Life & Libros: Buenos Diaz Reads July 2018

Buenos Diaz, friends! So I fully intended to do a monthly roundup of great reads this year and perhaps take some time to write about the LOL moments of living with my father on a regular basis. Really, I did.  I clearly didn’t manage the monthly thing, but I do happen to be checking in midway through the year. So let’s just pretend it was my goal all along to do so and call this a mid-year roundup of fantastic books instead, yes? But before I dive in, here’s a quick recap for the people and some fun news:

• Writing for Book Riot is going swimmingly (clickey the link to read some of my work) - I get to write about books snarkily and sassily in a safe and inclusive space. I’ve actually got some news to share on that front: as of this morning, I can finally reveal that I’ve transitioned from writer to Contributing Editor! Huzzah!
• My job as a bookseller is just as fabulous. I still pinch myself biweekly when that direct deposit hits and I’ve once again been paid to read, sell and talk about books. Bliss.
• Travel-wise, I’ve got a trip to Montreal coming in September, hopefully Portland in October, and planning for Greece and/or Cuba in 2019. Thinking about updating my dating apps to listing employment with an airline as one of my non-negotiables... a bitch needs a buddy pass, for real.
• Oh, and most exciting of all: I’m going to be a Tia in about 10 days! Prepare for baby spam, y’all. My little nephew is about to be the object of my obsession. 

Lastly… I have a lot of feelings and thoughts about the state of our nation. I’ve started at least a dozen blog posts about them in the last several months but then retreated when I wasn’t sure if my anger was eloquent and purposeful or just plain ol’ fiery, reactionary rage. Not that I apologize for the rage, rage is what we should all feel right about now. I’m just working out how to express it thoughtfully and constructively and with less expletives. Maybe.  

What I have been doing plenty of instead is, of course, reading. Reading helps me cope and escape so I thought I’d share with you all the books that have made me laugh, made me think, made me cry in the last six months. Without further ado, here are six books I think you should pick up right this instant. Need more recs? Just email me or comment on this post. There are a lot of titles bouncing around in this head of mine.

Oh, one more thing. All of the titles here are linked to purchase at The Book Catapult, the indie that I call my bookish home. If you prefer to purchase at your favorite indie, please by all means do so! 

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1. Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz

We all know that I’ll read just about anything that contains England, murder and mystery. This one is the best one I’ve read in awhile! This snazzy read is a book within a book- an editor is reading the unfinished manuscript of one of her most successful authors, a murder-mystery set in a sleepy English village. Then the manuscript abruptly ends, and the editor is convinced that hidden in the pages of this unfinished work is a real story of greed, jealousy, and of course, murder. I devoured all 500 pages of this paperback in one sitting on a Sunday, sitting on the couch eating nothing but Goldfish crackers and tea (and wine, sssh) because I could not be bothered to spare time for a real meal. One of my favorite books I've read this year - gave me major Agatha Christie vibes, the highest of all compliments for any whodunnit.

BONUS RECS: Anthony Horowitz has a lot of other work in both books and TV under his belt. His most recent release, The Word is Murder is another recent favorite, a twist on the Sherlock Holmes narrative where Horowitz writes himself into the book as the Watson character. I’m also a sucker for a show he adapted called Midsomer Murders. It’s a series I got hooked on during my two month stint in England last year. It’s been on air for **20** seasons and runs on syndication in England like Law & Order SVU does here in the states (you can binge it on Netflix). It’s about… murders in sleepy English villages. I am nothing if not consistent.

2. Circe by Madeline Miller

I wanted to read this book so badly that I sort of hijacked the advanced copy of it from Seth, the owner of the bookstore, when he was like 20 pages in. Really: he walked into the store reading it, I looked at him with big eyes and eagerly chirped, “Oh are you reading Circe?” He handed it over and that was that. I don't always play fair. *shrug*

The plot is one you’ve likely heard of before: the Circe in the book and the sea witch from Homer’s The Odyssey are one and the same. Madeleine Miller takes her story and does this thing that I looooove to see in books and movies: she takes a woman traditionally villainized and gives her a fully fleshed-out story full of nuance and depth (think Maleficent or Wicked). The writing is gorgeous and the story engrossing even though, in theory, you already know what’s going to happen. Striking and lovely, one of my favorite reads this year. Ughhh it’s so good.

3. Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

Listen. I know Jimmy Fallon just named this the book of the summer, but I have been pushing this stunning book into people’s hands since the day it released and Jimmy is clearly jocking my style. This West African fantasy is set in Orisha, where the maji were rooted out and massacred by a ruthless king who feared their magic. Zélie is a diviner who has the chance to restore magic to Orisha, but she must first outrun the prince who wants nothing more than to see her and her kind dead. With her brother and a defiant princess by her side, Zélie embarks on a quest to defeat the oppressive monarchy and harness her newly awoken magical abilities for good. The story is compelling, the world-building lush, and the links to contemporary cultural discussions hard to miss. It’s is a must-read for lovers of fantasy and anyone still chasing that Wakanda high.

BONUS REC: Tomi Adeyemi is a San Diego native and will be at the second annual San Diego Festival of Books this August! Come say hi to one super fabulous woman... me. I'll be there with The Book Catapult. Catch Adeyemi and tons of other amazing local authors too! 

4. Hope Never Dies by Andrew Shaffer

So the world is a pile of hot garbage and you just want a fun read, you say? Say no more, fam. This is a murder mystery with the crime-fighting duo you didn’t know you needed. Yep, Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

I can’t sell this hard enough: it’s a mystery and a bromance full of dad humor and subtle digs at the Cheeto in Chief. At the start, Joe is sulking like a jilted lover just after the 2016 election: he’s missing his buddy Barry who’s off vacationing with his newfound freedom and Joe is wondering why he can’t just get a text back. But when Joe’s favorite Amtrak conductor is found dead on the tracks in an apparent suicide, Joe is convinced that there’s more there than meets the eye and sets out to uncover the truth. President Obama is a very, very different character in this book than the Barry we’re used to - he’s sort of shadowy and mysterious, appearing and vanishing at will with a cigarette in his hand (but he always disposes of the butts responsibly because that’s just Barack’s way). There are so many fantastic one-liners in this book, I just can’t take it. It’s comedic gold and a welcome respite from our ridiculous news cycle.

5. The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai

Get the f*cking tissues, yo. In Chicago’s boystown in 1985, Yale Tishman is a young director of development for a new art gallery on the precipice of a huge acquisition of priceless art. Just as he’s hitting his stride with the project, the AIDS epidemic sweeps the nation and claims the life of his friend Nico. The disease quickly spreads among his circle of friends and hits very, very close to home just when Yale thinks he’s safe. Soon the only person he has left is Fiona, Nico’s sister who stood by his side when his parents disowned him for coming out as gay.

Thirty years later, we follow Fiona as she boards a plane to Paris in search of the estranged daughter she lost to a cult years prior. While in Paris, she stays with an old friend, a photographer famous for documenting the Chicago epidemic. She’s forced to finally come to terms with all of the loss she’s suffered, including the lingering and unconfronted effects that her grief has had on her relationship with her daughter. This story is so captivating and tragic but also bursting with hope, and with a plot that will keep you turning those pages fiercely. So beautiful, but seriously: tissues.  

6. Calypso by David Sedaris

One of my all time favorite writers is back with possibly my favorite essay collection since Me Talk Pretty One Day. Sedaris brings all of his signature humor and powers of observation to writing about middle age. This collection is as moving as it is laugh-out-loud hilarious; Sedaris shares details of his sister’s sudden passing and the contemplation of his and his father’s mortality brought on by her death. He and his partner Hugh decide to purchase a beach house off the coast of North Carolina to have a place to gather with his family more often - touching, right? It is, but then Sedaris pulls a Sedaris and names the house "the Sea Section" and I just about lost my mind. The story about he and his sister Amy’s adventures shopping in Tokyo made me laugh out loud for a solid five minutes - please read this chapter and think of me when you hear the words “hand puppet.”

Bonus: catch this one on audio for a real treat, narrated by Sedaris himself.  Might I suggest doing so at Libro.fm/thebookcatapult?

Bookishly yours, 

Vanessa

Buenos Diaz Reads: January 2018

Buenos Diaz!

The longest January since… well, last January, has finally wrapped. We made it, yo! Every other day might have felt like it brought on a new and more terrible garbage fire, but many cups of tea, only slightly less wine and a lot of Pilates doth all conspired to keep me more or less sane. And then of course, there were the books. Let’s talk a little more about that last part.

My reading life is highly affected by my mood. If my personal life is in shambles, if my stress levels are peaking, if a lying sack of cytoplasm is the president of my country… I want comfort. I want tea, I want chocolate, I want carne asada fries and ALL of the avocado. But more than all that combined, I was escapism.

When I get in these moods, I tend to hone in on a specific type of read: a mystery or thriller, some magic and fantasy, perhaps a little YA to combine all of the above. The trouble with that approach is that THIS LAST YEAR HAS BEEN A SHIT STORM. A quick scroll through social media or a gander at a newscast on damn near any given day of 2017 was an endeavor in heightened anxiety. All I wanted to do was re-read Harry Potter and Agatha Christie favorites, to sink deep into familiar whimsy and wrap myself in coziness.

I didn’t though, at least not all year. And here’s why: people are writing some amazing shit.  Famed writers, new writers, women, authors of color. Art and creativity are flowing from folks’ fingertips like liquid gold and THAT, dear reader, is what gives me hope. It’s enough to make me shake off that oh-shit-oh-shit-oh-shit-we’re-doomed sensation and pick up a book I might otherwise skip over. I’m still reading genre, that won’t ever change. But I will read more widely to support the work of these wordsmiths and world builders and do my part to make this industry thrive on the whole.

So, at last, here at the six months I took down in January. Disclaimer: I somehow failed pretty hard at reading diversely. Four of these books are by women but not a one is by an author of color. Weak. That’s not usually my steez and I will do better in February.

And now, the list of books I read in January 2018.

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The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin  -  This book was kind of buzzy and to be honest, I don’t always trust buzz. This was worth the hype though, so, so much. One summer in late 1960s New York, the four Gold children hear that there's a woman in the neighborhood who will tell you the exact date of your death. They’re a bunch of bored kids, so they’re like, “Seems legit. Yeah, let’s totes do that.” They find their way to the woman and get exactly what they came for, heading home with new information they're not sure they should trust.

The rest of this family saga is told in four parts, one for each of the siblings: Simon, who runs off to San Francisco to live freely as a gay man in the Castro; Klara, who dreams of being a world-famous magician, first in San Francisco and then in 1980s Las Vegas; Daniel, an army physician looking for safety and security in his work, assessing whether soldiers are mentally and physically fit enough for combat; and Varya, a scientist studying aging and how to reverse or even halt it affects. Each of these stories explores the ways in which the knowledge these characters have been given affects the trajectory of their lives, blurring the line between fate and free will, of destiny and choice. At its root it is also about the complicated love that exists between siblings and about the responsibility we feel - or perhaps don't- to the ones we love. Aaaargh, so good!

Fire Sermon by Jaime Quattro - This short little book packs a freakin' punch in just a couple of hundred pages, making me feel super sheepish about my own ability to slap some words together and make my readers feel a thing. It's about a writer named Maggie who is fiercely devoted to her husband, her children and God. She decides one day to email James, a poet she admires, to express her love of his work. He responds, and what starts as a platonic exchange of ideas on poetry, love and religion quickly morphs into a passionate physical and emotional affair. Maggie's lustful obsession causes her to examine her feelings towards her husband and the god she's so desperately clung to all her life. Nothing is clear, and yet everything is. 

This isn't a page-turner, per se - it's not super plot-heavy, and you pretty much know from jump that the affair is a thing. What will keep you turning those pages is the beautiful and painful way in which the author writes about longing: her deep desire for a man that isn't her husband; a desperate insistence that her complicated marriage remain intact; an intense craving for guidance and answers inside the framework of her religion. You know when reviews describe a book as being worth it for the beautiful language? Yep, Right here, folks. Absolutely gorgeous. 

Oh: in case you didn't already assume, some of the language is steamy. I read half of this on a bench on the street outside the bookstore where I work and kept looking up to see if people were judging me. Hijole!

The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn - Let me just give it to you straight: the first quarter of the book or so is going to give you strong "this author took a course called 'How to Write the Next Girl on a Train For Dummies'" vibes. Unreliable narrator? Check. Narrator loves them some booze? Yep. Narrator is obsessed with surveillance of people she don't know? Pues si. But it gets good, so keep reading. It's not a life-changing read or anything but it is a really fun thriller. I especially enjoyed reading it as what I call a palette cleanser read: a pleasure read to break up darker or more literary reads, or to cheer me up after I've read something that has me crying on the bathroom floor screaming, "Whyyyyyy?" You do that too, right?

The Third Hotel by Laura van den Berg - I begged my boss at the bookstore to bring me a galley of this back from Winter Institute, an annual conference put on by the American Book Seller's Association. I'd never read Laura van den Berg but I saw her latest popping up on more than one list of anticipated releases for 2018. It's about a woman who travels to Havana for a horror film festival that she should have attended with her husband. He was recently killed in a car accident though, which is why it's just a little bit weird that she sees him standing outside a museum in Havana. She pursues him, stealthily at first and then more aggressively. The line between what's real and what isn't starts to blur as bits of her upbringing and role in her husband's death are slowly revealed. 

So here's the thing - I wanted to love this. The concept sounded so interesting! I was expecting a chilling read with a touch of horror and a dark, twisty plot line. Technically, the book satisfies that description but is not ultimately the thriller I mistakenly assumed it was; it just never really sank its hooks into me the way I think it might for a different type of reader. The writing here is good, it's actually almost too good - it takes skill to create the weird and eerie dreamlike quality that van den Berg has achieved with her language. She did such a good job that I felt like I was constantly in a cloud of fog, like I was underwater and everything was muffled. I appreciate how tough it is to do that as a writer, so I gives all the kudos. The haziness left me a little unsatisfied, but that probably has more to do with my own projections. 

The moral of this story: it is indeed possible to recommend a book you did not yourself love. 

Release date: 8/7/18

The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer - when a book is getting the kind of buzz that bills it as the next great American novel, you read it.

Meg Wolitzer is perhaps best known for The Interestings though her body of work is certainly more extensive than that. Her novel Belzhar is one of my favorite books so picking her latest work was like... duh. This novel rings a lot of my bells: discussions on feminism, friendship, nuanced female characters, a main character that I saw a lot of myself in... I'm like yes, give me all of that. I'll take it all.

At the open, we meet Greer Kadetsky, a shy college freshman whose description on page fucking one still low key feels like Ms. Wolitzer came *directly* for me. "Greer... was selectively and furiously shy. She could give answers readily, but rarely opinions. 'Which makes no sense, because I am stuffed with opinions. I am a piñata of opinions,' she'd said to Cory during one of their nightly Skype sessions since college separated them. She'd always been a tireless student and a constant reader, but she found it impossible to speak in the wild and free ways that other people did." WELL. Then. Drag me to filth!

Back to the book: Greer and her boyfriend Cory both get accepted to Yale, but Greer finds herself having to go to her backup school when her absentee parents do her real dirty and fail to file for financial aid because the paperwork was, like, really hard. This little oops leaves the family unable to pay for the Ivy League education Greer had spent her lifetime planning for, so it's a no on Yale and a yeah-I-guess on Ryland. You could say Greer is a bit miffed.

Greer is trying to figure out her place in the world when she meets Faith Frank, a glamorous icon of the women's movement. A chance encounter shapes the rest of Greer's life, from her career to her relationship with her best friend to her interpretations of activism, feminism and ambition.  

This book is great. I will say only that I'd have liked it SO much more if I hadn't heard it framed as the next great American novel. It's good, phenomenal even, though I can't say it cut deeply enough for me to call it a soul-shaker (Or was it? I was so conflicted that I gave it a four star rating on Goodreads, then a three star, and now the decision haunts me and I wonder if I've underscored it and SOMEONE TELL ME WHAT TO DO!). If you've ever struggled with your feminism, asked yourself if you're doing enough, if you've had a hero let you down, if you've ridden the ups and down of a decade-long friendship, felt the sting of the end of a first love, experienced loss... basically, if you've breathed air, you will find something compelling and relatable about this read. Just go into it with as blank a slate as you can muster and you'll enjoy it more than if you read it like I did and keep begging it to make you cry.

On sale date: 4/3/18

The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell - This is a mind fuck and that's all I really have for you. 

Ugh. Ok. Fine. Let me try and tackle this.

So... I have been meaning to read The Bone Clocks since I first discovered Book Riot (whomInowwriteforshamelessplug). I was watching YouTube videos about new releases and buzzy things and saw the Bone Clocks being talked about a lot. The plot sounded like a doozy and one really fucking stupid thing kept me from reading it: I was so concerned with hitting my “number of books read” goal that I shied away from Bone Clocks because it was so long and might have slowed me down. What a doofus. Ugh. Shame me, I welcome you.

I ended up finally reading it last month because my boss/bookstore owner looooves him some David Mitchell. The guy once turned a fanboy blog post into the opportunity to meet David and then host a talk and movie screening for the film adaptation’s release. They became, like, buddies and shit. He is even credited in the acknowledgement for Bone Clocks! Sheesh. I felt like I had to read this at last, if for nothing else to get to know my employer a little bit better. So, I went for it.

The plot is... oh sweet Jesus, where do I begin? It starts with teenager Holly Sykes who runs away from home after a nasty "But I love him!" row with her mum. She ends up wandering all the way from London into the English countryside where strange, paranormal things keep happening to her that she can't really explain. She senses that it *might* have to do with the fact that she used to hear voices as a kid. Turns out she's right: there's a pack of mind-reading/mind-bending crazies out to get her in order to harness her latent powers.

Things are really set in motion when Holly's little brother disappears, never to be seen again. What Holly can't know at the time is that this turn of events will have trickling effects in the lives of numerous other people for generations to come. Each chapter picks up in the life and times of one of those "other people," where Mitchell ties together each of their narratives in intricate, subtle ways to form one big, sweeping saga that left my jaw on the floor. Oh, and add a whole bunch of psychic, mind-control stuff in there too, the kind that led me to send my boss the following text:

I could keep on trying to butcher this description or you could just read it. 

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So there it is, folks. Pick some of these up and tell me what you think! Or tell me what you read and loved and why. Let's just talk about books. 

Bookishly Yours,

Vanessa

Buenos Diaz Recommends: Four Funny Reads to Keep You Sane

Bruh. These are some trying times. Every day brings another headline that sounds like something out of a Jason Bourne movie, a Margaret Atwood novel or an article by The Onion. I think I’m finally starting to understand the appeal of those Instagram accounts that feature nothing but puppies and bunny rabbits. After a long day of Trump Twitter, xenophobic micro-aggressions and terror-filled news, I can see how one might find solace in photos of chubby hedgehogs.

We all know though that my chosen comforts are books and tea. When my day has been for the birds and I need to make sense of things, decompress or just quell the urge to pop a racist in the throat, I go straight for that bookshelf with a hot cup in hand. Side note: a post on my favorite teas will follow soon.

More often that not, I choose an old flame with a rich history when I need a little pick-me-up, a little Harry Potter, a little Agatha Christie, a little Jane Austen to curl up with and breathe. There are some days, however, when a warm cup of dried leaves soaked in water and a classic just won't do the trick: I need tequila and something to make me laugh to keep me from going all ragey. 

These four picks for the days when you too need a little levity to interrupt a heavy day are no-brainers in that they each meet the LOL criteria and are smart, insightful and touching in addition to being plain old funny. I’ve placed each one on my nightstand and read a chapter or two every night before bed as a self-care ritual. I end my night with hope and a chuckle, plus tea or perhaps that tequila.

Without further ado, I bring you four fun reads to get you out of whatever funk you might find yourself in. Emjoy!

Bookishly yours,

Vanessa+ Benedict Bookington III

#1 - Modern Love by Aziz Ansari

This books rings so many bells for me. It’s by a person of color, it's a thoughtful analysis of dating and romance today (subjects that clearly continue to evade my understanding), and for real though, it’s funny AF. 

Full disclosure: Aziz’s comedy hasn’t always my cup of tea; sometimes I’ve found it meh and other times it’s made me cackle out loud most unattractively. The book had some good buzz about it though, so I figured hey – I bought it with a coupon anyway. Well …. I had to cover my mouth with my hand a few times to keep from laughing out loud in public. Ansari’s observational humor coupled with just how GOSH DAMN RELATABLE the struggles he discusses are made me a fan from the very first few pages.

To be clear, this isn’t just a 250-page collection of jokes or even essays – this book has a bibliography and shit. Ansari did actual homework here and I don’t mean that he just hoed it up on Tinder one summer. He assembled research groups on Reddit, picked the brains of well-known social scientists and of course discussed his own dating experience to come up with this smart and endlessly witty look into what the pursuit of love looked like then and what it looks like now. Hint: letters and hand-holds vs. emoji and dick pics.

A couple favorite passages:

“Today we’ve become far more accepting of alternative lifestyles, and people move in and out of different situations: single with roommates, single and solo, single with partner, married, divorced, divorced and living with an iguana, remarried with iguana, then divorced with seven iguanas because your iguana obsession ruined your relationship, and, finally, single with six iguanas (Arturo was sadly run over by an ice cream truck).”  

“Marriage was an economic institution in which you were given a partnership for life in terms of children and social status and succession and companionship. But now we want our partner to still give us all these things, but in addition I want you to be my best friend and my trusted confidant and my passionate lover to boot, and we live twice as long. So we come to one person, and we basically are asking them to give us what once an entire village used to provide: Give me belonging, give me identity, give me continuity, but give me transcendence and mystery and awe all in one. Give me comfort, give me edge. Give me novelty, give me familiarity. Give me predictability, give me surprise. And we think it’s a given, and toys and lingerie are going to save us with that. Ideally, though, we’re lucky, and we find our soul mate and enjoy that life-changing mother lode of happiness. But a soul mate is a very hard thing to find.”

#2 - Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

Right off the bat, let me just put it out there that Sedaris is sooo f*cking weird. At his book signing a couple of years ago, he made small talk while working away on the title page of my book and that of a friend with some Sharpies. When he was done, I saw that he’d drawn a golden gun on my page and a bloody knife on my friend’s. This is just David’s way, both in his stories as in real life. He lets you have it all, whether the light in which he’s framed in his stories is a great one or not. Sometimes he’s a little out there but he is nothing if not authentic.

Me Talk Pretty One Day is my favorite of his works, a collection of essays that can more or less be split into two parts. The first half contains stories of his upbringing, including the adjustment of moving from New York to Raleigh, North Carolina when his father was transferred there for work. The second half focuses on his move from New York to Paris with his partner as an adult.

My favorite story from the whole collection is undoubtedly “You Can’t Kill the Rooster,” a bit about Sedaris’ younger brother Paul. Paul is the only of his siblings to be born in North Carolina and "spoke much like the toothless fishermen casting their nets into Albemarle Sound" by the time he was two years old. This guy is the quintessential bull in the China shop and his every curse-filled word is seemingly a gem of comedic glory, a brash contrast to Paul's loyal and endearing nature. Paul will call his father to day, "Motherfucker, I ain't seen pussy in so long, I'd throw stones at it." He's also the son that rushes to be by his father's side when his house is damaged in a hurricane, bringing a cooler full of beers and a pail of candy he names the Fuck It Bucket to cheer him up.

While there is something to be enjoyed in Sedaris' many writings, this is how I like him best: telling honest and ridiculous stories about his family and childhood and the adult (and often equally ridiculous) observations that reflection upon them brings.

#3 - Diary of a Diva by Barbarella Fokos

Barbarella Fokos is a writer, columnist, emcee and Emmy-winning producer native to my hometown of San Diego. She was discovered by the San Diego Reader in 2004 when a staff member came across her blog and asked her to write for the Reader. She wrote her “Diary of a Diva” column for twelve years, moving on very recently when she and her equally talented photographer husband decided to focus on making documentary films. They’ve started their own production, Salt & Sugar Productions, and continue to pursue their love of art and storytelling.

I followed Fokos’ column faithfully and was jazzed when the Diva announced she’d be releasing her first book on the tenth anniversary of her column, a collection of her best/favorite pieces from the column with some added commentary and retrospect. She writes about her big, loud, crazy family, her relationship with her husband (whom she met online back when doing so still carried the creepy stigma), and is very candid about her struggles with anxiety, depression and a very real case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Hers is the type of writing that I aspire to when blogging. She is a true storyteller: candid, thoughtful, humorous and self-aware.

This collection is, given the subject matter, not always funny – sometimes it’s sad and even difficult to read. One moment you’re laughing when she talks about her Snow-White complex and learning the hard way that squirrels, though cute and fluffy, do bite; the next you’re reliving a moment of debilitating panic and feel your heart hurt for her as you witness one of her breakdowns. Her honesty in all things is for me her greatest appeal: the good, the bad, the ugly and the in between all pull no punches. That transparency is a refreshing reminder that even super successful people don't have their shit 100% together all the time.

#4 - The Rosie Project by Graeme Simpson

I didn’t include a cute little photo of this selection because I read this as an eBook. Holy shitake mushrooms, I laughed so, SO hard reading this one. It’s an Australian romantic comedy about a man named Don, a genetics professor on the autism spectrum whose brilliance is matched only by his social awkwardness. He decides its time that he found a wife and then approaches his search for a mate through a scientific, evidence-based approach that he dubs The Wife Project. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how well that turns out.

In the middle of his project, he meets a bartender named Rosie whom he immediately deems as “unfit” for The Wife Project; in spite of his snap judgement, an unlikely relationship blossoms– because duh, this is a rom-com. The course of their courtship brings one laugh-out-loud-like-a-crazy-person scene after another. My most LOL of all LOL moments takes place when he teaches himself to dance. He approaches that endeavor like he would any other: with research and study. He practices with a skeleton at the university and oooooh eeeeem geeeeee, you’ll fall out when he takes his new moves for a spin.

What makes this book so entertaining is that it’s narrated from Don’s perspective. You’re along for the ride with his awkward thoughts, hilarious assumptions and an obliviousness to his social ineptitude as well as his endearingly comical attempts at romance. You’ll cringe and you’ll laugh but you’ll also feel the warm and fuzzies. It's refreshing to spend time with a character on the spectrum from a perspective not often explored in books. 

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So there is is! Comment below with your favorite funny reads or pick-me-ups. Happy reading! 

XOXO

Color and Light: My 2016 Reading List

Alright guys, the moment is upon us. A moment of silence please. Deep breaths. The inauguration of the human Cheeto puff looms nearer every day and we will soon wave a tear-filled goodbye to Barack Hussein and Michelle Lavaughn Robinson Obama. The future is dauntingly unclear. We are fearful. 

Now more than ever, it feels imperative and essential to do more. We should do something, say something and do so quickly and fiercely. What to do though? And when? How? Is it enough to live my daily life as a kind, empathetic, and socially conscious person? Without a grandiose plan for activism or sweeping plot to ignite a revolution, am I taking a strong enough stance against oppression, against ignorance, against hate?

I don't have those answers. I have, however, the conviction that positive impact isn’t exclusively realized by big, loud, grandiloquent actions. It is also attained through small, quiet movements made with purpose, intention and heart. With this spirit in mind, I set out to create a little ripple of change from my humble corner of the world. I chose to do so by giving due consideration to the sheer, potent and undeniable power of the written word and by supporting the *radical* notion that representation matters.

I read 52 books, averaging one per week, and read works predominantly written by women and people of color. It was my quiet revolution, my statement of support for lives that matter and disgust for the forces that counter important truths.

The result was one of the most rewarding years of reading I’ve had in some time. Sharp wit and cramp-causing humor made me laugh out loud in public like a crazy person. I got lost in thought pondering everything from white privilege and systemic racism to the complex construct of modern religion. I marveled at historical truths stranger than fiction and fawned over prowess in storytelling. I gasped at the plot twist in a good whodunit and was shaken and brought to tears by harrowing tales of loss and pain.

Perhaps most importantly, I gleaned inspiration from the hope that these writers’ voices give me for the future – the future of art, of creativity, of activism, of the pursuit of justice and inclusivity. That hope is something I want to share with you and anyone who will listen, so I’m asking you now to challenge yourself. Pick one or more books from this list; pick others from these and other great authors from marginalized groups. Let the words on the page bring you the beautiful color and light that they brought to me, then share your experiences in turn. Join me in my quiet revolution, one page at a time.  

Bookishly yours,

Vanessa

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First, my top twelve. Why twelve? Because. Shut up and read).

1. Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand in the Sun and Be Your Own Person by Shonda Rhimes 

So, I love me some Shonda despite the fact that for the last several years, she has been launching a full scale no-fucks-are-given attack on my tear ducts and brain capacity with her Thursday night savagery. I still haven’t quite forgiven her for Derek. Ugh!

My love for her show writing aside, I didn’t actually know a lot about her personally prior to reading her memoir. Her story blew me away. Shonda is spazzy and weird and awkward in the best possible way. I loved her candid voice, her expression of vulnerability and her unapologetic girl-powerness. I related on another level to the challenge she took on to say yes more often to life.

Bonus: I went back and listened to it on audio later, which she narrates, and loved that version even more. Look up her keynote speeches sometime on YouTube. Solid gold.

2. Jane Steele by Lyndsay Fay

This is a retelling of Jane Eyre built around the premise that Jane is a serial killer. Do I really need to say any more? 

This is such a great read – even more so if you love the original Jane Eyre in all her bookish feminism as much as I do. She’s a killer in this version alright, but not in a who-in-the-actual-fuck-told-you-that-was-a-good-idea way ala Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. It has a little bit of heroic vengeance/Lisbeth Salander twist to it, but not as heavy or dark.

3. Sorcerer to the Crown (Sorcerer Royal #1) by Zen Cho

This book was sent to me in one of Book Riot’s Book Mail boxes, which I can’t recommend enough. These boxes are carefully curated bundles of books and bookish gifts but without a subscription – the themes for the boxes are announced via email and social media, then you buy them when you want, if you want. I treated myself to a box in October for my birthday as soon as I realized the theme for that box was magic (shocker, I know). This book was one of the two selections therein.

Set in a magical London, the story follows Zacharias Wythe, a sorcerer of formidable skill and a freed slave who holds the office of Sorcerer Royal. Despite holding the highest position in the esteemed Unnatural Philosophers organization, he is undermined and plotted against at every turn for his black skin color - sound familiar? He goes on a mission to determine why Britain’s magic is mysteriously being drained and is joined along the way by a woman with enormous powers of her own. This complicates things as women are considered too inferior to practice magic, but that’s all about to change… It’s political and feminist and is rife with social commentary. LOVE.

4. The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl by Issa Rae

By now, many of you are as big of fans of Issa as I am thanks to the huge success of her HBO series, Insecure. Laaaaawd, this woman is craaaazy talented! I read this book early last year after falling in love with her web series of the same name where I first discovered how (awkwardly) hilarious and witty she is. She had me laughing like a fool at Starbucks when she discussed trying to be cool in high school when you can’t dance but everyone expects you to have some sick rhythm because you’re black.

This is another book that I went back and listed to on audio - stoooooppp itttt. I laugh-cried. 

5. Labyrinth Lost (Brooklyn Brujas #1) by Zoraida Cordova

I had the pleasure of meeting Zoraida this November at Book Riot Live in New York City, an amazing book convention put together by my beloved Book Riot. Zoraida was part of a panel about finding your voice as a writer, and I was beyond stoked to see a Latina writing in the YA fantasy genre. She signed one of my books for me and was a joy to interact with, so I naturally had to pick up some of her work.

This book is set in Brooklyn and is a sort of coming-of-age tale centered around a young bruja named Alex. She is reluctant to accept her magic and devises a plan to be rid of it, but the spell she concocts to do so backfires horribly and may have cost her the lives of her mother and sisters. She embarks on a dangerous journey to try and save them and ventures into a world described in such color and vivid detail. I absolutely loved that the magic in this book has a Latin American bent, pulling from Day of the Dead traditions and Latin American folklore. I can’t think of too many works in this genre where I feel Latinas are represented, so this gets ALL of the gold stars. It also has an LGBTQ element, so tack another hundred stars on top of that.

6. The Clancy’s of Queens by Tara Clancy

I half read this book and half listened to it on Audio – the book is amazing on its own but is even better when told in Tara’s distinctive Queens accent. 

In this memoir, Clancy, who is half Italian and half Irish, describes for her readers the three extraordinary environments in which she was raised– a boat shed in a working class Queens neighborhood, a community of elderly Brooklyn-born Italians and an lavish estate in the Hamptons. I laughed when she talked of her saucy grandmother’s constant Italian curses, smiled when she talked about coming out to her parents, laughed again when she regaled readers with tales from her young troublemaker ways. I’d explain more, but Tara really does it so much better. Fangool! (read it).  

7. You Can’t Touch My Hair: And Other Things I Still Have to Explain by Phoebe Robinson

I love me some Phoebe Robinson, good gawd! She is half of comedy duo from one of my favorite podcasts, 2 Dope Queens, and has all sort of other bad-ass credits to her name (her blog Black Daria, writing for Broad City and MTV’s Girl Code, contributing regularly to Glamour).

This book is an insightful and socially conscious commentary with the added bonus of endless super-spot-on pop-culture references – it is fucking hilarious from beginning to end. There are too many great passages to list, but one that got me was this one summarizing the plot of How to Get Away with Murder. Enjoy.

“… Anna was hooking up with a superhot black cop who would show up to her job and go down on her, aka the man was a true American hero and every time he showed up on screen, I pledged allegiance to him like he was the damn United States flag. These side relationships were going swimmingly until Sam knocked up his jump off and then, under suspicious circumstances, she was killed.”

DEAD.

8. Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture by Peggy Orenstein

Peggy is my hero: her work in gender studies is educational, important and ridiculously entertaining. She’d written for years and years on the subject of girls and how to raise them without gender normative confines when she found herself pregnant with one and panicked. She wrote Cinderella Ate my Daughter when she discovered a sobering reality: the little girl she had tried so hard to raise progressively and without an attachment to all things traditionally feminine ditched her Thomas the Tank Engine toys and pin-striped overalls in a fresh 60 seconds when a boy in her preschool yelled that girls don’t like trains. She takes a deep dive into the princess culture that seemingly swallowed her daughter whole. What you’ll learn about the Disney Princesses campaign alone makes this a worthy read, but the whole thing is just so eye-opening.

9. Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman by Lindy West

Lindy West is a self-proclaimed fat feminist and writer who's contributed to The Guardian, This American Life and Jezebel as well as an array of other online publications. Her work is centered on body-positivity, feminism and social justice with a healthy injection of humor. This memoir is at once hilarious and at other times so difficult to read; her experience with rampant internet misogyny and rape culture makes me cringe even now.

She has faced some true and unabashed ugliness - like the time some internet trolls decided to create a fake Twitter account for her dead father with a stolen family photo as a profile pic and a bio reading "Embarrassed Father of an Idiot," all because she challenged the propriety of jokes about rape. There was the time she went on FX's Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell to discuss rape culture and was pummeled with such vitriolic tweets as "no need for you to worry about rape uggo" and "holes like this make me want to commit rape out of anger. I don't even find her attractive, at all, she's a fat idiot, I just want to rape her with a traffic cone." I cried, and then kept reading and fist-pumped in solidarity. Read this now!

10.   Orhan’s Inheritance by Aline Ohanesian

As a freshman at USC, I took a class about the Holocaust. I expected to spend a semester studying “the” Holocaust: Hitler, the Third Reich, the gross and unspeakable treatment of Jews. I did eventually study those precise things; on the first day of class though, I was asked along with my classmates to raise my hand if I’d ever heard of the Armenian genocide. Most of us had not. At age 17, I confess that I didn’t so much know what Armenians were, let alone about their attempted eradication. It turns out a lot of people don't know much about the latter either, especially since the Turkish state denied and continues to deny that it ever happened. 

This book explores the genocide from a fictional perspective and is written by an Armenian woman as a bonus. It is a beautifully tragic and triumphantly hopeful tale. The main character Orhan is a young man in Turkey who inherits his grandfather’s rug business after he is found dead in a vat of dye outside his home. His formidable estate, however, is left to an elderly Armenian woman living in a Los Angeles retirement home, a concession that no one saw coming nor understands. Orhan travels to L.A. to find out more about this mysterious woman and slowly realizes how little he actually knows about his family and native country’s past.  Flashing back and forth between the 1990s and the last years of the Ottoman Empire, this story will give you all of the feelings and probably teach you a lot of things you didn’t know.   

11. Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff

Let me just say that you think you know Cleopatra’s deal, but you so don’t. This complex, shrewd, and yes, often conniving artist in the game of self-preservation is so often chalked up to being nothing more than a skilled seductress, but to do so simplifies her unjustly and reduces her to much less than what she truly was. The infamous last Queen of Ptolemaic Egypt wielded her womanly wiles like a weapon; she was also strategic and savvy and an expert negotiator. Her story reads like fiction: incest, exile, assassination and deception all run rampant. It was so juicy than I often forgot I was reading a history book. Well done, Stacy Schiff, well done.  

12. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

I dreaded writing up this blurb because a) I don’t think my fumbling fanaticism I can do it justice and b) all the praise I have has already been sung before. This book, called “required reading” by the great Toni Morrison, made serious waves and won all of the awards this year for good reason. A powerful literary look at race in American history told as a letter to his young son, Coates’ work is important, eloquent, and impassioned. I read with more than a mild discomfort and boundless appreciation. Read this and be open. 

If you've stuck around this long, thank you! Gold star for you! Now it's your turn to tell me about something you read and loved. Leave me a note on Twitter, Facebook, the Gram, or in the comments below.  Next week I'll be hitting you all with the goals for my 2017 reading challenge. Until then, happy reading! 

13.   The Cutting Season by Attica Locke

14.   Yes, My Accent is Real: and Some Other Things I Haven’t Told You by Kunal Nayyar

15.   The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

16.   The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton

17.   Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

18.   Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

19.   The Regional Office is Under Attack by Manuel Gonzales

20.   I’m Judging You: The Do-Better Manual by Luvvie Ajayi

21.   The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende

22.   God Help the Child by Toni Morrison

23.   Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology by Leah Remini

24.   A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab

25.   Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick

26.   Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

27.   The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney

28.   Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain

29.   Where Am I Now? By Mara Wilson

30.   Angelmaker by Nick Karkaway

31.   Patient H.M.: A Story of Memory, Madness, and Family Secrets by Luke Dittrich

32.   Queen of the Night by Alexander Chee

33.   Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by John Tiffany

34.   The Women in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware

35.   Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff

36.   Roses and Rot by Kat Howard

37.   The Roman Hat Mystery by Ellery Queen – This was the *one* book out of 52 that I just couldn’t get into- I thought it would ring my Agatha Christie cozy mystery bells... don’t waste your time.

38.   Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling

39.   Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter

40.   2 A.M. at The Cat’s Pajamas by Marie-Helene Bertino

41.   The Passenger by Lisa Lutz

42.   Do No Harm Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery by Henry Marsh

43.   Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things by Jenny Lawson

44.   I Know What I’m Doing – and Other Lies I Tell Myself: Dispatches from a Life Under Construction by Jen Kirkman

45.   Library of Souls (Miss Peregrine’s School for Peculiar Children #2) by Ransom Riggs

46.   Hollow City (Miss Peregrine’s School for Peculiar Children #3) by Ransom Riggs

47.   The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald

48.   Is Everyone Hanging out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling

49.   People I Want to Punch in the Throat: Competitive Crafters, Drop-Off Despots, and Other Suburban Scourges by Jen Mann

50.   The Death of Caesar: The Story of History’s Most Famous Assassination by Barry S. Strauss

51.   Black Coffee by Agatha Christie

52.   After You (Me Before You #2) by Jojo Moyes