To All The Books I've Read This Year - Part III
and that I have yet to review 😩.......Welcome to my (late) March reading
Heyyy Book Franz!
I feel like the rabbit from Alice In Wonderland….
I am terribly terribly sorry for being so late in getting this into your inbox! In my defense - the end of March and the beginning of April were a lot for me. But I am here now and better late than never (and before my April reading issue comes out lol)? I mean I did consider just pretending the month of March didn’t happen in my reading life but honestly, I couldn’t do that because I read SO MANY GOOD BOOKS! Books I am excited to write about and share with you.
If you are new here and wondering - what is going on?! I have committed to writing brief and unfiltered reviews of what I’ve been reading every month. I’m calling these issues -To All The Books I’ve Read This Year because I’ve been so great about reading books but terrible about writing reviews AKA telling people what I think of them. If you want/need a full review on any of these - comment that below and I might consider writing one!
BTW free to share any reactions to the books I’ve mentioned in the comment section. I’m open to your take on a book but not to you trying to challenge or change my own opinion about a book - we can agree to disagree <3
AD: Quickly, before we get into it, I am partnering with one of my favorite local independent bookstores - Old Town Books to let you all about this amazing in-person book event they will be hosting.
If you are in the DC, Maryland, and Virginia area, you can grab tickets to a special event featuring VA State Delegate Danica Roem (part of the historic group that flipped Republican seats in the 2017 election, is the first out-and-seated transgender state legislator in American history) and her memoir Burn The Page: A True Story of Torching Doubts, Blazing Trails, and Igniting Change.
You can grab tickets here to join the event Thursday, April 28th at 7 PM at Christ Church in Alexandria (located at 118 N Washington St).
What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing Complex Trauma by Stephanie Foo: So I ended up writing a mini-review for this book on Instagram and I’ve made a few TikToks about it because like I said in my mini-review on Instagram - I found it fundamentally life-changing. Trauma and its effects on our mental health as well as body is something that I’ve only recently been diving into. It wasn’t until my late 20s early 30s that I even ever gave mental health a thought. That’s not to say my life was trauma-free or that my mental health was impeccable - what I’m saying by that is I went that long without knowing and acknowledging that we carry our lived experiences. It was my body that needed to act (in form of panic attacks) for me to acknowledge that my anxiety wasn’t something I could keep pushing down. Since then I’ve dipped my feet into books that center on mental health, trauma, intergenerational trauma, and really anything related to healing/living with trauma.
I share all that to give you context about where I am in my journey with trauma and where in that journey this book found me. This book is easily one of my favorite books of the year because it’s one of the first books I’ve read on complex trauma from the perspective of a woman of color navigating various mental health treatments while searching for healing. A lot of the treatments mentioned in the book are listed within the pages of the widely read and recommended book -The Body Keep The Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk M.D but what makes this book extraordinary (in my humble opinion) is Stephanie Foo’s vulnerability and journalistic like dedication to understanding complex trauma. If you listen to the audiobook edition she includes audio excerpts from her therapy sessions that I found immensely helpful and touching.
There’s so much more I want to say about this book but then this wouldn’t be a “mini” review. I do know I won’t stop thinking about it and recommending it for a very long time.
Neruda On The Park: A Novel by Cleyvis Natera: I often find myself wondering if I am more of a character-driven reader or plot-driven reader and reading this book made me understand that though it might be a tiny bit of both….I really am a sucker for strong characters. Characters that feel like people you’ve met before or that you could imagine walking in the streets of their fictional world. Characters I root for and later cringe in hate or sadness for any decisions they make that I don’t approve of. In other words - I am a mother reader hahaha and this book is packed with full-bodied characters I deeply care about.
Set in a predominantly Dominican part of New York City, Neruda on The Park opens with main character Luz shortly after she’s lost her job in a top Manhattan law firm. Through Luz, readers are introduced to this cast of characters but primarily her mother - Eusebia. There were so many moments between this mother-daughter duo on the pages that felt so real and tender. Moments that illustrate how mothers and parents navigate how to continue to be in their adult children’s lives without being overbearing (spoiler- it’s nearly impossible! lol jk). There is a little bit of everything in this novel that I am missing in my description and if I had to say one bad thing about the novel….…it’s exactly that! There’s a tiny bit too much of everything. Though I firmly believe it’s because Natera wanted to let the reader know she’s ready to flex her storytelling abilities on us! She’s an author I can’t wait to read more from.
You Don’t Know Us Negroes And Other Essays by Zora Neale Hurston: My wife has this thing she does whenever I talk about certain authors. The thing is basically an “I told you so” because it was through her personal library she owned (before we started dating), that I “discovered” so many of my favorite authors. Zora Neale Hurston falls in that category even though I did read her Their Eyes Were Watching God in high school, it wasn’t well until my 20s that I fully absorbed the depth of her work.
My wife owned a copy of Mules and Men and it’s through that autoethnographical collection of African-American folklore when I truly fell in love (with both Zora and my wife lol). All that to say I was incredibly excited to read the collection. I decided to listen to the audio edition of it and I think that might have been a mistake because something about the collection didn’t feel cohesive. Additionally, that could be because the collection is an essay collection spanning more than three decades! Individually the essays contained so much insight into Zora Neale Hurston and the times during which she wrote. I would absolutely recommend this one to any fan of her work.
A Year Without A Name: A Memoir by Cyrus Grace Dunham: I live for queer memoirs. There isn’t a queer memoir I have encountered that I didn’t learn something from and A Year Without A Name is one of them. In this memoir, Dunham guides the reader through his journey of coming into himself outside of all the societal self-branding that exists. Deeply meditative, I wish I would have read a physical copy of this book instead of listening to the audio edition.
South to American: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation by Imani Perry: I am outright going to admit that books related to any sort of history, especially American history rarely if ever hold my attention. However this book!!!!!!! It is one of my favorite books of the year and I have tried to talk to anyone that has read it. I want it to win all and many literary prizes, not because I was able to finally enjoy a book that centers on any form of history, but because Imani Perry’s storytelling is IMPECCABLE! It is all those fancy words publishers use to say “I WANTED TO READ THIS BOOK FOREVER” - unputdownable, arresting, eye-catching, etc etc etc.
I loved so much about this book. I have many reasons but I think the reason this book hit so deeply for me was Perry’s ability to weave her own story into the larger political landscape of America. Reading the last page felt like finishing that puzzle you’ve been working on for a long time. Uff! I’ll be thinking about this one for a very long time.
You Sound Like A White Girl: The Case for Rejecting Assimilation by Julissa Arce: Look! Another book I made a TikTok about! So yes, I sort of reviewed this book on TikTok in my pajamas and with my kid playing with his cars under my feet but I don’t think a 60-second video covers the complex feelings I had about this book. Ultimately after finishing the book I had more questions than I did answers and I don’t think that’s a bad thing but I do wish some of those questions were addressed in the book.
Through personal experiences, Arce builds this manifesto to unpack how Latine/x/o people assimilate into American culture. She identifies how she has assimilated and includes key historical facts about how the Latine/x/o community upholds white supremacy through assimilation. How our Latin American countries have conditioned us to uphold white supremacy and how we carry that with us when we migrate.
While I found myself feeling seen and understood within the pages of this book through the historical facts she lays out, it was the manifesto aspect of the book that didn’t fully work for me. That said I truly think Julissa Arce deserves all the praise for what she accomplished in the book!
How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water: A Novel by Angie Cruz :
That’s the entire review. READER SHE DROWNED IN A GLASS OF HER OWN TEARS. It made me ugly cry so much for a long time. I know I’m not giving you enough of a review right now but that’s because I plan to write a full review for this one in May (stay tuned).
Anyways, that’s it from me folks! I hope you enjoyed this and as always -thank you so much for being here <3
with love,
Lupita
OMG YOU HAVE TO READ THIS BOOK RN
Of all the books I read in March the ones I’d urge you to read ASAP are:
What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing Complex Trauma by Stephanie Foo
South to American: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation by Imani Perry
I know this area is for books I think you should read ASAP however the following two books aren’t in bookstores yet :( That said PRE-ORDERS ARE SUPER IMPORTANT AND YOU DEFINITELY WANT TO PRE-ORDER THESE TWO BOOKS!
How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water: A Novel by Angie Cruz (September 13th)
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The other day one of my cousins asked in our family group chat….” Hey! What kind of music does Lupita listen to?” and without even missing a beat my brother replied “AUDIOBOOKS”!
The moment audiobooks stepped into my life, they became my music. I listen to them on walks, while doing laundry and chores — basically any moment I have to myself. So if that is you too (or if you simply want to fit in more reading during your daily life) check out Libro.fm! If you use the code LupitaReads you’ll receive two audiobook credits for 14.99 USD with your first month of membership. These credits can be used on your choice of more than 250,00 audiobooks on Libro.fm.
And if you need some audiobook recommendations - I made a list just for you!
Danica Roem is amazing!
Thank you for the mini-reviews.
Thanks for pointing out the book event is in person. I've been so used to virtual only the last two years, I've bought more than one ticket, seeing too late they were in person. Whoops. But yay sponsors!