Book Report

[stormkeeper_lovesall]

 

Haven't been writing as much, so here are another crop of books already!

 

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St John Mandel – The author of Station Eleven. Full stop right there. She has written another novel that is brilliant, wondrous, and captivating. I am left in awe of her. Grade: 9

 

Stash: My Life in Hiding by Laura Cathcart Robbins – Memoir. Robbins had a rough go of it in life, bad family growing up, abuse at the hands of a mother’s boyfriend, dropping out of school. It looks like she starts to get things together, she starts a PR firm, marries a mega-rich Hollywood producer, has two kids she loves. But she starts taking Ambien for sleep problems, her marriage falls apart, she gets addicted, and she is going to have to fight to not lose custody of her kids or lose the share of her husband’s wealth that she has earned. Very engrossing book. My biggest takeaways: 1) How is it that 50 years after the feminist movement that kicked into gear in the late 1960s, women are still doing this? Creating their entire personalities around their husbands, living like shells or trophy wives as Robbins admitted that she did at one point? (Rhetorical question). 2) Once again, I can only say how lucky I am to have avoided getting addicted to benzos. Because this author, like others I have read, makes it clear how brutal the withdrawal is. She says something akin to ‘I missed what it was like to actually sleep. I’d get an hour or two each night, usually full of nightmares. My brain never just shut off’. Grade: 8

 

Journal of a Black Queer Nurse by Britney Daniels – Just what it sounds like. Daniels lays out her life as a masculine-presenting, Black queer nurse. The racism she encounters day in and day out is exhausting. She’s a travel nurse who has worked in hospitals all over California and Illinois, so it’s not like what she experienced was confined to any specific area. Definitely a book that was hard to put down. Grade: 7

 

Nobody Somebody Anybody by Kelly McClorey –  A novel taking place in modern times. The narrator is an unreliable one. She’s suffering depression, delusion, and loneliness. She’s trying to make her way through life but she keeps self-sabotaging. I realize these sentences aren’t exactly glowing, but the book was one of those that is easy and fast to read. It was good. Grade: 7

 

Feel Free: Essays by Zadie Smith – I listened to this on audio; it’s a series of essays. The range of topics Smith covers is very impressive. Everything including pop culture, racism, comparing the dance styles of Gene Kelly versus Fred Astaire, and a hundred others. This is not a page-turner (or whatever the audio equivalent to that is) and I’d probably not have read it were it not on audio. But it was a good companion for my car trips; in fact, it reminded me of one of the benefits of audio books. Being stuck in traffic can “force” you to listen to a book that you’d never sit down and read. Smith has good insights, and bonus for beautiful narration by the voice actor; her voice was rich and velvety. Smith is so attuned to the world and social problems and people and politics. Some of the topics are depressing – climate change, gentrification – and Smith isn’t going to sugarcoat anything. Other essays were deep dives on topics that don’t interest me (Joni Mitchell, Key & Peele….they all sound like wonderful people but I don’t need 45 minutes on each). I think by the end I was basically listening to this for the voice actor!  Someone cast her in something asap. Grade: 7

Comments

[nytshd3]

I was going to ask when I saw you were reading sea of tranquility if it was as good as station eleven! Yay that it's wonderful!

I feel like most people have NO concept of what it's like to get addicted to benzos or other meds that have been prescribed by their doctor, especially when it was done before there was really any effort to educate people about the addictive nature of it. I can't imagine going through all the hard crap in life (especially when the rest of your life is falling apart) AND trying to deal with withdrawal from prescription drugs.

I feel like nurses have been taken advantage of for years (having a sister who is a nurse may have contributed to this), and it definitely feels like it's only gotten worse over the last few years. Being Black and queer has to just make it 100x worse. My sister has looked into travel nursing. It seems like one of those things that's got a lot of upsides but also a lot of downsides.

Feel free sounds interesting. THat said, I enjoy Key & Peele but I don't know that I'd want to listen to 45 minutes on them! But I also 100% agree on a good voice actor! I've actually in the past looked up the voice actor to see if they read any other books that sounded interesting to me.

Thanks for sharing as always. Someday I will make it over the reading hump and be back at it.

[stormkeeper_lovesall]

Yes definitely read Sea of Tranquility!

Hope you go back to reading someday.