The Overly Attached Reader

Trevor Noah is a South African comedian who currently hosts The Daily Show on Comedy Central. Born a Crime is about growing up in South Africa: living under apartheid when his existence was evidence of a crime, life after apartheid, the deep bond between a mother and son, the unique challenges of growing up mixed race, and living with an abusive stepfather. It’s filled with humor and biting social commentary, but the main words that describe this book are insightful and heartfelt. I was already a casual fan, but this book can be read by anyone since his career is barely mentioned.

People are willing to accept you if they see you as an outsider trying to assimilate into their world. But when they see you as a fellow tribe member attempting to disavow the tribe, that is something they will never forgive.

Born a Crime is a collection of stories from Trevor’s life with a generally linear timeline. There was a tiny bit of jumpiness– occasionally there would be something mentioned that would be elaborated on in another story. Overall, I really liked the format because there was no filler. Each chapter worked on its own and had a clear lesson, so I viewed them each individually. Trevor was always getting into trouble growing up and some of the chapters are about his antics. While these stories are hilarious on their own, he also places these anecdotes within a wider social context.

I’ve read a few books by South African authors this year and I wish I would’ve read this one first! Of all I’ve read and seen on the topic, this is the one that made the history ‘click’ the most. Each chapter is preceded by either historical or personal context. He also puts everything in perspective for outsiders: “In America you had the forced removal of the native onto reservations coupled with slavery followed by segregation. Imagine all three of those things happening to the same group of people at the same time. That was apartheid.” It’s a good reminder of the similarities between cultures and institutions, even though the specifics may vary.

Love is a creative act. When you love someone you create a new world for them. My mother did that for me, and with the progress I made and the things I learned, I came back and created a new world and a new understanding for her.

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His close relationship with his mother was one of my favorite parts of the book. He describes his mother as a rebel and I loved reading about how she subverted the system! She raised Trevor to know that there was no limit to what he could accomplish: “Even if he never leaves the ghetto, he will know that the ghetto is not the world. If that is all I accomplish, I’ve done enough.” He reveals the wisdom she imparted that made him the man he is today. Like his mom, he has a remarkable ability to adapt. I could also see where he gets his sense of humor! Even in one of the most tragic moments of the story, she’s able to joke around. Though his father isn’t in the book as much, the chapter about him and the gift of being chosen is one of the chapters that hit me the hardest.

We live in a world where we don’t see the ramifications of what we do to others, because we don’t live with them. If we could see one another’s pain and empathize with one another, it would never be worth it to us to commit the crimes in the first place.

Born a Crime is an insightful memoir that strikes the perfect balance of historical and personal. I learned a lot and it gave me a better context for what I already knew. It made me laugh and cry. I know I love a book when I’m giving everyone around me daily updates! If you are interested in the subjects addressed in this book, you might be interested in the short article Inner City by Lauren Beukes. Her short story collection Slipping is coming out in November, which features some stories about South African culture.

People love to say, “Give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he’ll eat for a lifetime.” What they don’t say is, “And it would be nice if you gave him a fishing rod.”

Brittany Maynard was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer in early 2014. She chose to die on her own terms in Oregon, one of the three US states that had enacted “Death with Dignity” legislation (California became the fourth in 2016). She used her situation as a platform to advocate for the rights of other terminally ill patients. In Wild & Precious Life, Deborah Ziegler writes about the daughter she loved so fiercely and the rocky path of coming to terms with a difficult reality.

My daughter did the best she could. I’m rock solid in that truth. She tried so hard to do what was right. This idea sounds simple, but it is not. Look around at those who disappoint you, hurt you. Are they doing the best they can? Are you? Does it make us feel safer to think our best is better than theirs? Now look at those who are terminally ill. Are they doing their best? How dare we judge them? How dare we tell them how they ought to die? How dare we impose our beliefs on them? How dare we try to manipulate them into fighting when they have no more fight left?

The chapters alternate between Brittany’s life before diagnosis and her life after diagnosis. Ziegler introduces the reader to a complex young woman: compassionate, impulsive, adventurous, and moody. As Brittany’s cancer progressed and the symptoms intensified, a perfect storm of tumor symptoms, medication side effects, and anxieties caused violent and angry outbursts. The mother-daughter relationship is also complex–close, but sometimes contentious. But no matter what, they always found their way back to each other.

What stood out most about Brittany is how much she wanted to live and how fully she lived in the little time she had. Brittany made her story public in hopes of educating the public and giving other terminally ill patients the same choice she had. While she had the flexibility and resources to move to Oregon, uprooting her life brought on its own hardships. Ziegler also describes the whirlwind of media attention when Brittany’s story went viral, as well as the misrepresentations and hurtful backlash that followed. She writes about how the situation and cruel comments from others affected her own faith.
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Sooner or later, people experience something in life that they can’t control. We can’t be good enough human beings, or do enough research, or buy enough stuff, to be secure. Security is an illusion. Natural occurrences in life happen randomly to all kinds of people. Sad, horrible, senseless tragedy strikes for apparently no reason. Every journey begins without hope. It just begins.

While searching for more about Brittany’s story, I discovered that her husband Dan doesn’t endorse this book (his Facebook post). He states that “the scenes from the last 10 months of Brittany’s life obviously reflect Deborah’s own opinions, concerns, and thoughts. Deborah’s book does not speak for Brittany and there are numerous passages that are inaccurate.” I kept this in mind as I continued reading. Even without knowing any details, there are parts that I could see being heavily perspective based or events that someone might not want to be detailed for the public. However, I did find value in reading Brittany’s story from the perspective of a mother whose every instinct fought against accepting what was happening. She discusses the lack of support and education for caregivers. Brittany’s tumor was likely growing for a decade, so she reflects on whether there were earlier signs. Were Brittany’s thrill-seeking behaviors, impulsiveness, and intense mood swings symptoms of the tumor? I was amazed at the remarkable way in which the brain is able to adapt.

I urge Americans to think for themselves. Make your wishes clear while you are competent. Make sure that you have all the options spelled out for you if you are diagnosed with an incurable, debilitating, painful disease. Do your own research. Ask your family to research and face the harsh reality with you. Ask your doctor to be brutally honest with you. Then make your personal choice about how you will proceed. It is YOUR choice.

Wild & Precious Life is about a mother’s unconditional love and a family who was forced to come to terms with an impossible situation. No one is portrayed as perfect–they are all heartbreakingly human. Everyone did the best they could with the reality they were given. “We have lost sight of reality. All life ends. Death is not necessarily the enemy in all cases. Sometimes a gentle passing is a gift.” Like When Breath Becomes Air, this book made me reflect on my own views of death and see how important it is to make these difficult decisions while one still can. This book also educated me about the regulations that are put in place to protect the terminally ill patients who are making end-of-life decisions. For more information about Brittany Maynard or Death with Dignity legislation: Brittany’s opinion piece, the Brittany Maynard Fund, Death with Dignity FAQ.

A beautifully written coming-of-age tale about transformation, redemption, and learning to let go. When Shelby was seventeen, she was the driver in a car accident that put her best friend Helene in an irreversible coma. Helene is trapped inside herself and subjected to an endless stream of visitors convinced that she produces miracles. Shelby blames herself for Helene’s misfortune and has dedicated her life to paying her penance. “She is stopping her life, matching her breathing so that it has become a counterpart of the slow intake of air of a girl in a coma.” She suffers from major depression, anxiety, survivor’s guilt, and post-traumatic stress. Faithful follows the slow and painful process of Shelby rebuilding her life over a ten-year period.

In fairy tales, such things happened, you stole from someone, then were handed their fate as a punishment.

The writing is gorgeous! The prose is so effortless and I almost forgot I was reading. I loved how Hoffman added little bits of magic to everyday life through her word choices. The most magical parts of the story are when Shelby periodically receives anonymous postcards with inspiring messages like “Be something,” “Feel something,” and “Trust someone.” The postcards are the one thing she looks forward to in life. They give her a subtle push to start living again, one step at a time. Each chapter is a transformative event in Shelby’s life. Shelby’s path to healing is messy! She makes maddening choices and there are many ups-and-downs in the story, but the general trajectory is towards healing. Even the bad decisions push her forward. She’s determined to coast through life with no attachments, but new relationships, a love of animals, and the postcards keep her from completely drifting away. Each new experience, good or bad, makes her open up a little more.

People say if you face your worst fear the rest is easy, but those are people who are afraid of rattlesnakes or enclosed spaces, not of themselves and the horrible things they’ve done.

Shelby is wrestling with some really tough issues and her unpleasantness made the first chapter a bit of a chore. I was hooked once she meets Maravelle (Mimi) Diaz in Chapter 2. Mimi is the first person Shelby befriends that didn’t know her before the accident, so it’s a pivotal moment for her. One of the most memorable chapters is when Shelby babysits Mimi’s children and has to be responsible for people other than herself. Her close relationship with Mimi’s children forces her to look at her own mom in a more nuanced way. Shelby’s evolving relationship with her mother was the most emotional part of the book for me. The moment she steps out of her emotional fog realizes how deeply and unconditionally she was loved was so moving.  “How can you hurt the one woman in the world who waits up for you at night till you’re safely home? Who puts up with your moods and your disappointments in life? Who remembers you when you were young and handsome and had faith in the world?” The deepening of the mother-daughter relationship had me sobbing!

!——-Vague assessment of my feelings towards the end, but skip the next part if you want to know absolutely nothing.——–!

This is one of those books where there’s a constant stream of dramatic events. As much as I loved Mimi and her family, I thought their serious issues tipped it over into the too much category. I enjoyed the story most between the introduction of Mimi and the resolution of the postcard situation. Shelby stumbles across the identity of the postcard sender and it felt so random and anti-climatic. Even though I was happy that Shelby found happiness, I couldn’t get into one of the relationships in the last quarter of the book. The connection was so sudden and there’s only a passing mention of this person in an earlier conversation. I groaned when they said, “It was always you, Shelby.” Romance, fate, fairy tales, etc., but I just couldn’t keep my fairy tale lenses on for that. That’s the second person in the book who wouldn’t have had a chance with her before the accident and was fixated on her from afar. I also wish that Ben got a better ending than he did because I liked his “first” ending better!

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She read the color-coded series of Andrew Lang’s fairy tales to her mother. They became lost in an enchanted cottage with vines growing over the window. It was dark and it was quiet and they could hear each other softly breathing. Every story had the same message: what was deep inside could only be deciphered by someone who understood how easily a heart could be broken.

The people in this book are deeply flawed, but they also have goodness inside of them. The angels in Shelby’s story aren’t perfect people, but they were there to guide someone through their lowest moments. Faithful shows the potential for transformation in everyone. Shelby thinks the accident permanently transformed her into a monster. She’s built a protective shell around herself because it’s easier than letting people in, but her goodness can’t be trapped inside forever. She sees life as a novel where a person carries all their past experiences with them from chapter to chapter. In order to fully heal she has to realize that while her past will always be a part of her, it doesn’t have to define her. She doesn’t have to stay stuck in one story. Punishing herself in Helene’s name isn’t fair to Helene either. She’ll never be able to move forward if she continues to punish herself and carry her past guilt with her.

She thinks of the way angels arrive, when you least expect them, when the road is dark, when you’re bleeding and alone and hopeless, when you’re sleeping in a basement, convinced that no one knows you’re there.

Faithful is one of those books that I enjoyed while I was reading, but I haven’t thought about since I put it down. While it wasn’t particularly memorable for me, I have a feeling that Hoffman will become a go-to author for me for the times where I want to just disappear into a story. Shelby’s story is extremely relatable and I could see it being a comfort to anyone who has struggled with similar issues. The themes reminded me of Cruel Beautiful World. I wish that Shelby could meet CBW’s Patrick*–too bad they’re fictional characters!

She thought she knew what her future would be like, but as it turns out life is far more mysterious than she would have ever imagined. What is behind you is gone, what is in front of you awaits.

___________________

“[Patrick] had read that the reason there were ghosts was that the living tethered them to life, that the dead lingered not because they needed closure but because the living did. And the living needed to do only one thing for the dead: let them go. And they could never do it.” – Cruel Beautiful World

“Why do you always have to think about the worst things?”
“Because the worst things happen all the time.”

A character-driven novel about the messiness of love and coping with loss. Sixteen-year-old Lucy runs away with her thirty-year-old English teacher, leaving only a vague note for her adoptive mother and older sister to find. They don’t know if they’ll ever see her again and Lucy’s mysterious disappearance leaves a hole in their lives that can never be filled. Lucy is excited to be an “adult” and has romantic ideas of what a lifetime with William will entail, but she soon realizes how little she knows about him.

[Iris] had seen that poster in Lucy’s room, that ridiculous sentiment that you don’t belong to me, and I don’t belong to you, but if we find each other, it’s beautiful. What a stupid thing to say! Of course people belonged to each other. Love owned you. It kept you captive.

It’s 1969, and the Vietnam War is in full swing. The Manson murders and the subsequent trial dominate the news. There’s a heightened awareness of all the danger in the world. Lucy and her older sister Charlotte had been inseparable since their parents died over a decade ago, but they’ve been drifting apart recently. Charlotte is busy with schoolwork and preparing for college. As the “big girl helper,” Charlotte always had a closer bond with their “distant” relative and adoptive mother Iris. Iris is 79 and planning to travel the world once both girls leave the house. Free-spirited Lucy is feeling left behind and has no idea where her life is heading, unlike her studious sister who has her entire life mapped out. When her English teacher William shows an interest in her, she finds love and a purpose.

“You don’t know what you’re seeing sometimes, when you see it,” [Patrick] said. “You don’t know how bad it can get.”

I was expecting an intense plot, but it’s actually an introspective, character-driven novel. The chapters alternate between the perspectives of Lucy, Charlotte, and Iris. Later, we get the perspective of Patrick, a man Lucy meets near her new home. These people have experienced more than their fair share of miscalculations and heartbreak. They reveal their hopes, fears, doubts, and regrets. They all had big ideas of how their lives would go, but nothing turned out as planned. Despite the many decades between Iris and Lucy, they are so much alike! They were both determined to have better lives than their guardians, but their lives still end up full of complications. For better or worse, they both end up getting trapped in someone else’s story and putting aside their own needs for the people they love. Likewise, Charlotte and Patrick both end up putting their lives on hold because they feel guilt about their inability to protect the people who depended on them. There’s an overarching fear that one only gets one chance at life. Will any of them ever be able to stop blaming themselves and give themselves a second chance?

[Patrick] had read that the reason there were ghosts was that the living tethered them to life, that the dead lingered not because they needed closure but because the living did. And the living needed to do only one thing for the dead: let them go. And they could never do it.

I really liked the scenes at and near Lucy and William’s rustic home in the woods. A threatening atmosphere surrounds the isolated home. Life with William isn’t exactly what Lucy expected, but she tries to make the best of it. William becomes increasingly paranoid, manipulative, and possessive, causing Lucy to feel lonely and restless. She has little to occupy her time besides writing and taking care of William. She develops an anxiety over the Manson trial that felt a little forced. Part of it was the marketing; the name Manson screamed out at me, so I was expecting more of a connection than news stories seen on the other side of the country. I didn’t feel as strongly about the Vietnam War references since that was part of Lucy and Charlotte’s life via student protests. However, the news events add to the anxious atmosphere and give Lucy a new framework to view her life. But even as she begins to develop a more nuanced view of William, it’s still difficult for her to resist the strong pull of love.

Sometimes you couldn’t fix things, you couldn’t make them better, and you had to live with that. It didn’t make you a bad person, the way she had thought. It made you human.

I’ve talked a lot about Lucy, but it’s about so much more than her running off with a teacher. Looking back on this book almost a month later, it’s not the plot or historical setting that have stayed with me. It’s the process through which these characters learned to cope with their pain and begin again after loss. They have to learn to allow themselves some happiness in the present and that life can’t be fully lived in anticipation of the worst case scenario. For all the heartbreak and ugliness in the world, there’s also love and beauty waiting to be found.  It also shows how inescapable the pull of love can be. I think I would’ve liked even less closure in the end (I can’t believe I’m saying that!), but I know these characters will stay with me for a long time.

____________________________
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Books I thought of while reading:
• I’d categorize it with A Place We Knew Well in terms of the general feel, even though there are plenty of differences. History was the bright spot in A Place We Knew Well, whereas it was the characters in Cruel Beautiful World.
• Good Morning, Midnight – the focus on the characters coming to terms with past decisions.
• I Will Send Rain – The mother-daughter relationship

____________________________
My favorite passages:
An argument in Chapter 23.

-AND-

“Falling in love with children was different from giving your heart to an adult. Oh, it was so much better! [Iris] remembered the way she had fallen for Doug, how she couldn’t sleep because she kept thinking about him, how when she saw him she wanted to kiss him. Later she felt deep comfort that he was around. But it was love with edges and complications. Loving the girls brought her deep peace, something she could sink into like a blanket.”

Sarah is in the middle of an existential crisis. She stops going to school and spends her days visiting abandoned structures in Philadelphia. An event at an art show triggered her crisis, but she actually started falling apart a long time ago. The key to unlocking the cause of her disillusionment may be confronting the events of a family vacation to Mexico when she was ten-years-old. Her older brother Bruce hasn’t talked to the family in the six years since then. She can’t remember what happened and her parents refuse to talk about it.

Here’s what I think. I think we’re really smart when we’re young. Ten-year-old Sarah is smarter than I am because I’m six years older. Twenty-three-year-old Sarah is dumber than me because I’m sixteen. Someone somewhere was way older and richer and dumber than all of us and paid forty-five million dollars for a bunch of dots. I think this kind of smart isn’t something they can measure with tests. I think it’s like being psychic or being holy. If I could be anyone for the rest of my life, I would be a little kid. (Sarah)

Sarah was an aspiring artist and I loved how that part of her life is integrated into the story, especially the concept of a tornado as something that is one thing on the outside, but another thing on the inside. Sarah is at a point in her life where adults are constantly asking her about her future, but she hasn’t even dealt with her past. She’s unable to stay in the present, which is where the future and past Sarahs come in. Versions of Sarah at different stages in life materialize to help her process her trauma. Ten-year-old Sarah is still a happy kid and the memories of the vacation are still fresh for her. Twenty-three-year-old Sarah can barely remember being sixteen and thinks sixteen-year-old Sarah is silly and dramatic. Sixteen-year-old Sarah looks up to forty-year-old Sarah who is the most self-assured. What surprised me is that these Sarahs aren’t hallucinations; other people can see them.

The older people get, the less they can do about things. They seem to be stuck. They seem to be glue. (Sarah)

Sarah’s mom Helen gets to tell her side of the story. Helen’s chapters help illuminate parts that Sarah doesn’t understand. Helen’s story shows how easy it is to get stuck in a bad situation and how hard it is to see in the middle of a storm.* It also shows how attempts to make things better can actually make them worse. Likewise, sometimes making things worse can make them better.

There are also flashbacks to the family vacation. Everything seems relatively normal at first, but there are clear indications that there is something stirring under the surface. (“Can’t you just pretend to have a good time?” “Why pretend? Aren’t we doing enough pretending as it is?”) Between her mother’s chapters and the day-by-day reveal of the trip to Mexico, we get a clearer picture of why Sarah is so depressed.
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But now it’s been so long that if I bring it up, I’ll look like a girl who can’t let go of things. Teenage girls always have to let go of things. If we bring up anything, people say we’re bitches who can’t just drop it. (Sarah)

I identified with twenty-three-year-old Sarah at first, because I didn’t know if would be interested in sixteen-year-old Sarah for the entire book! Like the protagonist in We Are the Ants, Sarah is depressed and expresses repetitive thoughts. She has received so many (unintentionally) damaging messages from trusted adults, that she now feels very little control over her life. She wants to disappear and is no longer interested in the hobbies she used to love. Sarah knows that “breaking your brain is the same as breaking your arm”, but she still feels shame about her situation. Sarah initially sees her problems as too small to bother anyone with, but she learns that her problems do matter. She doesn’t have to be strong and deal with it alone. It’s refreshing that romance was not part of this book. Sarah’s potential recovery has to come from within herself with the support of her family.

Here’s why I like making things. I like making things because when I was born, everything I was born into was already made for me. Art let me surround myself with something different. Something new. Something real. Something that was mine. I don’t know if this means I could also be a competent architect. Or a car mechanic. Or a carpenter. I just like constructing new things that are real. I believe this is a side effect of growing from seed in soil made of lies. I believe this is a side effect of being born into ruins—this need for construction. (Sarah)

Still Life with Tornado deals with mental health, the many forms of abuse, and family issues. Sarah’s story is much darker than mine, but I could relate to the disillusionment that springs from a confusing parental situation that’s never directly addressed. I loved the concept of different Sarahs, the way art played a part in the story, and Sarah’s realizations at the end. If you liked We Are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson, you might be interested in this book.

You can’t change people with love. It doesn’t work that way. (Helen)

* I was reminded of a quote from Cruel Beautiful World: “You don’t know what you’re seeing sometimes, when you see it …..You don’t know how bad it can get.”

Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are. —BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

Ruth, a black nurse, is forbidden from caring for a white supremacist’s newborn. An unfortunate set of circumstances leads to Ruth being left alone with the baby for a short period of time. The baby goes into cardiac distress under her watch and she hesitates. The infant’s file strictly states that African American personnel aren’t allowed to care for the baby. Should she follow orders or intervene? When the baby dies, Ruth is held responsible and a difficult legal battle ensues.

Babies are such blank slates. They don’t come into this world with the assumptions their parents have made, or the promises their church will give, or the ability to sort people into groups they like and don’t like. They don’t come into this world with anything, really, except a need for comfort. And they will take it from anyone, without judging the giver.
I wonder how long it takes before the polish given by nature gets worn off by nurture.

There are three alternating perspectives in this book:

• Ruth has done everything “right” in her life, yet she is suddenly about to lose everything. People who she thought were her friends are quick to turn their back on her or dismiss her experiences. The situation forces her to view all the events of her life in a different light. “I was never a member of any of those communities. I was tolerated, but not welcomed. I was, and will always be, different from them.” She feels frustrated and distrustful, as her whole world is turned upside down.

• Turk, a white supremacist, is overwhelmed with grief over the loss of his baby. He finds a perfect scapegoat in Ruth. I have to give the author credit for this character. I hated being in his chapters so much that I had to keep checking to see how many minutes I had left! Not only do Turk and his wife have abhorrent thoughts, but they also commit violent acts. Some of the most interesting parts of Turk’s chapters were the details about the movement’s attempt to blend in with the general population, their recruitment methods, and the exploration of what causes a person to become so full of hate. Turk has some humanizing moments: the grief over the loss of his child, elements of his and his wife’s love story, and a reminiscence about a stint in jail. It shows he has the capability for love and compassion, so maybe he’s not a complete lost cause.

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Ruth’s confusion was understandable in this no-win situation. I found this news article about patients refusing care from nurses and it’s just as confusing in real life! Ruth’s supervisor Marie made a major judgment call without establishing any protocol. Turk seems more horrified by Ruth performing CPR on his son than he is at her hesitation. His fixation on CPR especially annoyed me, especially because I knew how it was going to play out in court. The villainous risk management lawyer Carla Luongo wasted no time making Ruth the scapegoat with absolutely zero subtlety. She only appears twice in the beginning, but she annoyed me enough that I still remember her!

It is remarkable how events and truths can be reshaped, like wax that’s sat too long in the sun. There is no such thing as a fact. There is only how you saw the fact, in a given moment. How you reported the fact. How your brain processed that fact. There is no extrication of the storyteller from the story.

If you are wary of Jodi Picoult, I’ll warn you that it is still very Picoult-ish. However, I liked it so much more than My Sister’s Keeper. I decided to read it because of the fantastic reviews and I can’t resist the medical/courtroom combo. I love a dramatic legal battle and Picoult certainly delivers! The jury selection and courtroom scenes were my favorite parts. It was interesting how the issue of race had to be tiptoed around so that the people who held so much power over Ruth’s fate wouldn’t get uncomfortable and hold it against her. I also liked how the “days of the week” argument tied in.

“Equality is treating everyone the same. But equity is taking differences into account, so everyone has a chance to succeed.” I look at her. “The first one sounds fair. The second one is fair. It’s equal to give a printed test to two kids. But if one’s blind and one’s sighted, that’s not true. You ought to give one a Braille test and one a printed test, which both cover the same material.”

There’s an occasional made-for-TV/after-school-special quality that prevents me from being overly enchanted. Picoult has a message to get across and it’s not always subtle. Ruth’s sections feel stuffed with everything Picoult wanted to make me aware of and Ruth’s voice didn’t always sound natural to me. I was always jolted out of the story by the portrayals of the supporting characters, such as her politically aware sister and her son Edison (who does a complete 180). But for every scene I thought was heavy-handed (Ruth and Edison’s dinner with Kennedy’s family), there would be an authentic scene (Edison being dissuaded from asking a girl to the dance). I didn’t always buy Turk’s voice either. He was either rough-around-the-edges or thoughtful and poetic at any given moment. Most of all, the ending irritated me! She set it up well and I knew it was coming, but it was so over-the-top. Even with all that, this book still made me feel strongly. I felt so angry for what was happening to Ruth!

It is amazing how you can look in a mirror your whole life and think you are seeing yourself clearly. And then one day, you peel off a filmy gray layer of hypocrisy, and you realize you’ve never truly seen yourself at all.

In the author’s note, which is also available at her website, Picoult explains why she wrote this book and reveals details about her extensive research. I appreciate that I can recommend as a “gateway” book to the topic of racial bias and white privilege to people who might usually get defensive at the mere mention of race. (Not awesome, but it’s a thing.) Small Great Things challenges readers to confront their own bias and privileges. It discusses the extra institutional hurdles to some Americans have to overcome. It’s hard to fix something that a majority can’t admit exists, but this book shines a light on how the typical white experience is not universal. It also highlights the difference between active and passive racism. Turk is obviously a racist, but racism and racial bias aren’t always so visible. It could be as simple as silence or refusing to believe racism exists; after all, it leads to the same result as active racism. I know that I’ve been guilty of being silent and this book made me reflect on how damaging that behavior can be.

What if the puzzle of the world was a shape you didn’t fit into? And the only way to survive was to mutilate yourself, carve away your corners, sand yourself down, modify yourself to fit? How come we haven’t been able to change the puzzle instead?

Small Great Things is a thought-provoking book that is especially effective as an introduction to issues of racial bias and white privilege. I appreciate Picoult using her influence to educate people on something they may not be aware of and her book will provoke interesting discussion. I highly recommend reading Roxane Gay’s awesome analysis of this book.

If you would like to read more about the topics addressed in this book, you might be interested in Unfair: The New Science of Criminal Injustice by Adam Benforado (audiobook is available on Hoopla), You Can’t Touch My Hair: And Other Things I Still Have to Explain by Phoebe Robinson, and Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine (audiobook is available on Hoopla, 1hr 37min).

Inspiring and relatable. It made me want to work at NASA!  I would’ve had to do some serious thinking about my future career path if I’d read this book in high school!

Mike Massimino served as a NASA astronaut from 1996 to 2014. During his career he was on the crew of two spaceflights, the final two Hubble Space Telescope servicing missions. Spaceman: An Astronaut’s Unlikely Journey to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe is the story of Massimino’s life as an astronaut, from the boy with a dream in Long Island to becoming a Hubble guy, “one of the Jedi.” His path to outer space wasn’t easy; he was rejected by NASA twice. When he made the final round of astronaut selection, he almost lost the chance because of poor eyesight. (I’ve never been more invested in someone passing an eye exam!) With hard work, dedication, and the support of a team, he was able to achieve his lifelong dream.

Life is not about achieving one great thing, because once that thing is over, life keeps going. What motivates you then? The important thing is having something you love doing, and the greatest joy is that you get to wake up every day and do it.

At a press conference following the STS-109 mission, a NASA administrator tells the crowd: “Somebody asked if we’re going to send kids into space. We have sent kids into space. We sent Mike Massimino.” What makes this book so fun to read is that Mike Massimino has such a positive attitude and never lost his sense of amazement at what he was tasked to do. He displays a sincere appreciation for the planet we get to live on and a genuine commitment to seeking and sharing knowledge. He didn’t always take the ideal path, but one of the most enduring lessons of the book is that sometimes the decisions that seem like mistakes might be the things that help you out in the long-run. He shares both the successes and frustrations of his career.  Even when he officially became an astronaut there were still problems to overcome, such as finding a niche and mastering difficult skills in training. I loved that he comments on imposter syndrome. It’s comforting to know that even those at the top of their field struggle and inspiring to see how they work through those issues.

We have this idea in America of the self-made man. We love to celebrate individual achievement. We have these icons like Steve Jobs and Henry Ford and Benjamin Franklin, and we talk about how amazing it is that they did these great things and built themselves up out of nothing. I think the self-made man is a myth. I’ve never believed in it. I can honestly say that I’ve never achieved anything on my own. … I owe everything I’ve ever accomplished to the people around me—people who pushed me to be the best version of myself.

I genuinely loved the entire book, but I especially loved the parts when he officially becomes an astronaut. What’s it like to fly a supersonic T-38 jet plane? What’s the perfect soundtrack for looking out at Earth from the space shuttle? Massimino tells us all the interesting things that astronauts get to experience and sheds light on details that I wouldn’t even think to wonder about, but he also describes how all these experiences feel: the surge of panic and doubt when preparing to enter the shuttle for the first time, the overwhelming pressure of making high-stakes repairs when there’s no room for error, and the awe-inspiring feeling of floating above Earth. I felt such a rush during the spacewalks. The moment where everything he knew intellectually became amazingly and terrifyingly real brought tears to my eyes. Massimino also addresses the devastating loss of the STS-107 crew in the 2003 Columbia disaster and lets us get to know the members of that crew on a more personal level. We learn the impact the disaster had on the space program and the changes that were made to protect future crews.
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During the final Hubble repair mission in 2009, Massimino became the first person to use Twitter in outer space. He’s still active on Twitter to this day. It was refreshing to read about the positive impact of social media and how it can be used as an educational tool. I was also really impressed by the camaraderie between those working in the space industry and how everyone went above and beyond to help their colleagues, on both personal and career levels. The final Hubble Telescope servicing mission was a very stressful situation, but I really loved reading about how the whole team came together to solve the problem. 

Our sun has been there for a bazillion years, and this has been happening for a long, long time and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. People are going to come and go, live and die; bad things are going to happen and good things are going to happen. But nothing we do is going to change this cosmic dance that’s been going on since the beginning of time.

Going to space is awesome and so is this book! I’ll never work at NASA, but I felt like I did for a few hours! While most of us will never visit outer space, it’s filled with important life lessons that are applicable to everyone. Massimino really emphasizes the importance of exploration and how you can accomplish almost anything with hard work and the support of a team. This book showed me the human side of space travel and gave me a whole new appreciation for the people who risk their lives to explore the universe. I greatly admired the commitment to serving a purpose greater than oneself. I experienced a wide range of emotions while reading this book: laughter, tears, wonderment, and edge-of-my-seat suspense. I would recommend this book to everyone, but especially young people about to embark on their journey to adulthood. You might want to have the movie The Right Stuff readily available, so you can watch it when your done with the book!

Every person who goes to space, every person who gets to peek around the next corner, is someone with the potential to help change our perspective, change our relationship to the planet, change our understanding of our place in the universe. Which is why we go to space to begin with.

Side Note: If you ever get a chance to tour one of NASA’s facilities, I highly recommend it. We went on the 90-minute tram tour of Johnson Space Center and it’s by far the coolest thing I’ve done in Houston! I just found out there is an even more awesome 4-hour tour!

Antoinette Conway had always dreamed of being on the murder squad, but she’s burnt out after two years of unchallenging domestic cases and merciless harassment from her own squad mates. One morning, the gaffer hands her and her partner Stephen Moran the case of twenty-six-year-old murder victim Aislinn Murray. There’s outside pressure to charge the victim’s boyfriend and wrap up the case quickly, but not all the pieces are fitting together. It has all the attributes of a lover’s spat gone wrong, but there is very little physical evidence, the victim’s best friend alludes to the possibility secret relationship, and Conway recognizes the victim from somewhere. Could this be the big case Conway and Moran have been waiting for?

What-if-maybe crap is for weak people. It belongs to the ones who don’t have the strength to make actual situations go their way, so they have to hide away in daydreams where they can play at controlling what comes next. And that makes them even weaker. Every what-if is a gift to anyone who’s looking for a hold on you, and that means us. If a guy’s whole head is in reality, then reality is the only route we can take to get to him. If he’s letting his mind prance off down dozens of twisty hypothetical fairy tales, every one of those is a crack we can use to prize him open.

The Trespasser, the sixth in the Dublin Murder Squad series, is my first Tana French novel. It’s probably not ideal to read them out of order and I know that detectives Conway and Moran also appear in The Secret Place. However, it worked as a standalone. I didn’t ever feel lost or like I’d missed out on anything. Now I need to go back and read these in order for an even richer experience! This book felt more on the literary side than many of the mysteries I’ve read lately. There are no wasted characters and everyone has a complete personality. Even the less important characters have little quirks that make them easy to remember; one floater has an annoying (and slightly hilarious) habit of recording every single detail during an interview. I did have to take more breaks than usual while reading. It’s so dense with detail and it felt like I was following the case in real-time. When Conway and Moran weren’t making progress, neither was I! It’s the kind of mystery that you settle into and enjoy the ride, rather than a page turner. The pace did pick up around the 2/3s of the way through.

The truth is, if you don’t exist without someone else, you don’t exist at all.

It was a bit of a relief to read a book with one perspective and a linear timeline! This story is told from the perspective of Detective Antoinette Conway. She’s sarcastic and jaded. She’s always on the defensive because she’s so used to putting up with abuse from her squad. She’s convinced they’re trying to drive her off the squad and she remains hyper-vigilant, always ready for the next attack. Conway’s paranoia, plus the history with her dad, add an interesting layer to this mystery. Conway has a hardened shell, but every once and a while she lets us see a glimpse of the wide-eyed detective she once was. There’s a part where she reveals her daydreams about her and her partner’s future: “Once or twice— more— I caught myself daydreaming like a sappy teenager about our future together: about someday when we would get the decent cases, the genius plans we’d dream up to trap the cunning psychos, the interrogations that would go down in squad history. Big tough Conway going all misty-eyed; how the lads would have laughed.” It’s such a simple dream and in the context of all her tough talk, it made me develop a real soft spot for her. She still has a spark of love for her job and I really wanted her to get her big break and some relief from the bullying!
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You can knock down a genuine belief, if you load up with enough facts that contradict it; but a belief that’s built on nothing except who the person wants to be, nothing can crumble that.

Conway’s partner Stephen Moran is a likable people-pleaser who is still able to dream big. Unsurprisingly, his interrogation technique is “Nice Boy Next Door.” While Conway is resigned to the Aislinn Murray case being like one of their usual domestic cases, Moran convinces her that there may be more to the case. The partnership between Conway and Moran works because they have completely opposite personalities and they balance each other out so well. Their non-verbal communication makes it seem like they have their own secret language. My favorite parts were the suspect interviews, because I loved the back and forth between the detectives as they tried to manipulate the suspects into submission. As much as I loved the partnership between Conway and Moran, the interviews Conway did with Detective Breslin were my favorites. I loved the dynamic between their “Cool Girl” and “Chief Jock” techniques.

The thing about daydreams is that they don’t last. One brush up against reality, and that’s the end of them.

This book is about the consequences of manipulating other people’s lives by creating scripts for them to live through and getting caught up in stories we create for ourselves. Even Conway, who despises people who live in a fantasy world, has conjured up stories of her own and tries to uphold a certain image. The Trespasser is an interesting story from beginning to end with fascinating characters. It’s detailed in a way that made me feel like part of the squad and like I was invested in the outcome. I regret putting off this series for so long, but I’m so happy I have five more of these to read!

Eleven-year-old Anna O’ Donnell insists that she’s been living off the manna of heaven for the last four months and no longer needs food to survive. Her parents and community seem to blindly accept the claim. People travel from great distances for a chance to interact with this living miracle. To appease any skeptics, a committee hires two watchers to observe Anna over a two-week period. One of the watchers is Lib Wright, a nurse who worked under Florence Nightingale during the Crimean War. She considers resigning as soon as she finds out the details of the job, but decides to keep her commitment with the assumption that she’ll be able expose the hoax in couple of days.

A fast didn’t go fast; it was the slowest thing there was. Fast meant a door shut fast, firmly. A fastness, a fortress. To fast was to hold fast to emptiness, to say no and no and no again.

Lib arrives on the scene ready to expose the girl’s deception. She searches every nook and cranny for the tiniest of crumbs and keeps meticulous records of all the girl’s vital signs. She is concerned about the integrity of the investigation, because she doesn’t fully trust the the second watcher, a nun, to be as scrupulous with her observations. As Lib spends time with the girl, her attitude softens and her concerns become more complicated. Emma Donoghue writes her characters so empathetically that they make my heart ache. I felt every bit of Lib’s psychological journey as if it were my own. I desperately clung to the hope that one of the adults in Anna’s life would take control of the situation. It was frustrating to watch the obviously capable nurse being disregarded and being forced to make “her voice as soft and womanly as she could” in hopes that the “important men” would listen to her concerns. Even though I could relate to Lib’s incredulity, I liked when her preconceived notions were called into question. The skeptical journalist William Byrne makes her confront her homeland’s part in intensifying the culture she has been so prejudiced against. She admonishes one character for telling Anna a “lurid” religious tale, but she discovers that she had greatly misinterpreted the situation: “I don’t think you understand our stories, ma’am.” 

“Do you know what indelible means?” [Lib]
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The mystery of the girl is intriguing, but there’s also an interesting historical context. In the Authors Note, Donoghue tells how she was inspired by the phenomenon of Fasting Girls between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries. The characters that Lib encounters were affected by the Irish famine, which ended seven years before Anna’s fasting began. Lib’s background leads to interesting reflections on the many lessons she learned from Florence Nightingale. The setting of Athlone, Ireland made me feel confined. Most of the scenes are set in Anna’s bedroom or in the spirit grocery that Lib is staying in, with occasional jaunts into the bog lands. It feels even more isolating because of Lib’s culture shock. Lib is an unwelcome outsider trying to navigate this unfamiliar world where everyone seems to be talking in code, a strange mix of Catholicism and superstition. Language is a very important element of the story. There are many miscommunications and misinterpretations. Each chapter begins with a single word and it’s multiple definitions, calling attention to the numerous ways that words and phrases can be interpreted. This also comes across in the riddles that Lib uses to entertain Anna.

Like small gods, children formed their miniature worlds out of clay, or even just words. To them, the truth was never simple.

Lib spends her two weeks in Athlone grappling with the incredible situation she has been thrust into and attempting to logically find a solution to this real-life riddle. This slow-building mystery had me riveted! All the questions I needed answered kept me captivated to the very end. Why did Anna suddenly decide to stop eating? What are the potential motives for the adults in her life to play along with a charade that would endanger a child? How has she survived four months if she has only consumed spoonfuls of water? How have they been sneaking her food and who is responsible? Is it possible that she really is a miracle? Will Anna survive the fast? Will Lib convince anyone to listen to her concerns? How will she overcome her ethical dilemmas? Great characters, well-drawn setting, and interesting moral and ethical issues.

3.5 Stars. Solidly entertaining crime novel that doesn’t make the detective work easy for you.

Handsome and charismatic doctor Hamish Wolfe was convicted of murdering three overweight women. He’s also suspected in a fourth case involving a missing woman whose body hasn’t been found. His only hope for exoneration is Maggie Rose, a true crime writer and defense attorney with a history of overturning convictions. She’s hesitant to take on his case, but she can’t resist his charms.

No one should be convicted on the strength of a flawed case. The best, strongest, soundest system of justice in the world is the one that allows itself to be scrutinized and challenged. I scrutinize. I challenge. (Maggie)

I read Daisy in Chains within twenty-four hours, so it’s certainly compelling! The pacing was perfect and Bolton kept me alert. Every time I thought I’d figured a character out, something would happen to make me doubt myself. This book is perfect for people who hate when they successfully guess the ending! The framework of clues and the timing of their reveals was masterful. There were an abundance of lightbulbs moments where I later realized “Oh! That’s why this scene was so strange!” or “Oh, that’s why there was such an emphasis was on ______!” It’s set around the Somerset coast and the parts about the area’s cave system are really interesting. Letters and articles are interspersed between the chapters. Maggie is considering writing a book about Hamish’s case and my favorite inclusion was the chapters from the rough draft.

If you have ever wondered what hell is like, let me tell you. It is knowing that one final blow will destroy you, and that you will spend the rest of your existence waiting for that blow to strike. (Hamish)

The chapters alternate between the perspectives of Maggie, Detective Sergeant Pete Weston, and Hamish. Maggie is an interesting lady! She has a no-nonsense attitude, a blunt manner of speaking, and blue hair. This book is a standalone, but I liked her enough that I was hoping that she was part of a series! Detective Sergeant Pete is likable and seems like a good guy. His relationship with Maggie is an uneasy one, especially since she is investigating a case that he wants to remain in the past. They don’t fully trust each other, but there’s a mutual respect between them. Hamish is a difficult one to figure out. Sometimes he acts like a caring doctor who was wrongly accused, but other times he comes across as cold-blooded and manipulative.

I really enjoyed when Maggie would visit Hamish in prison. There’s a strange electricity when they are together and I couldn’t figure out who was manipulating who. Sometimes it seemed like Maggie was getting caught up in Hamish’s web of deceit, but it also seemed like she was playing her own game! Maggie also has interesting interactions with a group named the Wolfe Pack, a colorful group of characters who are committed to proving Hamish’s innocence.
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!——-Non-spoilery assessment of my feelings at the end, but skip the next part if you want to know absolutely nothing.——–!

[spoiler]It did lose me some at the end. I prefer stories that are either 100% ridiculous or dish out the ridiculousness gradually. This one was so serious the entire time and then piles on all the crazy in the final chapters. There are several gasp-worthy moments right on top of each other and I think the final reveal was a little overboard for me. While I love how Bolton laid out her clues, I still finished feeling like I was lied to. I’m not sure if that’s a fair assessment or not, but I didn’t change my mind after rereading a chapter that led me astray. The story has so many layers that I’m not sure I finished with a complete understanding of every aspect, such as character histories and how everything fell into place perfectly. I’m really curious to see how it holds up with a full reread. This would be a great book to read with a buddy, so you have someone to discuss it with![/spoiler]

!——–It’s safe now!——–!

‘I don’t need to believe in your innocence,’ [Maggie] says. ‘Just to convince others of it.’

Serious issues are addressed during the story, like fat-shaming and women who fall in love with prisoners. I didn’t draw any strong conclusions on those subjects in relation to the story, but the topics are very interesting. Daisy in Chains is an overall enjoyable read and a great book to curl up with on a rainy day. I’m happy to have another author to add to my list for when I’m in the mood for crime fiction.