To All the Books I've Read This Year - Part II

and that I have yet to review 😩.......Welcome to my February reading

Heyyy Book Franz!

I can’t believe a handful of you commented that you’d like to see me turn this into a series! Honestly, I really only needed one person to vaguely comment “I read this and I think I liked it?”, to turn it into a full-blown series lol that external validation was triple-tapped with heart emojis when an extra four of you actually said - “I loved this!”. So here we are, a brand new series added to the newsletter.

If you are catching this for the first time and you are thinking “what the heck is she talking about?” and you haven’t quickly deleted the email before getting to this second paragraph. Well, last week I decided to come clean with the fact that I haven’t been writing book reviews for the books I’ve read this year. While this might not seem like a big deal for a reader not attached to social media accounts dedicated to discussing books…..IT IS FOR THOSE WITH SAID ACCOUNTS THAT LIVE WITH A BOOK IN ONE HAND AND A PHONE IN ANOTHER!!

(Deep breath) Okay, maybe that was a tiny bit overly aggressive…..lol not all Booktubers, BookToker, Bookstagrammers or Book Bloggers live like that specifically. But I think it would be okay to say the majority do read to digest and generate discussions about books online; to build literary communities. For me, writing reviews and posting them generates those discussions and literary connections. So I have found myself doing a ton of self-loathing when I can’t find the time or energy to sit down and write a review because here’s the thing about me: my reviews for books I really really love tend to be pages/take forever to write. I’m not great at quick and brief thoughts. So that is why this series is a perfect way for me to not only catch up on reviews but to connect with you all and practice being brief about the books I’ve read (for the sake of any future fellow reader I might meet in person someday lol).

Here’s the deal, I’ll be “dropping” a new list every month AKA one email like this every month at the end of the month. 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 personal opinion about a book - we can agree to disagree <3

In The Shadow of the Mountain: A Memoir of Courage by Silvia Vasquez-Lavado: Remember when I said I struggle to write succinctly when I come across a book I love? This book would fall under the “reasons why” category. I wrote about it here and I can 1000% assure you I held back significantly. I was not done. This memoir follows the author’s childhood into adulthood as a survivor of sexual assault at a young age. Shifting between details of her life and her journey to becoming one of the first openly gay women to summit Mount Everest, this memoir was so incredibly powerful. Not powerful in the way that it showed strength despite all things but in that it shows true power lies in the layers of vulnerability that exist within us.

Fight Night: A Novel by Miriam Toews: Miriam Toews, Miriam Toews, Miriam Toews!!! Work by this author always finds a way to sit with me long after I’ve finished one of her books. I still think back to Women Talking and the larger questions/discussions around agency, forgiveness, survival and so much more it stirred in me. Her newest novel Fight Night is no different! Oh, my heartstrings! In this new book Toews again tackles larger philosophical questions but this time it’s through a nine-year-old named Swiv who is being raised by her very pregnant mother, who is also caring for her own elderly mother. Swiv is narrating the story of her family to Gord, her soon-to-be sibling. The book left my heart swollen days after I finished it. It tackles the cycle of generations so beautifully while also diving into themes about death, life, family, motherhood and so much more.

A Snake Falls to Earth by Darcie Little Badger: My initial reaction after finishing this book was “what in the world did I just read?” LOL. This one was so far out there. There were talking snakes and monsters and spirits and portals and so much more. Shifting from the perspective of Nina a young girl and Oli the cottonmouth aka snake-shifting kid these two cross paths unexpectedly when Oli’s friend becomes sick. This was my first intro to YA Indigenous futurism and I was not adequately prepared. I loved the writing and the style of storytelling. I wished I could have found a way to time travel back to myself to tell myself to be more open while reading this one. To go with the flow of the story. I found myself really fighting the flow of the story and the different characters that appeared as well as the many worlds that existed in the storyline.

Please Don’t Sit On My Bed In Your Outside Clothes: Essays by Phoebe Robinson: In an effort to “read what I own” I decided to borrow the audiobook edition of this one from my local library because it was available. I knew nothing about the book and here is where I cringe in saying - I knew nothing about Phoebe Robinson. All I knew was that this book ended up on my doorstep somehow and it looked interesting. I am a fan of essays and I WOULD DEFINITELY RAGE IF SOMEONE SAT ON MY BED IN THEIR OUTSIDE CLOTHES! That shared, I initially found that the book felt like it was for fans of Phoebe Robinson, people who were aware of her career and all the amazing things she’s done, and that made me feel disconnected from this promise of essays about people trying to sit on my bed in their outside clothes. I was definitely let down initially. However, a few essays later I caught on and realized how much I was missing out on in the world of all things Phoebe Robinson!!!! I laughed, I cried, I cringed (mainly at myself for not knowing who the heck Phoebe Robinson is!!!) while listening to these essays, and now I know who Phoebe Robinson is and I’ll never make that mistake again (I hope you won’t make that mistake either).

Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative by Melissa Febos: When I picked this book up I wasn’t sure what exactly it was. I only knew it was written by Melissa Febos and I’ll ingest anything she writes LOL. I’m so glad I did that because this book was a mix of advice on how to write a book with detailed stories of Febo’s lived experiences as a writer, author, and professor. I had no idea that I wanted, let alone needed to read books on writing/storytelling until I read this book. What I mainly took from this slim collection is that there’s so much power in the story we tell ourselves about our lives. The story that we would tell others. Knowing that story could unbox so much for someone and can be applied as a reality check for living in the present moment. I underlined so many passages in this book. Whew.

Yerba Buena: A Novel by Nina LaCour: I WAS SOLD A LESBIAN LOVE STORY ON TWITTER (and I sort of got that?)!!!! Honestly, I was just really taken aback by the trauma one of the characters encounters not even 50 pages into the novel. I wasn’t expecting the novel to take the turn it did and reader I hate to admit that I was hooked from that point on. I hate to admit it because I was hoping for a lesbian love story that didn’t center or include trauma and I know you are thinking to yourself “what?! and why in the world when we all live in a traumatic ass world?!”, no I get it. I really do. I honestly just felt like I wanted the “star-crossed journey toward each other” (in the summary of the book) to be full of moments that didn’t center the characters trying to come together with all of their trauma? Which I now understand is impossible because who goes into a relationship trauma-free!! We all have a little something we carry. So the expectations I had of this novel stopped me from really appreciating it. The world doesn’t have enough sapphic star-crossed journeys towards each other and I am terribly upset at myself for not enjoying this one more. In fact, I plan to reread it!

Amazona by Canizales: Everybody loves Encanto the Disney film that centers la familia Madrigal. We all know that we don’t talk about Bruno but it’s amazing how little people actually know and don’t talk about the displacement of people and entire villages that occurs in the film. In Colombia, this type of displacement happens often and it highly impacts Indigenous and Afro-Indigenous people. Amazona follows a young Indigenous woman named Andrea who is driven to return to the land her family and community once called home after the terrible loss of her daughter. This illustrated story shows us the way in which Indigenous Colombian communities had been displaced from their homes due to violence and corruption. This graphic novel is like nothing I’ve read before and it hits at the deeper layers of modern-day colonization. If you want more 2022 Graphic Novel recommendations - I share a ton here!

Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A guide to reclaiming yourself by Nedra Glover Tawwab: I still often think about that TikTok user who commented on one of my videos “I don’t read self-help books because they just make me feel bad about myself and like I have a problem when I actually don’t”. While I don’t totally disagree, I mean there are a ton of toxic self-help books that the world could do without, I do think there’s a good deal of “self-help” books that could be used as resources. Set Boundaries, Find Peace is one of them. I am fairly new to the idea of setting boundaries. To give you context - I was raised by someone who prided themselves (and me) in being selfless. The more you could do for others, the more you meant not only to them but to the world. People pleasing and selfless were the keys to success in all things. I wasn’t taught about the ways in which that mentality could cause anxiety and depression. This book really helped me unlearn a lot of the things. I also learned about the importance of having boundaries with yourself!!! Truly a lot of mind blowing information for me that didn’t make me feel bad about myself but helped me identify anxiety triggers and the ways in which I can cultivate healthy relationships with myself (most importantly) and others.

That’s it from me folks! I hope you enjoyed this and thank you so much for being here <3

with love,

Lupita

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OMG YOU HAVE TO READ THIS BOOK RN

Of all the books I read in February the ones I’d urge you to read ASAP are:

• In The Shadow of the Mountain: A Memoir of Courage by Silvia Vasquez-Lavado

• Fight Night: A Novel by Miriam Toews

• Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative by Melissa Febos (this one isn’t out yet but it’s coming to all bookstores next Tuesday! 3/15 so pre-order now!)

• Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A guide to reclaiming yourself by Nedra Glover Tawwab

A friendly reminder that I am an affiliate with Bookshop.org and I may earn a commission if you click through any book links and make a purchase.

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