What I Read and Loved | January 2024
Seven books, a fun gadget, and newish music
The way I feel about January is the way Michael Scott feels about Toby in The Office.
Despite our rocky relationship, January was good for one thing: reading. I read seven books and enjoyed each one, especially my first read of 2024, Open Water. I'm so excited to talk about the books in this post and share my thoughts. I hope you're inspired to add some of these titles to your TBR.
Open Water is a slim but powerful novel written in the second person. It follows an unnamed protagonist, a Black photographer in his mid-twenties who lives in London. He meets a woman at a pub one night, and they have an instant connection. They become best friends and slowly fall in love.
This debut novel is a love story and a frank look at being a Black man in the contemporary world. The protagonist struggles with being afraid of the police after seeing other Black men unnecessarily searched or even shot or killed. He struggles to belong despite being seen and loved by his partner. Open Water also celebrates Black art and culture and is full of references to various Black creators.
Caleb Azumah Nelson's prose is stunning. He often repeats words or phrases, which creates a lyrical writing style that's beautiful to read. I read a library copy, so I took pictures of several pages, wanting to write down certain quotes that struck me, like this one:
To be you is to apologize and often that apology comes in the form of suppression. That suppression is indiscriminate. That suppression knows not when it will spill.
What you're trying to say is that it's easier for you to hide in your own darkness, than emerge cloaked in your own vulnerability. Not better, but easier. However, the longer you hold it in the more likely you are to suffocate.
At some point, you must breathe.
I adore this book and am so thankful to have started my 2024 reading with such an excellent novel.
Study for Obedience is a complex novel that doesn't lend itself to a concise summary, but I'll do my best. The book is narrated by an unnamed woman as she moves to a northern country to live with her brother as his housekeeper. She's intensely loyal to her family, driven by a sense of duty. As she arrives in this new place where she doesn't speak the language, the narrator feels like an Other, certain the townspeople don't like her and blame her for odd events that have been happening with some of the local farm animals. This novel contains minimal plot but is a moving allegory about marginalization, identity, and the boxes women are frequently forced into.
Sarah Bernstein has crafted a book that won't be for everyone. She writes with long, run-on sentences and uses complex vocabulary. (I'm thankful for Kindle's dictionary feature, which I used often while reading this book.) Study for Obedience isn't an easy read, but it's worthwhile for patient readers who love character studies and language. The prose is beautiful, and the novel is full of passages that demand to be reread and savored, like this:
And so as I tramped daily through the woods, feeling for once in the world, I told myself over and over that I must remember this moment, here, now, a moment which could not last and would inevitably be followed by an unhappiness that would be commensurate with if not exceeding it in strength, and that I must therefore carry it with me, the knowledge that once, for a time, for a series of hours, even stretches of days, I had seen what happiness might look like, that would have to be enough.
Despite not understanding the ending, I love this odd little book and am thankful I read it.
This Country is a moving graphic memoir about the author's time living in rural Idaho. Navied Mahdavian and his wife were living in California, but they longed for adventure and change. They decided to relocate and build a cabin in Idaho, even though they had little to no experience building fires, hunting, guns, or traveling in the snow. They met neighbors who were kind and welcoming, but Mahdavian, who's Iranian, also faced racism and came face-to-face with beliefs he found abhorrent. When the couple decided to start a family, they had to figure out if Idaho was where they wanted to raise their child.
This book could have been a quick read in which Californias diss rural life and the people who occupy those spaces, but instead, it's a nuanced and thoughtful look at how the places we live affect our opportunities, beliefs, and everyday lives.
The Talk is another graphic memoir, and this one is about Darrin Bell. He grew up in Los Angeles with a Black father, a white mother, and an older brother. He wasn't allowed to have a realistic-looking toy gun. He was harassed by the police as a child. His parents had to guide him and remind him things were different for Black boys. When Bell has a son of his own, he's forced to confront his memories and consider the conversations he's going to have to have with his children about Black lives in modern America.
The Talk is an excellent memoir that brought me to tears. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It was published for adults, but this would make a great read for teens, too.
After reading some heavy books, I wanted something a bit lighter, so I picked up My Husband, a French novel translated into English. The story revolves around a woman who loves her husband. In fact, she loves him so much that she's downright obsessed with him. The couple has two children, but in the wife's mind, the kids get in the way of her time with their father.
This woman's obsession is darkly funny and far more complicated than it appears. I liked Maud Ventura's unique take on motherhood and what it means to be a wife. If you like fast-paced stories with unhinged characters, this book is for you.
There There follows several Native characters in Oakland during the leadup to a big powwow. Each chapter reads like a short story and focuses on one person, but readers begin to see how the characters connect as the book progresses. Tommy Orange writes about teen boys, single moms, addicts, and an aspiring filmmaker. Their stories are real and raw, full of loss, trauma, and desperation.
Orange writes beautifully, crafting several fully-formed characters in less than 300 pages. It was challenging to keep track of how everyone was intertwined, but even when I wasn't 100% sure how people overlapped, I felt completely engrossed by their stories. The follow-up to There There, Wandering Stars, comes out later this month, and I can't wait.
Come and Get It is the story of three women on the University of Arkansas campus: a professor, an RA, and a dorm resident. Their lives intersect when Agatha, the professor, visits the dorm to interview some residents about weddings. After talking to several interviewees, Agatha is intrigued by how they talk about money. She pivots her research and decides to write about that topic instead. Millie, the RA, helps her out, giving Agatha access to the dorm, where she's able to listen to conversations between the roommates next door to Millie, including Kennedy, a socially awkward woman who left her last college because of an incident that's hinted at but not disclosed until later in the book.
Chapters alternate between the three women, revealing their backgrounds and their current journeys. I found the novel's first quarter to be quite slow, as Reid takes her time fleshing out her three protagonists. As the story progressed, I enjoyed it much more, though I ended up disappointed by the book’s resolution and wished the characters were more interesting and fleshed out. There was a lot of build-up to a climax that didn't seem exciting or satisfying.
There are moments in Come and Get It where Reid shines, particularly during humorous scenes, like one in which two couples have a tense, awkward dinner together. Reid can be darkly funny, and she has thoughtful commentary on class and race, but those thoughts were more potent in her debut, Such a Fun Age, than in this novel. I liked this book, and I'm glad I read it, but the slow pace and lack of character development were disheartening.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an early copy of this book.
What I Loved
GADGET: Canon Ivy 2
In December, I was looking on Instagram and TikTok for book journal inspiration when I saw several people using the Canon Ivy 2 to print photos for their spreads. This little printer is about the size of a cell phone, doesn’t use ink, and prints on paper sheets with a sticker back. You can print just one photo or use the Canon app to create different layouts. I LOVE THIS THING SO MUCH. I do use it for book covers to add to my journal, but you could also print photos of your friends and family, or even a delicious taco. The choice is yours.
MUSIC: boygenius
I started the year by listening to a lot of boygenius, a group comprised of Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, and Julien Baker, all of whom are also solo artists I like.
MUSIC: Jess Ray
Even though I love Jesus, I don’t listen to much Christian music. A lot of the modern stuff feels repetitive and generic to me, more concerned about the message than the art. Thanks to a collaboration with the singer/songwriter Sandra McCracken, I stumbled upon Jess Ray. I fell in love with her voice and the folksy, authentic way she writes and performs. She has two new albums out, but I really like her 2015 release, Sentimental Creatures, particularly the song “Runaway.”
What I Wrote
Here's a list of my Saturday posts in case you missed one:
What did you read and love in January? Leave your thoughts in the comments. I’d love it if you shared my work with someone who might enjoy it. Thanks for reading!
I’m half way through You Could Make This Place Beautiful, by Maggie Smith.
Recommended by a beautiful talented friend of mine!🥰 I love it.
Also, I hope SPL orders The Talk for it’s middle schools! I’ll recommend it.😊
I am so glad to see the shout out to Caleb Azumah Nelson's Open Water. I read it when it came out in the US and was absolutely blown away. I hope it gets for attention in America.