout. Such a good, refreshing listen, especially during a heavy, busy, chaotic month.
Note: any links to Amazon in this post are affiliate links.