With the Booker dozen under my belt, I decided to swing for the National Book Award . (I’d already read two, so I figured why not.) First up is Angela Flournoy’s longlisted The Wilderness (Mariner 2025). An ambitious novel, it felt at times much longer than its 290 pages. It’s weighty, with so much heartContinue reading “THE WILDERNESS – Angela Flournoy”
Tag Archives: Women’s Lit
MAAME – Jessica George
“I love you, Dad. Very much, okay?” Without meaning to, I’ve been on a reading journey of books about young women in the UK “growing up;” Cassandra in Reverse, The Rachel Incident, and my most recent read, Maame are all “later in life” bildungsromans that make comparisons to Bridget Jones’s Diary a no-brainer – especiallyContinue reading “MAAME – Jessica George”
THE BANDIT QUEENS – Parini Shroff
“She’d first eaten her father’s salt, then her husband’s; it was time to eat her own.” “If she was this lonely, Geeta berated herself, she should get a damn dog.” Take “Goodbye Earl” (or, more recently, Taylor Swift’s take on the same theme with “No Body, No Crime”), set it in India and change MaryContinue reading “THE BANDIT QUEENS – Parini Shroff”
THE SOCIETY OF SHAME – Jane Roper
The average menstrual cycle lasts 28 days. Jane Roper’s upcoming release, The Society of Shame (Anchor Books, anticipated release date 4/4/2023) primarily takes place over the course of 28 days, and opens with a perimenopausal woman, Kathleen Held, finding her husband, who is running for US Senate, on the front lawn in his underwear, withContinue reading “THE SOCIETY OF SHAME – Jane Roper”
THE MOST LIKELY CLUB – Elyssa Friedland
Elyssa Friedland’s The Most Likely Club (Berkley 2022) is a fun little romp about a group of childhood friends in their early forties who’ve realized life didn’t quite turn out as they imagined when they were on the cusp of adulthood. The novel alternates between the four friends, Melissa, Tara, Priya, and Suki – aContinue reading “THE MOST LIKELY CLUB – Elyssa Friedland”
LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY – Bonnie Garmus
Bonnie Garmus’s Lessons in Chemistry (Doubleday 2022) proved to be quite a timely read considering the recent SCOTUS leak – not because it features an abortion, but because it is wrapped in the confines of discrimination that have long held women hostage. I work in a male-dominated field. I frequently have clients assume I’m theContinue reading “LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY – Bonnie Garmus”
BLACK GIRLS MUST BE MAGIC – Jayne Allen
I finally got my hands on Jayne Allen’s Black Girls Must Be Magic (HarperCollins 2022 – originally published as Black Girls Must Die Exhausted: And Baby Makes Two in 2019 by Quality Black Books). The follow-up to Black Girls Must Die Exhausted continues Allen’s love letter to Black women, and all women. The second installmentContinue reading “BLACK GIRLS MUST BE MAGIC – Jayne Allen”
THAT SUMMER – Jennifer Weiner
The title of Jennifer Weiner’s That Summer (Atria Books 2021) immediately brought a smile to my face as I recalled another That Summer. When the novel started with “She is fifteen years old that summer,” I was reminded even more of Sarah Dessen’s 1996 novel about fifteen-year-old Haven, a novel set at the beach duringContinue reading “THAT SUMMER – Jennifer Weiner”
SANKOFA – Chibundu Onuzo
Chibundu Onuzo’s Sankofa (Catapult, 2021) is one of the best books I’ve read in 2021. It would have been in my top three but for the last quarter of the novel, which I don’t think carries the same power and charm as the rest of the work. Regardless, it’s a fantastic read about family, belonging,Continue reading “SANKOFA – Chibundu Onuzo”
BLACK GIRLS MUST DIE EXHAUSTED – Jayne Allen
Jayne Allen’s Black Girls Must Die Exhausted (Harper, 2021 – first published in 2018) is unapologetically “black,” but it didn’t choose to be so – it just is, and it’s taken far too long for a book like this just to exist on the same shelves as books by white authors about white women withContinue reading “BLACK GIRLS MUST DIE EXHAUSTED – Jayne Allen”
A Girl Named Tommi 