I'm collecting beach reads at the moment, so if anyone has a great one to recommend, I'm all eyes.
I haven't posted about books in a while--not that anyone cares, but sometimes I look up my own reviews to remind me of what I thought about a book.
I've been reading a lot of nonfiction.
Twilight in Hazard: A war correspondent takes a job reporting on Eastern Kentucky and finds himself more afraid than he has ever been in his life (but only at one point). I found this book really interesting, as it does a better job than any other I have read yet of explaining why Eastern Kentucky went all in on Trump. If you read the book, you will never again wonder why Appalachians believe the Presidential election was stolen, among other things. There is more to it than just politics, but that is what would draw most readers, I think (I have personal interest in Eastern Kentucky). If you hate J.D. Vance, he gets a bit of skewering here.
Hill Women: Finding Family and a Way Forward in the Appalachian Mountains: Another take on Eastern Kentucky, this one by a young woman who grew up there, went off to the Ivy League and returned as a lawyer dedicated to helping the women of Eastern Kentucky. The author's family lived in Owsley County, the poorest county in the US; while I was reading about her childhood, I had to keep reminding myself that she grew up in the 1990s and not the 1890s. But this is a book that admires the people, especially the women, who live this way and make it work in spite of it all, and about how worthwhile it is to invest in the people of Eastern Kentucky.
Canary in the Coal Mine: A smalltown doctor in Indiana and the worst AIDS epidemic (per capita) in US history. The doctor in question is very religious, so if you don't like reading about Christian beliefs, this book is not for you. Mike Pence plays a part here; he and the doctor started off as allies, but ended up on opposing sides of the AIDS battle. Much of the book is focused on addiction and poverty as public health problems, especially in small towns, and how politics creates barriers.
The Forgotten Girls: A Memoir of Friendship and Lost Promise in Rural America: FiveThirtyEight's political reporter Monica Potts writes about growing up in a small town with her best friend, two bright little girls who were united by their intelligence and being different from the rest. But as they grew up, one went off to college and a completely different life, while the other sank into a cycle of addiction, abuse and poverty. Potts analyzes how this happens, not just to her friend but to so many others like her friend. I lived in a small town for a while when I was young and I could tell the same story about the girls who were my friends. Small towns are not good for girls.
Testimony: Inside the Evangelical Movement that Failed a Generation: Journalist Jon Ward writes about being raised in a prominent nondenominational evangelical church and how he came to break away from that without losing his faith. There were things I did and didn't understand about evangelicals before reading this book, so I am glad I read it--and also glad that I wasn't raised as an evangelical. I do think that people who don't understand how evangelicals can "think that way" might get some insight here.
Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family: This book kept me up at night because it was so horrifying. Brilliant young couple marries, the future blindingly bright--and then. They have 12 children--10 boys followed by two girls--and six of the 10 boys end up with schizophrenia. Part of the book is about how this family and others like it are helping researchers understand schizophrenia (when the boys were young, it was believed that mothers were the cause
) and part of it is about the absolute nightmare experienced by all concerned as they wrestle with the lack of mental health care and the overwhelming work of dealing with this level of mental illness in one family.
Trailed: One Woman's Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders: This book also kept me up at night, as my son frequently goes hiking alone in the Shenandoah Park. After reading all the statistics about crime in national parks and how little is done about any of it,
I may never go back to a national park, even with other people
. A young lesbian couple was murdered in the Shenandoah National Park in 1996; the murder remains unsolved to this day. The author started out to write an article about the murders for
Outside magazine, but became obsessed with the story (to a rather unhealthy degree) and wrote this book instead. This book made me think about a lot of things I had never considered before about outdoor sports and masculine spaces and all kinds of things--like my son hiking alone in Shenandoah National Park
.
A few fiction books that I remember:
I Have Some Questions for You: This is a mystery novel in which the mystery isn't really the central point, but rather a point around which many other points circle. Bodie Kane returns to the boarding school she once attended to teach a summer course, but her focus is really on the almost-forgotten murder of her roommate. Bodie is sure that her roommate was murdered by the drama teacher, whom she is sure was having an affair with her roommate, and that the man convicted of the murder is innocent. And while it is a murder mystery, it is also a book about, among other things, #MeToo. And about girls and women. And men. And other things. The murder is, BTW, solved at the end; I kind of had my doubts about that, as it seemed rather beside the point, but then it turned out that it was right on point after all.
This Bird has Flown: I read this book because it was written by Susannah Hoffs of The Bangles and the first couple of chapters were funny and charming. But after that? The only reason to read this book is that it was written by Susannah Hoffs of The Bangles.
Stone Cold Fox: A gold-digger has landed her big fish and is reeling him in when obstacles form in her path. This is a pretty standard suspense novel but it has the MOST MADDENING ENDING of any book I have ever read. If anyone else has read it, PM me and we will speculate on the gift together.
Happy Place: If you liked Emily Henry's other books, you will probably like this one, too, but it was my least favorite of them all and something about the ending (which would be a spoiler) made me so furious that I almost swore off her books. I will get over it. Which brings me to....
Loathe to Love You: Ali Hazelwood's older novella set. I have come to realize that Ali Hazelwood has about five characters and they all appear in all of her books under other names. I almost decided to not read.....
Love, Theoretically because I had had about enough of the brilliant but awkward people-pleasing female scientist with pop culture addictions who hates the equally brilliant and highly evolved strapping male scientist she will of course eventually fall in love with--and SPOILER ALERT, that's exactly what this book is about--but I started reading it in a moment of weakness and can't stop laughing at the emails the female lead gets from her students because they are TRUE. The two leads from
The Love Hypothesis make an appearance; try to not confuse them with the leads of this one.
That's more than enough.
