Why You Should Be Reading Joshilyn Jackson: A Review Of The Almost Sisters
If you enjoy Southern fiction, you should read Joshilyn Jackson. If you enjoy good storytelling, you should read Joshilyn Jackson. If you like your novels to have a side of social commentary, you should read Joshilyn Jackson.
Your takeaway should be this: read Joshilyn Jackson.
The Almost Sisters is the third book I've read by this author and it is her best work yet. From the first page, I sensed I was reading something special. Every so often I'd look up from the book and marvel over what I beheld. Jackson's writing simply sparkles and I appreciated her ability to delve into complicated issues without losing the narrative thread.
Leia, a white woman, learns she's pregnant due to a one night stand while at Comic Con. She doesn't know the name of the man she slept with but she does know he was African American. She is about to tell her family when life interferes, leading her moving temporarily back to Birchville to take care of her grandmother Birchie who is in the throes of dementia.
I don't want to say a ton about the plot because the delight of reading this is the way the story unfolds. I will say this: I couldn't wait to learn the Birch family secrets and see what would happen with Leia's stepsister, as well as when Leia would share her pregnancy with her family. And of course I was dying to know the identity of Batman, Leia's one night stand. I wanted to race through the pages as much as I wanted to savor them. That's the beauty of a Joshilyn Jackson novel.
While not the central thrust of the novel, it reads as an ode to nerdiness. Leia is a comic book illustrator and comic lore abounds throughout the story, as well as nods to other parts of nerd culture. I'm not a comic book person but I really liked this part of Leia's personality and the bond it created with Batman.
The Almost Sisters is a timely and important read for anyone who is white. Novels can serve as a wonderful entry point for the things we want to learn about or that we're trying to understand. We need to keep learning about and recognizing our attitudes about race and privilege.
Joshilyn Jackson has a way of bringing insight and nuance to complex issues and she never sacrifices the integrity of her storytelling. You're reading a great story, first and foremost, but don't be surprised if you find yourself reflecting on your own opinions and history with what happens to her characters. That's a big reason why I recommend her books so often.
The dynamics between Birchie, who is white, and her friend-now-caregiver Wattie, who is black, are worth noting. While Wattie's mother was Birchie's housekeeper growing up, the two women grew up together and in their old age, their lives intertwined even further, especially when Birchie's memory first started to slip. They are an enigma in a town that is segregated down to which church you go to. In fact, they take turns going to each other's churches. They are a united front. I wish we'd known about Birchie's relationship with other African Americans. Her friendship with Wattie was special but I'm not sure Birchie is more evolved than the other white families in town.
This is written from the perspective of a white woman. I'm curious how people of color will respond to this story or what the story would be like if it had been written by a woman of color. (Jackson wrote a wonderful piece about privilege, second chances, and racial identity.)
Birchville is a town like many others. There's only a couple of overtly racist characters. Most simply don't question "the way things have always been." Even once sides are drawn, there are plenty who don't want to get involved, to Leia's chagrin.
The Almost Sisters is a journey of understanding. Leia must confront the racism in her town and in her family in light of her baby. Her son will grow up in a world she doesn't entirely recognize and she has to grapple with this truth. There were times when I could not believe what she hadn't realized about her town and the racism her child might face. Yet her experience mirrors the layers of burgeoning understanding many white people experience, myself included. Leia is figuring things out and it is good to see this play out. All along the mystery surrounding her family unspools and leads to a revelation that undoes everything she knew to be true.
It is powerful. It is painful. It is real life.
This book would be a perfect pick for book clubs or to read with a friend. We need to talk about these things.
This novel made me think about my own experiences as a white woman when it comes to race and privilege.
There is no place exempt from racism. Growing up in the Chicago suburbs, I observed enough to know the Civil Rights Movement hadn't fixed everything but it wasn't until college that my eyes were opened to how far the blight of racism extended. As part of my introductory sociology class freshman year, we read Savage Inequalities about the state of the education system. I was horrified by the senseless disparities and as I went on to become a social worker, my horror over systemic racism only grew. Housing segregation in Chicago is among the worst in the country and it has far-reaching consequences.
Years later I moved to Nashville and I witnessed more overt racism, as well as the flinch of Confederate monuments and the flag. So much of what I saw and heard was subtle, in a way wholly different from the systemic racism in the Midwest.
I may not be from the South but I sure recognized it in Birchville and Leia's family.
Here's the thing. It's easy to look at the South and decry its problems. It's harder to look at my community in the Midwest and harder still to look within my heart. I don't believe any white person can say they're not racist. We may not intend to be racist but that is the legacy we've inherited and it takes work to root it out from ourselves and then take action and speak out against it where we live. Until we do that, that legacy will persist.
That's why it's important to read books exploring race and privilege. We can't afford not to. Not if we profess to care about those who are marginalized and oppressed.
With empathy, grace, humor, and piercing insight, the author of gods in Alabama pens a powerful, emotionally resonant novel of the South that confronts the truth about privilege, family, and the distinctions between perception and reality---the stories we tell ourselves about our origins and who we really are.
Superheroes have always been Leia Birch Briggs' weakness. One tequila-soaked night at a comics convention, the usually level-headed graphic novelist is swept off her barstool by a handsome and anonymous Batman.
It turns out the caped crusader has left her with more than just a nice, fuzzy memory. She's having a baby boy--an unexpected but not unhappy development in the thirty-eight year-old's life. But before Leia can break the news of her impending single-motherhood (including the fact that her baby is biracial) to her conventional, Southern family, her step-sister Rachel's marriage implodes. Worse, she learns her beloved ninety-year-old grandmother, Birchie, is losing her mind, and she's been hiding her dementia with the help of Wattie, her best friend since girlhood.
Leia returns to Alabama to put her grandmother's affairs in order, clean out the big Victorian that has been in the Birch family for generations, and tell her family that she's pregnant. Yet just when Leia thinks she's got it all under control, she learns that illness is not the only thing Birchie's been hiding. Tucked in the attic is a dangerous secret with roots that reach all the way back to the Civil War. Its exposure threatens the family's freedom and future, and it will change everything about how Leia sees herself and her sister, her son and his missing father, and the world she thinks she knows.
Buy The Book Here:
HarperCollins | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Disclosure: I received an ARC from HarperCollins and TLC Book Tours in exchange for an honest review. Affiliate links included in this post.
Posted at 08:28 AM in Book Reviews, Reading | Permalink | Comments (3)
I Took The #24in48 Challenge (One Weekend Early)
Last year was the first time I heard about the #24in48 Readathon, in which you try to read for 24 hours out of a 48 hour period. I had a lot going on that weekend so I knew I wouldn't come close and made a mental note to try again next time.
This year the challenge is this coming weekend July 22-23 and I'll be out of town with college friends for most of it. But then my plans for this past Saturday were canceled and I had the bright idea to try the #24in48 challenge one weekend early.
I read a lot. Like A LOT. However, I've never dedicated the bulk of a whole weekend to reading. Even on quiet relaxing weekends where I mostly read, other activities are interspersed. I really wanted to try but I didn't know if it was possible to dedicate myself in this way.
I won't leave you in suspense: at 11:11 pm this past Sunday night, I clocked in at 24 hours 15 minutes.
I DID IT!!!!
Let's break it down.
Day 1 I read 13 hours 58 minutes.
I listened to an audiobook (Beneath These Scars by Meghan March), which was 8 hours 4 minutes long. (According to Amazon, the physical book is 344 pages.)
I started and finished 3 books and read parts of 4 more:
Commander In Chief (White House #2)- Katy Evans (p. 163-291) 3 stars
Dating You/Hating You- Christina Lauren (353 pages) 4 stars
In His Hands (Blank Canvas #3)- Adriana Anders (409 pages) 5 stars (I could not have loved this more! Anders keeps blowing me away.)
Never Split The Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It- Chris Voss (p. 74-187) (The chapter on the importance of No was a game changer and I say that as someone who loves saying no.)
Milk and Honey- Rupi Kaur (p. 45-77)
The Lost Letter- Jillian Cantor (320 pages) 2 stars
Beautiful Player (Beautiful Bastard #3)- Christina Lauren (p. 1-287)
I read a total of 1642 pages. If you count the audiobook pages, then it should be 1986 pages.
That's kind of crazy, right?
I've started waking up between 5:45-6 am on weekdays and as a consequence I'm usually up by 6:30/6:45am even on the weekend. This totally worked in my favor. Saturday morning I read in bed for a little while before going about my morning routine. I listened to my audiobook while putting on moisturizer and brushing my teeth before shuffling downstairs to make tea.
Once the tea was ready, I grabbed a few books and headed to the porch swing where I was housesitting. (I swoon for porch swings!) And that was generally my routine for most of the weekend: a beverage plus a book either on the swing or on the cozy chair in the living room.
The secret to my success was keeping an audiobook in the mix. Almost any time I wasn't able to read a physical book because I was in the car or making dinner or taking care of chores, I had an audiobook going. There's no way I could have done this otherwise. Even if I hadn't had plans and responsibilities, I don't think I'm capable of that much sitting still...and I say that as someone who is very much indoorsy.
I also thought it was interesting how my average reading time before needing a break was 30 minutes. There were a few 1 hour stints but usually by 30 minutes I needed to go to the bathroom or refill my beverage or stretch or something. It might only be a couple minutes away from the book before I'd be back to it. I don't know that it means anything or if it's something I've always done. I've never paid attention to the particular mechanics of my reading, other than how often and how quickly I read. Thus, worth noting.
From Dating You/Hating You
Someone asked me if reading started to feel like homework during the challenge and I can honestly say it didn't. These were all books I was excited to read and if you saw my Instagram stories, you could certainly tell.
However, I did feel a lot of pressure. There was a sense of falling behind when I couldn't read a physical book or listen to the audiobook, like when I had to do my VA work Sunday morning or while I was at the library book sale Saturday afternoon. And when I was reading, I would stop every so often to calculate how many hours I'd read and how much father I had to go.
Even so, I will never complain about the chance to loaf around and read for the weekend. I'm really glad I did it and that I can say I crushed it. It's like book nerd bona fides!
If you're interested in trying to do this yourself this weekend, please go sign up! (This is not sponsored or perked in anyway. I just think it's cool.) There will be prizes and camaraderie and solidarity! Then be sure to let me know how you do.
As always, happy reading!
Disclosure: Affiliate links included in this post.
Posted at 08:31 AM in Book Nerd, Reading | Permalink | Comments (0)
Review: Hook's Tale: Being The Account Of An Unjustly Villainized Pirate Written By Himself by John Leonard Pielmeier
Hook's Tale: Being The Account Of An Unjustly Villainized Pirate Written By Himself - John Leonard Pielmeier
My Review - 4 Stars
If you like Wicked (or anything else Gregory Maguire has written) and especially if you enjoy the show Once Upon A Time, you're going to want to pay attention.
At last, we have the true story behind Captain Hook. Or rather, James Cook, which is his real name.
The lies we have been fed by that scurrilous Peter Pan and his scribe J.M. Barrie!
Thank God Cook was finally able to tell his tale of woe and woeful it is indeed.
He writes, "I promise you this, dear reader: I will not lie about him as he (and his biographer) did of me" (p. 23.) We learn about his past, first meets the baby crocodile Daisy, and how he winds up on Never-Archipelago. He does not have an easy time of things, that's for sure. But things go from bad to worse once Pan gets involved.
This was a short enjoyable read. I am a sucker for fairy tale/classics retellings so this hit all my buttons in the best of ways, though I wished Cook's tale had a little more luck to balance out his hardships. I suppose, though, when the world knows you as the villain, it's harder to come across good luck.
At least now we know the truth.
A rollicking debut novel from award-winning playwright and screenwriter John Pielmeier reimagines the childhood of the much maligned Captain Hook: his quest for buried treasure, his friendship with Peter Pan, and the story behind the swashbuckling world of Neverland.
Long defamed as a vicious pirate, Captain James Cook (a.k.a Hook) was in fact a dazzling wordsmith who left behind a vibrant, wildly entertaining, and entirely truthful memoir. His chronicle offers a counter narrative to the works of J.M. Barrie, a "dour Scotsman" whose spurious accounts got it all wrong. Now, award-winning playwright John Pielmeier is proud to present this crucial historic artifact in its entirety for the first time.
Cook's story begins in London, where he lives with his widowed mother. At thirteen, he runs away from home, but is kidnapped and pressed into naval service as an unlikely cabin boy. Soon he discovers a treasure map that leads to a mysterious archipelago called the "Never-Isles" from which there appears to be no escape. In the course of his adventures he meets the pirates Smee and Starkey, falls in love with the enchanting Tiger Lily, adopts an oddly affectionate crocodile, and befriends a charming boy named Peter—who teaches him to fly. He battles monsters, fights in mutinies, swims with mermaids, and eventually learns both the sad and terrible tale of his mother's life and the true story of his father's disappearance.
Like Gregory Maguire's Wicked, Hook's Tale offers a radical new version of a classic story, bringing readers into a much richer, darker, and enchanting version of Neverland than ever before. The characters that our hero meets—including the terrible Doctor Uriah Slinque and a little girl named Wendy—lead him to the most difficult decision of his life: whether to submit to the temptation of eternal youth, or to embrace the responsibilities of maturity and the inevitability of his own mortality. His choice, like his story, is not what you might expect.
Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Disclosure: I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Affiliate links included in this post.
Review: Before Everything by Victoria Redel
Before Everything- Victoria Redel
I read Before Everything, a novel, right before reading My Glory Was I Had Such Friends, a memoir (my review here). Both are about a group of friends and terminal illness. And while they took different tacks to explore these topics, the synchronicity was worth paying attention to.
"It's the oddest thing. I spent all those years refusing to be defined by illness. I was so insistent, so ferocious about it. Now I see I wasn't. I have the sweetest life. The kids. My family. All of you."
"Do you feel ready?" Molly asked.
"It's not a matter of being ready. Who'd ever be ready to give all this sweetness up? It's that I'm not really here anymore."
"But you say you're happy to be with us tonight," Helen said. She was so relieved that they were all finally together talking. Not about kids. But this.
"I don't know how to explain it. I'm sorry."
"It's bittersweet." Ming licked the spoon's metal. She made no attempt to wipe the tears off her face.
"Just sweet," Anna said, and picked up the next pint of vanilla bean. p. 153-4
When I started reading this novel, I honestly didn't know what to make of it. A scene in the present might take up a page before flitting back to a paragraph-long memory from the past and all the while, the reader is forming an impression of the group of friends who has arrived to rally around Anna.
Anna has decided she's not going to try any more cancer treatments and begins hospice. Her ex-husband Reuben, still a good friend, becomes her caregiver. Her brothers and many of her friends take turns trying to convince her to try one last round, which has worked in the past. But Anna is tired and she is ready. The bits from her perspective were incredibly moving, as Redel shows not only the confusion of a brain slowing down but the flutter of memories. I particularly enjoyed Anna's realization of all the things she will no longer have to do, from blood draws to shaving her legs. When Anna's son tells her his wife is pregnant with her first, she thinks about everything she wants to tell her baby's baby and this is a fully internal experience. She begins to withdraw as she sleeps more but we are present to her thought process.
Like any group of friends, each person responds differently to Anna's decline. With The Old Friends-Helen, Molly, Ming, Caroline- those who Anna has known since 6th grade, they each remember how they met Anna, how their group formed, and what Anna has meant to them over the years. They consider what Anna will miss, like Helen's second wedding and whatever Molly's teen daughter is going through.
The memories from various points in their lives are overlaid into the present. The memories were often paragraph snippets and I usually wanted more but as the book continued, it occurred to me this is how if often is in friendship. I spent a weekend away with my best friends and our conversation would veer from "remember who I took to prom?" to "here's the book I'm reading" and "this is what happened at work yesterday" with fluidity. Redel has given us that same fluidity and I'm not sure I've experienced it in fiction before but it worked.
Redel took it a step further by including the perspectives of some of Anna's local friends. None of the Old Friends live by her so it has been an entirely different community that has been there for the day-in, day-out of her years of cancer treatment. They respond differently to her decision for hospice, as one might imagine, as they have vicariously experienced the toll the treatments have taken. The two groups of friends don't know how to relate to each other and it was interesting to watch them navigate their possessiveness of Anna.
Of course, it's not always easy to read about someone who is dying. But there was a lot of life and even laughter in this novel. I laughed out loud at a couple astute observations. I teared up at various points. I considered how I'd respond if this was my friend or if I was the one dying.
This is a celebration of friendship and a meditation on the impact we can have on one another. It was bittersweet and lovely. It was one of the most honest accounts of friendship I've found in a novel and I'm so glad I read it.
Before Everything is a celebration of friendship and love between a group of women who have known each another since they were girls. They've faced everything together, from youthful sprees and scrapes to mid-life turning points. Now, as Anna, the group's trailblazer and brightest spark, enters hospice, they gather to do what they've always done—talk and laugh and help each other make choices and plans, this time in Anna's rural Massachusetts home. Helen, Anna's best friend and a celebrated painter, is about to remarry. The others face their own challenges—Caroline with her sister's mental health crisis; Molly with a teenage daughter's rebellion; Ming with her law practice—dilemmas with kids and work and love. Before Everything is as funny as it is bittersweet, as the friends revel in the hilarious mistakes they've seen each another through, the secrets kept, and adventures shared. But now all sense of time has shifted, and the pattern of their lives together takes on new meaning. The novel offers a brilliant, emotionally charged portrait, deftly conveying the sweep of time over everyday lives, and showing how even in difficult endings, gifts can unfold. Above all it is an ode to friendship, and to how one person shapes the journeys of those around her.
Review: Hello, Sunshine by Laura Dave
Hello, Sunshine- Laura Dave
Sunny warns you right from the start: she's a terrible person. Then she follows this up by admitting her confession is basically an attempt to manipulate us to sympathizing for her. It shouldn't work but it did. I could not help but root for Sunny, as I wondered if she was capable of change.
Can a liar change its stripes? Especially when they're forced to changed?
I loved Dave's novel Eight Hundred Grapes and was expecting this to be in a similar vein. It's not. Eight Hundred Grapes was a meditation on romance and synchronicity, while Hello Sunshine peels back the curtain of what happens when social media takes over our lives instead of the other way around. It was compulsively readable. I positively inhaled it, so curious as to see how the events in Sunny's life would play out. With each character introduced, I wondered how they fit into her new life and whether they could be part of her redemption or her undoing.
Sunny wasn't always a liar. It started out small, the lies built on one another, and before she knew it, she was queen of a YouTube cooking empire. Everything serves to feed that beast but all it takes is her Twitter account being hacked for the empire to collapse. Sunny loses it all- her show, her husband, her apartment. And it's what she does from there that makes this novel so compelling.
How does one start over in the age of social media? Do you manipulate your image or walk away from your accounts altogether? Do you shape the narrative or do you let the chips fall where they lie? This aspect of the novel was incredibly thought-provoking. I haven't read Jon Ronson's So You've Been Publicly Shamed yet but I imagine it would pair well with this.
Sunny's attempt to reinvent herself involves slinking back to her estranged sister in their childhood home. She has to confront the memories of their complicated past, while getting to know her precocious 6 year old niece. The two sisters must consider whether they can make amends or whether Sunny will leave them high and dry like she did the last time.
All the while, we are left with the mystery of who hacked Sunny and why. When we finally learn the culprit, I was genuinely shocked and this paired with another unexpected twist gave me mixed feelings. Ultimately, however, Dave wove these threads together into an enjoyable story, one that remained true to life. Happy endings aren't guaranteed for us. It matters more what we do with our every day, ordinary lives. Especially those like Sunny who have glimpsed extraordinary lives and must figure out who they are and what they're willing to do to scrabble back to the top.
Sunny warned us she's not a nice person but in the end, she was lying even about that. Now there's a heroine worth rooting for.
This would be a perfect beach read and I can see a book club discussion taking its themes in interesting places.
From Laura Dave—the author of the "addictive" (Us Weekly), "winning" (Publishers Weekly) and critically acclaimed bestseller Eight Hundred Grapes—comes a new novel about the secrets we keep…even from ourselves.
Sunshine Mackenzie has it all…until her secrets come to light.
Sunshine Mackenzie is living the dream—she's a culinary star with millions of fans, a line of #1 bestselling cookbooks, and a devoted husband happy to support her every endeavor.
And then she gets hacked.
When Sunshine's secrets are revealed, her fall from grace is catastrophic. She loses the husband, her show, the fans, and her apartment. She's forced to return to the childhood home—and the estranged sister—she's tried hard to forget. But what Sunshine does amid the ashes of her own destruction may well save her life.
In a world where celebrity is a careful construct, Hello, Sunshine is a compelling, funny, and evocative novel about what it means to live an authentic life in an inauthentic age.