Category: literature

book-review, literature

By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult

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The more things change the more they stay the same. Melina Green is a playwright who believes she can’t get anything seen on stage due to a scathing comment from a renowned critic during a contest when she was still in college.

When she wins a contest to put on a play after her best friend submits her manuscript under a male pseudonym, art and life become similar. The play is about a distant relative Emilia Bassano, who lived in the late 1500s. A ward of English aristocrats taught the arts and a gift for storytelling, she was forced to be the mistress to Lord Chamberlain. The tale that unfolds portrays her as Shakespear’s Dark Lady. Her story, intertwined with Melina’s, is about a writer needing to hide behind a male face/name to be considered as talented.

Interesting premise. I preferred Emilia’s story to Melina’s, which seemed very self-centered and whiny. The truth is still here, as there are still so many women publishing under her first initials only (example: JK Rowlings)

Black Experience, book-review, books, literature, reading, Women's literature

What ever happened to Kitty Karr? by Crystal Smith Paul

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This novel is a story told by two people – Kitty Karr, a star actress, and her former co-star’s daughter, Elise St John. When you start you are with Elise, and you are sent in circles trying to figure out who she is, how she is connected, and why we should care. The Kitty Karr parts are fascinating, learning how she came to California in a long and winding fashion. It is even more circuitous to finding out the relationship to Elise St John.

In the end, this was an easily guessed premise that has been used many times. I did, however, enjoy Kitty’s story. Elise’s seemed too contrived.

literature, Women's literature

The Book Club for Troublesome Women by Marie Bostwick 

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Set in a planned suburb in 1960s Northern Virginia, this story follows four women come to feel held back by the strict rules and expectations of the time. Each woman came to the neighborhood for different reasons, but all of them are unhappy in their own way.

Margaret feels bored and restless. She wants more from life than baking the perfect cake or hosting the perfect dinner. With her kids in school and her marriage feeling strained, she decides to start a book club to meet other women and use her mind again. She invites Charlotte, the mysterious new neighbor from New York, who agrees to come if the first book is
The Feminine Mystique.

Viv, a former Army nurse and mother of six, is excited to finally have time for herself now that her youngest is in school. She and her husband still share a strong, loving bond, even in the middle of their busy home life.

Bitsy is the newest and youngest member of the group. Recently married to an older man, she feels lost and unsure of her place in this new community.

As the women read the book, they begin to see that their private frustrations are shared by many others. They start questioning the roles they’ve been told to accept and begin pushing against the limits placed on them. Through the book club and the feminist books that are chosen, they support each other as each woman finds her voice and begins shaping a life that feels true to who she is.

This is a story about recognizing that women’s roles were too confining—and about the strength that comes from friendship, honesty, and choosing your own path. The book club becomes the support system they all needed to stand up for themselves.

books, Historical Fiction, literature, reading, Women's literature

The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon

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Inspired by the life of Martha Ballard, a well‑known midwife from the 1700s, this book gives a close look at a world where women had to live very carefully. They worked hard at home, supported their husbands, raised their children, and went to church. Anything outside those roles was risky. A woman’s word was rarely trusted. She could only speak in court if her husband stood beside her. Even years of hands‑on experience meant less than a man’s formal education. And if a woman became pregnant outside of marriage, she carried all the blame and shame.

In this setting, Martha Ballard is asked to examine the body of a man pulled from the river. With no doctor in town, her experience as a midwife made her the closest thing to a medical expert. The dead man was a well‑known citizen who had recently been accused of a violent rape. One of the other accused men—the town magistrate—decides that a newly arrived doctor should give the official opinion instead. This doctor immediately contradicts Martha’s conclusion that the man was murdered.

Against this backdrop, we see Martha support and protect women through her work as a midwife, pushing back against male arrogance and sexism. We also see her try to raise her children, especially her sons, to be good and responsible people. Her husband loved her and even taught her to read and write, which gave her opportunities most women of the time did not have.

Some of the conversations between the Ballards, and between groups of women, felt more modern than I expected, which made me wonder how much creative license the author used. Still, the story was interesting and worth reading. I do prefer her other book, The Wife, The Maid, and The Mistress. That was really good.

Asian Culture, Asian Culture, books, literature, read around the world, reading, Uncategorized

Amanat: Women’s Writing from Kazakhstan by Various Authors

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I’ve been trying to read books from around the world to learn about different cultures, and that led me to this collection of stories by women authors from Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan is in Central Asia and is bordered by Russia to the north, China to the east, and Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, the Aral Sea, and Turkmenistan to the south.

The stories in this book were originally written in both Russian and Kazakh, and they span many different time periods. It seemed to me that the language used in each story might reflect the political leadership at the time it was written, though that’s just my impression. Each story offers a small window into the country’s culture and traditions. Together, they show powerful moments of what life was like for women in different eras.

If you enjoy learning about people around the world—and seeing how our lives can be both similar and different—this collection is a meaningful and eye‑opening read

books, Family Drama, literature, reading

Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout

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Elizabeth Strout brings many of her familiar characters back together in Crosby, Maine. By pulling in people and histories from her earlier books, she continues the character‑driven storytelling she’s known for.

This time, Lucy Barton and her ex‑husband William, Bob Burgess and his wife Margaret, and Olive Kitteridge and her friend Isabelle Goodrow all end up in the same orbit. It’s an unusual mix, and even when I tried to map out how everyone was connected, it still felt tangled. What holds the book together is the way these characters pair off and share stories about other people. There is a lot of this. Bob hears about his sister‑in‑law’s declining health from his sister instead of his brother. Olive learns about Isabelle’s future living situation from the retirement‑home staff. Bob hears about Lucy’s plans from William. Almost everything comes secondhand, like gossip passed along before reaching the source. It made me want to know the full truth behind each story.

Each character is trying to understand not only their own place in the world but also what life means more broadly. Lucy and Olive meet to talk about “unrecorded lives,” hoping to shine light on people who might otherwise be forgotten. The fear of not being remembered—or not mattering—runs through many of Strout’s stories about these women, and it feels like the force behind their need to tell and retell these moments.

Bob’s murder case also ties into this theme of being seen. The young man accused of killing his mother has lived a life mostly unnoticed while caring for her. Bob helps bring him into a world he has been shut out of. This storyline requires action based on what Bob observes in the present, while many of the other stories rely on looking back at things that have already happened.

I enjoyed reading about these people, but this is a very contemplative book.

book-review, books, Family Drama, literature, reading, romance

Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reed

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This story explores the expectations society places on women and the personal cost of trying to meet them. It takes place in the male‑dominated world of 1980s space exploration, where women are only beginning to break through. Reading it reminds us how much has changed in the last 40 years.

The book uses two timelines that eventually come together. This structure shows how each choice Joan Goodwin makes leads her to the moment she is living now. The back‑and‑forth kept me engaged, trying to connect her past to her present and guess what would happen next.

Joan tells her own story. As a child, she loved the stars and pushed through tough science classes to become an astronomer. She earned her doctorate and became a professor at Rice University. She was proud of what she had achieved and didn’t expect to go any further. Is it a mirror opposite of her sister, Barbara, who challenged rules in her own way but still felt trapped by society’s expectations. Barbara’s daughter, Franny, is raised by both her mother and Joan.

Everything changes when Barbara finds an ad calling for women to apply to NASA and shares it with Joan. Joan applies on a whim, never thinking she’ll be chosen. But she is—and suddenly she must put her own goals first. As she steps into this new world, her relationships shift, especially with her sister. Joan begins to see how often she lets others define her place in their lives.

During astronaut training, Joan forms a new circle of friends—Hank Redmond, John Griffin, Lydia Danes, Donna Fitzgerald, and Vanessa Ford. They help her see new possibilities for her life. As her love for space grows, so does her sense of self. When she falls in love for the first time, she again faces pressure to hide who she is and fit into a role others expect.

When the two timelines finally meet, Joan understands what she wants, who she is, and what she stands for. She stays true to herself and supports the people she loves as they try to do the same.

book-review, books, Family Drama, literature, reading

Peace Like a River by Leif Enger

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This novel is a tribute to family, faith, and love. Told through the voice of 11‑year‑old Reuben Land, the story begins with the miracle of his birth. His father, Jeremiah, arrived late to the delivery room. After 12 minutes without breathing, the doctor told Reuben’s mother there was nothing more to be done. But Jeremiah picked up his son and commanded him to breathe in the name of the living God—and Reuben did. From then on, however, Reuben lived with severe asthma.

Jeremiah had once studied medicine but gave it up to follow the path of God. He worked humbly as a janitor at the town school. A man of deep faith and honor, he saved his son’s teenage girlfriend from being attacked in the boys’ locker room during a football game. The boys involved were known troublemakers who had terrorized the town, and they soon turned their anger on the Land family. They harassed them repeatedly, even kidnapping the youngest daughter, Swede, and hurting her before returning her home. At that point, Reuben’s older brother Davy realized the danger would never end. Armed with a shotgun, he waited in his room. When the two boys broke into the house, Davy shot them dead.

Although Davy believed he was protecting his family, he knew he had taken human lives. He was arrested but later escaped from jail and disappeared. Jeremiah, desperate to find his son, gathered the family into an Airstream trailer and set out toward the Badlands.

Both Davy and Reuben were the focus of their father’s prayers, but those prayers came with a cost. Reuben had been given life, yet his breathing remained weak and difficult. Davy knew his father prayed for God’s help against the family’s tormentors, but the price was heavy—Davy’s own act of violence. The novel suggests that faith can bring solutions, but those solutions are not always the same as justice.

The writing is strong, though at times the events feel a little unbelievable. Still, the family’s love and faith in one another never waver, making this a powerful story about resilience and devotion.

book-review, books, fantasy, literature, reading, romance

Summer fun with Faeries and Serial Killers.

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On vacation I want a light, fun book. I forgot to bring some with me, so I ran to the local bookstore and came home with two books – a fantasy and a romance. Just right for my mood.

First up: Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries By Heather Fawcett

I first heard of this book on the Reading Glasses podcast. While not typically covering my type of reading, I thoroughly enjoy listening to these two women discussing books. I decided to take the leap with the summer book because – well why not? This is the story of a Cambridge professor, Emily Wilde, who is a bookish woman with no social skills. She is working on creating an encyclopedia of faeries. While young, she is very accomplished in her field. We follow her to the far reaches of the north to find proof of the Hidden Faeries – the most elusive of their kind. When we get there we find a tough village with gruff survivors that stick to their own. Emily struggles to connect with these people, who are the key to her studies.

Enter Emily’s less disciplined, extremely handsome, academic Wendell Bambleby. He charms the townsfolk, and insinuates himself into Emily’s research, frustrating her to distraction. What follows are spoilers, but you learn more about faeries and about the human heart as you read on.

At times a romance, at times a thriller, always fun if not high brow literature. I will be taking more walks in the woods for this kind of read as I continue to recover from the heavy stuff I have been reading lately.

Next up: Love in the Time of Serial Killers by Alicia Thompson.

I finished the Emily Wilde book quickly, so I turned to my other splurge book. This one was shelved as a romance. Trying not to discard it because of the title, and because of my love for hallmark endings, this was just right for me.

Phoebe Walsh, a PhD candidate in English, has returned to Florida to help her brother clear out their father’s house after he died. She has been disconnected from this place for years, and was estranged from her father for decades. While she is clearing the house, her memories of times here – before her parents divorced – were not great. Now she is focusing on finishing her dissertation on the True Crime genre. We come to learn that Phoebe is a loner, obsessed with Serial Killers, who thinks everyone is one. Then she starts to reconcile what her past was to what she recollected, spending time with her brother, her former best friend, and now the man, Sam, who lives next door to her dad’s house.

While this is a romance, the themes explored include body dysmorphia, self confidence, trust, divorce, and family dynamics. The happy ending is there, just like a hallmark movie. And just like how I love those, I recommend this as a fun read, with surprising depth.  

book-review, books, literature, reading

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

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This novel is widely regarded as a literary masterpiece, and Kundera is often hailed as one of the greats.

I, however, didn’t agree.

The book explores the philosophical tension between “lightness” and “heaviness” in life—where lightness symbolizes emptiness and heaviness represents meaning. Interestingly, I believe these metaphors can be reversed, and Kundera seems to play with that inversion, challenging conventional ideas about what truly matters.

While the writing is undeniably skillful, I found myself disconnected from the characters. In fact, I actively disliked them. As their backstories unfolded—revealing what they abandoned, how selfish they were, and how condescending they remained—I grew even more alienated. Their emotional detachment made it hard to care about their journeys.

Perhaps I’m just not erudite enough to appreciate the deeper layers of this novel.

I’m okay with that.