No.273: My Latest Reads // June

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#34. THE GIRL WHO SMILED BEADS: A STORY OF WAR AND WHAT COMES AFTER by Clemantine Wamariya
My Rating: ★★★★☆

It’s strange, how you go from being a person who is away from home to a person with no home at all. The place that is supposed to want you has pushed you out. No other place takes you in. You are unwanted, by everyone. You are a refugee. (12%)

There’s no label to peel and stick that absolves you, shows you’ve done your duty, you’ve completed the moral project of remembering. This—Rwanda, my life—is a different, specific, personal tragedy, just as each of those horrors was a different, specific, personal tragedy, and inside all those tidily labeled boxes are 6 million, or 1.7 million, or 100,000, or 100 billion lives destroyed. You cannot line up the atrocities like a matching set. You cannot bear witness with a single word. (34%)

Before this book, I’m embarrassed to say that I had only the simplest understanding of the Rwandan genocide.  The Girl Who Smiled Beads is eye-opening, honest and raw.  I’ll be thinking about her words for awhile.

#35. THE MERMAID by Christina Henry
My Rating: ★★☆☆☆

This was one of those human conundrums that she would never solve.  Objects were more valuable depending on who owned them?  Paintings were more valuable depending on who painted them?
Humans often valued what they should not, she reflected, and most often they did not value what was right before their eyes. (p.208)

The Mermaid is a historical fairy tale about a mermaid who leaves the sea to become a performer for P.T. Barnum.  The premise sounded interesting, but the reality was just….meh. (Also available at Book Outlet here.)

#36. OVERDRESSED: THE SHOCKINGLY HIGH COST OF CHEAP FASHION by Elizabeth L. Cline
My Rating: ★★★★☆

Clothes could have more meaning and longevity if we think less about owning the latest or cheapest thing and develop more of a relationship with the things we wear.  Building a wardrobe over time, saving up and investing in well-made pieces, obsessing over the perfect hem, luxuriating in fabrics, and patching and altering our clothes are old-fashioned habits.  But they’re also deeply satisfying antidotes to the empty uniformity of cheapness.  If more of us picked up the lost art of sewing or reconnected with the seamstresses and tailors in our communities, we could all be our own fashion designers and constantly reinvent, personalize, and perfect the things we own. (p.9) 

Such an important and thought-provoking book.  (You can read all of my notes here.) Only four stars because it felt disconnected and rambly in parts, but otherwise a really good read. (Also available at Book Outlet here.)

#37. BIG GIRLS DON’T CRY by Connie Briscoe
My Rating: ★★★☆☆

During Black History Month, Big Girls Don’t Cry was recommended by someone on IG.  I’m always late to the party, but finally got a chance to read it this month!  It’s a coming of age story about an African American girl growing up in the 1960’s up to her adulthood in the 1980’s.  A good read, although head’s up – there was a lot more sexual content than I was expecting.

#38. CLICK HERE TO START by Denis Markell
My Rating: ★★★☆☆

I purchased this book for D (10 years old) and he devoured it in days!  When his big brother read it and enjoyed it, I knew I had to see what all the hype was about.  Click Here to Start is a middle-grade novel about a video game inspired mystery.  It was good and we’ve been on a big escape room kick ever since!  (Also available at Book Outlet here.)

#39. THESE IS MY WORDS: THE DIARY OF SARAH AGNES PRINE, 1881-1901 by Nancy E. Turner
My Rating: ★★★★★

Now and then, I lie awake thinking I might like to have someone courting me. But it would have to be someone who is a square shooter and who has a train load of courage. And it would have to be someone who doesn’t have to talk down to folks to feel good, or to tell a person they are worthless if they just made a mistake. And he’d have to be not too thin. Why, I remember hugging Ernest was like wrapping your arms around a fence post, and I love Ernest, but I want a man who can hold me down in a wind. Maybe he’d have to be pretty stubborn. I don’t have any use for a man that isn’t stubborn. Likely a stubborn fellow will stay with you through thick and thin, and a spineless one will take off, or let his heart wander. (p.170-171)

Children are a burden to a mother, but not the way a heavy box is to a mule.  Our children weigh hard on my heart, and thinking about them growing up honest and healthy, or just living to grow up at all, makes a load in my chest that is bigger than the safe at the bank, and more valuable to me than all the gold inside it. (p.303)

These Is My Words is one of the best stories I’ve read in a long time.  I could not put this book down!  Inspired by the author’s own family, the harshness of frontier survival was compelling and fascinating.  I loved the main character and could relate to some of her struggles.  I don’t really care much for the romance genre, but the love story in this was woven into a historical narrative and it totally worked.  I loved it.

#40. THEY MUST BE MONSTERS: A MODERN-DAY WITCH HUNT by Matthew Leroy & Deric Haddad
My Rating: ★★★☆☆

My first true crime novel of 2019!  I’ll preface by saying that while this case was interesting, a book about suspected child abuse is very difficult to read, especially when you have children of your own.  The book led you through the timeline of events in an almost storybook-like fashion and I flew through it in days.  The last section was particularly fascinating.  Solid three stars.  (And thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book.)