Thoughts on Reading and Two Short Reviews
Reading was my second love, after theatre. As a very young child, I didn’t understand why I needed to learn how to read. I distinctly remember thinking, ‘If my mom and dad can both read and they take care of me, why do I also need to know how to read?’
Obviously I learned how, but I didn’t really become a reader until I read the Harry Potter series in the summer between second and third grade. I read them because I was made fun of at school for being too scared to see the films, and you might find it’s a bit of theme in my life to become obsessed with things to prove people wrong (see also: Game of Thrones and distance running).
After that I read voraciously. I read under my desk in elementary school, and by late elementary school and middle school when I discovered YA literature, all bets were off. In high school and college, I wasn’t able to read as much for pleasure, but still cherished the various books I chose for myself over breaks from school. After graduation and upon moving to New York, thanks to the New York Public Library and countless hours spent commuting on the subway, my love for reading was quickly rekindled, and I doubled down on reading this past year.
After literally a decade of trying, in 2020 I read fifty books. It only took a global pandemic and the complete deterioration of my personal and professional life, but I finally did it, and it feels like an achievement. Do I have Thoughts™️ about how the gamification of reading via purely quantitative measurements proliferated by (Amazon owned) Goodreads is intrinsically linked to toxic productivity and internalized capitalism? Yes! Did I still participate? Also yes, because people are complicated. In 2021, I have set myself the challenge of reading sixty books, and considering the vaccine seams a little bit further out of reach than anticipated, I think this will be an achievable goal.
In many ways I read as escapism, and love reading books that take place in faraway places (real or fictional) or in different eras of history. I also read contemporary literature fiction and memoirs, and occasionally re-read childhood favorites or classics. I don’t give myself too many rules or personal challenges (aside from aforementioned quantitative jokes), but I do try to always be reading one non-fiction book and one fiction book at the same time and hope to average out one non-fiction book for every two novels I read. Because I not only read for escapism, but also to deepen my understanding of the world we live in and stretch my empathy muscles, I also aim for at least 50% of the books I read to be written by an author who has at least one identity I do not share, whether that means they’re a person of color, queer, or trans/non-binary/gender non-conforming. Straight white men don’t count, because, obviously. I also find that I generally gravitate towards books by and about women, and this is a habit I don’t have a need or desire to correct.
If you want to see more of my reading journey or read reviews of past books I have enjoyed, follow me on Goodreads or The Storygraph, a new Goodreads-esque platform that is not corporate owned and was founded by a Black woman. I currently use both, with hopes to phase out Goodreads as The Storygraph becomes more popular.
I’ll leave you with my reviews of the first two books I’ve read this year. Spoiler free! Happy reading everyone.
American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson
Based on true events (how true, I have no idea), American Spy is the story of Marie Mitchell, the titular American spy who goes undercover to aid American efforts to overthrow Thomas Sankara, the president of Burkina Faso in the late 1980s. What makes this Cold War era spy novel unique, aside from having no action in the USSR, is that Marie is a Black women fighting for a government that doesn't fight for her.
While the book was slow to start and I personally felt like it took a while for me to be grounded in the time period, I was intrigued by the premise. Parts of the book are in second person as Marie is writing her story so her sons know about her life in the event that something happens to her in the field. This gave me the dual feeling of this book being both for me and not for me, when she would address "you" I felt like I was being told a story by an old friend, but when she would specifically give her sons words of wisdom about how to live in America as a Black man, I was reminded that this book is also not for me and speaks to an experience I will never understand.
As the plot unraveled, I found this book to be quite a page turner, even if I didn't always fully understand the politics. When I finished the book, I found myself longing for a sequel and/or a movie or mini-series adaptation starring Kerry Washington as Marie Mitchell. Just a suggestion!
Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay
I always feel a little weird reviewing memoirs because I feel like I'm passing judgement on things that happened in someone's life. Just want to clarify that that's not what I'm doing!
Roxane Gay is one of the prominent writers of her generation, but I didn't really realize before I read this book that because of her medium I didn't know what she looked like. This book is about her experience as a "super morbidly obese" person (her words/the medical establishment's words), and how sexual trauma she experienced as a pre-teen still impacts her body and her life on a daily basis.
Gay is an incredibly gifted essayist, I'm not saying anything new here. She is also super accessible in her style and prose. While the whole book is worth a read, I found the essays about her mistreatment in medical settings and her more positive experience with both doctors and the support of her family and friends in the aftermath of breaking an ankle, as well as how her fatness makes her aware of accessibility issues to be very eye-opening. Of course, her reflections on her assault were very impactful and often harrowing as well.
Content warnings: This book contains detailed descriptions of rape and eating disorders.