I Am, I Am, I Am

I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death by Maggie O'Farrell (2018), narrated by Daisy Donovan

I've read a couple of novels by Maggie O'Farrell, but it's been a while since I've read anything of hers and this memoir has been languishing on my To Read list. I just downloaded it on audio through my library and listened to it in what felt like just a few days. Between the knitting and the jigsaw puzzles, I've gotten a lot of podcast/audiobook time recently!

This memoir is a bunch of snapshots, not in order, of all the times that O'Farrell has had a brush with death. The first one was the most chilling. When she was young (I think 18-20?) she was walking through the woods and encountered a guy who didn't do anything quite wrong that she could put her finger on, but who gave her a very bad feeling. At one point, while pointing out duck in a pond, he put his binocular strap around her neck. She chattered away, mentioning that she needed to get back to work before they came looking for her, and got away. She went to the police, who dismissed her concerns because the guy hadn't actually done anything. But a week later, they showed up at her door to ask questions because another young woman had also encountered him, and she was raped and strangled...with his binoculars strap. I will probably not forget this story for a while.

O'Farrell has some disabilities, aftereffects from what I think was her earliest brush with death - a bout of encephalitis when she was young, which confined her to a wheelchair for a time, caused lasting brain damage, and meant that she couldn't deliver a baby without a c-section. Later when she was pregnant and told her doctor that she would need a c-section, he refused, accusing her of reading too many celebrity magazines. (Can you imagine?) She almost died during the birth. Another time she almost drowned because her neurological problems mean that she has trouble orientating herself in space if she can't see, and it happened to be very dark.

The whole thing had a rather dreamy quality, partly because of O'Farrell's writing style and the way the book flitted around to various periods in her life, but also because of the narrator. Daisy Donovan has a very posh English accent and a soft, soothing voice that worked very well with this book. It was very good, and of course it's also a great reminder to be grateful for what you have because it could slip away at any moment.

Unfollow

Unfollow: A Memoir of Loving and Leaving the Westboro Baptist Church by Megan Phelps-Roper (2019)

We all know what Westboro Baptist Church is famous for - I'm not even going to repeat their hateful potty-mouthed slogans here, so you can Google them if you're unfamiliar. Started by pastor Fred Phelps, the church is made up primarily of his family members. Until a few years ago that included his granddaughter Megan. From the time she was 5, she was out on picket lines spewing hate. By the time she was in her 20s she was the most recognized voice from the church on social media, where she seemed to enjoy sparring with their detractors. But then something changed, and once she began to question everything she was raised to believe, there was no going back. This memoir is about growing up in the Westboro Baptist Church and the very painful, but necessary, decision to leave the church and her family for good.

A lot of things that I learned here surprised me. First, Megan's family was very kind and loving and supportive of one another. They had fun, joked around, and were very closed to one another. Given the things they say publicly, I did not expect them to be nice people. Second, Fred Phelps was a well-known civil rights lawyer. Why someone would be a strong proponent of civil rights - an unpopular stance in that place and time - but be so committed to hatred of the LGBT community seems very inconsistent. He also required that all of his children and their spouses be lawyers and work for the family law firm. I'll admit I was surprised to learn how well-educated WBC members are.

I heard about this book on a podcast (I think it was Get Booked) and the host mentioned that it was Megan's conversations with people on Twitter that led her to leave the church, remarking "It's probably the only good thing that's ever come out of Twitter." Reading this story, I don't know that I'd give all the credit to the conversations on Twitter, but it's true that some very kind people took the time to get to know Megan as a person, which was way more effective at helping her see why WBC is bad then just ranting at her. There were changes at WBC at the time that also contributed to her questioning their direction and their adherence to scripture. I think she's not even entirely sure what happened, but it seems like a lot of little things added up and she knew she could no longer live that way.

I've never understand many of the church's positions and Megan did her best to explain them. Picketing the funerals of soldiers is one that has always mystified me, and apparently they also celebrated deaths of children, such as those killed in the Sandy Hook shooting. It had to do with punishing people for their sins, and something about God's will - I don't know. It kind of sense in a twisted way when she explained it, but only for a moment. That's the thing about many of their beliefs. They are based on the Bible, but really twisted and manipulated.

It must have been terrifying to leave the only home she had ever known. She knew she would be cut off from family, because that's what happened to the few others who had left. But her sister Grace also left with her, so at least they had each other. Phelps-Roper clearly still loves her parents deeply and mourns the loss of their relationship, and holds out hope that they will come around. And the same for her remaining siblings. I was struck by how she wrote about death of her grandfather, Fred Phelps. He was actually kicked out of the church just before he died and was in hospice all alone because he had been abandoned by his family. I don't know how anyone who calls themselves Christians can treat family the way the Phelps clan does.

I found the earlier parts of the book a bit slow, I think because it was all about growing up in the church and what they believed and there were a lot of Bible verses quoted, and they just make my eyes glaze over. Otherwise it was thoughtful and hopeful, and mostly I'm just glad this person was able to get out of the cult in which she was raised. I hope more of her family follow her.

Maybe You Should Talk To Someone

Maybe You Should Talk To Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb (2019)

When Lori Gottlieb was blindsided by a breakup, she started seeing a therapist named Wendell to help her work through her feelings. A therapist herself, she shares her experience of being in therapy as well as the stories of some of her own patients (disguised, of course, for their privacy.)

Getting the perspective of both therapist and patient made for an excellent read, especially if you're not familiar with the inner workings on therapy. It was interesting to see Gottlieb fall into the same traps as her patients, and to see her therapist help her in ways she recognized as they were happening. Her self-awareness during the process made it all the more educational.

I really liked the stories about her patients. I'm trying not to overthink which parts are real and how the real stories are different, but at any rate they are all great character studies. One is a young newlywed named Julie who is dying of cancer and trying to make the most of the time she has left, while rejecting the uber-positive cancer culture. John is an asshole Hollywood writer who Lori finds very difficult to empathize with at first, but it turns out he's keeping a major tragedy a secret from her and it is only after he is willing to talk about it than any real growth can occur. He was probably the most interesting character. An older woman named Rita is - I'm pretty sure - the person I'm going to end up being someday. She is alone and bitter and feels that she has nothing to look forward to. She has kids, but they are estranged, and she just pushes people away and now that she is old she is isolated and unhappy. All of these people experienced positive growth through their therapy, and it was fascinating to hear the conversations that made them able to change their lives for the better.

There was also a patient she made no headway with and she stopped seeing, which kept it real. This situation highlighted the ways that therapy doesn't work for everyone, and how it only works if you actually keep an open mind and do the work. I'm glad she included this story, or else I would have been skeptical because it all went so much better for the other patients.

This was a lot of book. It was over 400 pages which seems excessive and I started to feel very eager to be done with it, while still dying to know how things turned out for everybody. Mostly it just made me want to see a therapist, since it resulted in major positive life changes for everyone in the book.

To be honest, this book was only vaguely on my radar - it's very popular and I keep seeing it around at the library but I didn't really intend to read it. But one day I saw an available copy and impulsively grabbed it, and I'm very glad I did. It was such an interesting look at the way our views of the world and people around us, and everything that goes on in our heads, affect our lives. I highly recommend it.

We Are All Shipwrecks

We Are All Shipwrecks by Kelly Grey Carlisle (2017)

When Kelly was three weeks old, her mother was murdered. She grew up with her grandfather and his much younger wife, sometimes staying with her grandmother and her friend Dee. Her grandfather owned a porn shop and as he got older and less able to work, his wife Marilyn assumed most of the responsibilities of running the business. At one point he bought a boat and because of the costs of fixing it up, they ended up giving up their house and living on the boat full-time. In her memoir, Kelly Grey Carlisle documents her unusual childhood and adolescence, while trying to unravel the mystery of her mother's life and death.

Her grandfather, Richard Grey, was British and insisted he was titled, calling himself Sir Richard Grey. He claimed a lot of things about his life, some of which were true. Although he took good care of Kelly, he was an angry man, what some called verbally abusive. The little he told Kelly about her mother was not necessarily true. She had mixed feelings about her grandfather and so did I by the time I finished reading.

Marilyn put up with a lot, and I was struck by her devotion to taking care of Kelly. She married Kelly's grandfather because he was stable and she very much wanted a baby. Since she didn't have children of her own, when Kelly's mother was killed, Marilyn was the person who most wanted to take care of her. She wasn't happy with some aspects of her life and I really think she would have left had it not been for Kelly.

The idea of living on a boat in the marine seems very foreign to me, but apparently it's not that unusual. For one thing, they had lots of neighbors who also lived on their boats and they made up a pretty tight-knit community. While reading this book I happened across a new book called The Tiny Mess, which documents people who cook in tiny kitchens. Their living quarters vary from tiny houses to vans to converted water towers, but I was struck by how many people live (and cook!) on boats. They're primarily in Southern California, which is also where Kelly grew up. It's a whole world that I didn't know existed.

Mostly this book was slice-of-life in that there weren't major events or catastrophes she was documenting, but just what it was like to grow up the way she did. Always in the background though were the questions about her mother and the years leading up to her murder. Kelly got conflicting stories from family about why her mother was living on her own so young, and what her relationship with her family was like. As an adult Kelly got in touch with the investigators assigned to the case and finally learned some answers to her questions. Ultimately it was a satisfying story that explores themes about family, both blood-related and not.

We Are All Shipwrecks first caught my eye because of the title - I do love a good title - but it has languished on my To Read list for quite a while. It was the 2019 TBR Pile Challenge that finally got me to pick it up. If you're interested in delving into a quirky life filled with complex people and relationships, you may also enjoy this story.

Educated

Educated by Tara Westover (2018), narrated by Julia Whelan

Hey, have you heard about this memoir by a young woman raised in a cult-like survivalist family that didn't allow her to go to school? If you live in the United States, you probably have. I read almost nothing about it so I knew little more than the description I just used. But I was intrigued, especially since its popularity has only increased in the past year since it was released. I decided to try it on audio and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was narrated by Julia Whelan, who also read one of my favorite books by Taylor Jenkins Reid.

So Tara Westover grew up in a Morman family in Idaho, and her father was super religious, convinced Armageddon was coming at any moment, and was extremely paranoid and controlling. Her mom basically went along with him although there were times she admitted that she disagreed with him. There were a total of 7 children in the family, I think, and the oldest few had gone to school for a while. Tara never did. They were allegedly homeschooled, but they really weren't. In fact, since they didn't have birth certificates, they legally didn't even exist. But none of this is the crazy part - what I kept being shocked by over and over was the carelessness with which these kids were all treated and the many accidents and injuries that resulted. Her father owned a junkyard and the kids were expected to help sort through piles of twisted metal. Tara was once injured when she felt from a bucket loader. She described some pretty hideous burnings and two major car accidents, in which nobody was wearing a seatbelt because for some reason they didn't believe in them. Her mother and one of her brothers suffered serious head injuries. Oh, and I didn't even mention the most important part of all this which is that they weren't allowed to go to doctors. Tara's mother just worked on them with her herbs and oils and prayers.

Eventually Tara decided she wanted to go to school, and she managed to study for and pass the ACT and go to Brigham Young University and then on to Cambridge in England and, finally, Harvard. Through all of this she was battling against her family and trying to deal with her past. She couldn't escape it - during her first semester of college she dared ask out loud what the Holocaust was and her professor and classmates thought she was making a sick joke. But she wasn't - she had no idea. Another revelation was when she learned the truth about slavery. She knew it existed, but had been taught that slaves were freer and happier than their masters, who were burdened with the responsibility of caring for them. When she learned the truth, she was stunned. Over and over, she learned and experienced things that went against everything she had been taught when she was young and she struggled to make sense of it, constantly doubting herself and not knowing when to trust what she thought she knew. But she's obviously very smart, and she soaked in knowledge, synthesizing it with what she had previously learned to come to her own conclusions.

Leaving home was not the end of the story though. She did return to visit her family, and things were just as strange as always. Another big part of the story is her relationship with her brother Shawn, a highly manipulative and violent person. Once Tara gained some confidence she talked with others in her family about his behavior and the danger he posed. They would agree with her, but then tell Shawn what she had said and they'd all turn on her. At times I feared for her safety although I knew she obviously survived to tell the tale, but I couldn't fathom why she kept going back to her family's home when it seemed so dangerous to do so.

This story was totally gripping. I have mixed feelings about these kinds of memoirs because I'm very aware of the enjoyment we're getting out of someone else's pain. On the other hand, if you go through something like that, having your book about it become so popular is probably rather validating. Her family is still alive - these events were fairly recent - and of course they deny her claims. (Who wouldn't?) I've heard that her parents are suing her, which is also unsurprising and something she must have expected. I'm curious to see what else she might write - she has proven herself a pretty good storyteller.

Tisha

Tisha: The Wonderful True Love Story of a Young Teacher in the Alaskan Wilderness (1976)

Despite the subtitle, this is not a love story. There is a love story in it, but it's not the focus - there is so much else here the subtitle is really underselling it.

In 1927, nineteen-year-old Anne Hobbs left Oregon to teach in Alaska. She was lured by the promise of adventure, and she definitely got what she was looking for. The trip to the tiny village of Chicken was long and hard, and when she arrived she found her quarters bare. The other villagers donated a mattress and a stove, dishes and other supplies, and soon she had a cozy little place for herself. Her quarters shared a building with the schoolroom where she would be teaching a handful of children of various ages.

Anne got settled in and started up the school and almost immediately found herself the subject of disapproval. She befriended a "half-breed" named Fred Purdy, who had an Indian mother and white father, and Fred is her romantic interest. Their romance had a slow build, and people went to great lengths to keep them apart. Anne also let Indian children into her classroom, which meant other parents pulling their kids out. The people in this village really did not seem to like Indians and it was pretty weird, since they did somewhat live intermixed with each other and there were obviously some mixed-race families. Anne, whose beloved grandmother was an Indian, did not care at all whether someone was Indian or not and it got her into a lot of trouble. She was strong for such a young person who was new to the area, and she held her ground most of the time. She was very brave!

Life here was not easy, but things improved when a teenager (I think? The story wasn't clear on people's ages) came to stay with her and help her out. Households were pretty bare-bones and it took a lot of work to do things like wash clothes or take a bath, and the extreme cold and harsh weather made things even more difficult.

Things really heated up when the mother of two of Anne's students died, and their white father didn't want to take them. Anne decided she would take them, and she and Nancy did pretty well for  while until Nancy's mother found out and sent for her to come back home. Everyone disapproved of Anne taking the kids, insisting they be sent to an Indian village nearby. They went to great lengths to make that happen, and Anne went to even greater lengths to prevent it. It was a very exciting story and when I got to this part I ended up reading late into the evening because I could not put it down.

I always love a story about a woman moving to a new place and starting a life there. In this case she knows she's only staying for a year before being assigned to a more permanent teaching position in the town of Eagle, but it was still effective. She still had to get used to living in Alaska, get used to people in the town, figure out who her friends were. Because it's a book about prejudice, there's some pretty harsh language, including use of the n-word. These are a straight-talking people, and I was surprised the first time she met the Indian children she would adopt and they swore like adults. There were also some charming phrases I hadn't heard before, like when she talks about the local prejudice as "half-breed baloney people around here were always slicing" and said "That got my Irish up." I should also mention that the title comes from the way the Indian children mispronounced the word "teacher." When I began reading, I was surprised that her name was Anne and not Tisha, and it took me a while to figure out why that was the book's title.

I heard about this book a few years ago from our teen librarian at work. I think she had just learned about it at a conference or workshop and read it right away and loved it. I came across it recently and was reminded that I wanted to read it. It appeals to me in a similar way as Caroline, which I had just finished. I've read so few books about women forging lives in recently-settled places and would be interested in finding more, so please let me know if you have suggestions!

Becoming

Becoming by Michelle Obama (2018), narrated by Michelle Obama

Former First Lady Michelle Obama's memoir is currently the most requested book in my library system. It seems like everyone is reading it. I was considering it and kept waffling on whether or not I wanted to read it, but then a friend mentioned how much she was enjoying the audiobook so I decided to try that version.

Obama begins with her childhood, describing her family and her life growing up on the South Side of Chicago, before moving on to college, law school, and her early career. It was then that she met Barack Obama, at the time a law student who came to work at her firm as an intern. It didn't take long for them to begin a relationship. She takes us through major changes in her life, from getting married and having children to becoming First Lady of the United States, and straight through until they left the White House.

Reading about her family and early career was interesting, but what I found most fascinating was how she fit her life around Barack being President. For one thing, she had to give up her job. Her career had taken some turns anyway, but she was really going from one great job opportunity to another. At one point she talked about the huge pay cut she had to take to leave the law firm she was working for to go to another job that she thought would be more fulfilling. She said her salary was going from 120k to 60k. (That was in the 90s, when I was making around 24k. These numbers were kind of staggering to me.) At any rate, this is an ambitious successful woman who at one point had to choose to give it up for a life she definitely didn't expect.

Life in the White House was a tightly-controlled situation, and nobody in the family could really live a normal life. She mentions how she liked to sometimes drink her tea out on the balcony on a nice day, but it meant the crowds had to be cleared from that whole side of the house, and she didn't want to do that to tourists who came all the way to D.C. to see the White House. A few months after they moved on, Michelle and Barack decided to spend some time together and made a trip to NY for dinner and a show. They got to the restaurant and everyone who arrived after them had to go through security, and then the show they went to see started 40 minutes late because of all the extra security precautions that had to be taken. It felt like a huge nuisance and the media criticized them for the cost, so they didn't do that again. But really, they just wanted to spend some time together outside of the White House! She said that it was so difficult to go outside of the family quarters in the White House that they weren't even walking very much and they both started spending a ton of time in their gym to make up for it.

Things were difficult for the kids too. Malia had to attend her prom with the secret service in tow, and when it was time to visit colleges Michelle wasn't able to go with her because having the whole First Lady motorcade there was such a huge inconvenience for everybody. Michelle ended up sending her assistant instead. And one time the girls just wanted to go out for ice cream with some friends, but they couldn't because it was impossible to arrange spur-of-the-moment plans to go out. It was a bummer to hear how many normal things they couldn't do because of all the security requirements.

Michelle says that Barack was treated like some sort of precious gem. She understood why, of course, but said it felt like a throwback to a time when households revolved around the man, which was the opposite of what she was trying to teach her daughters. That was such an interesting perspective that I hadn't thought of, but of course Sasha and Malia were so young when they moved to the White House that probably a lot of the weird things about their lives seemed normal.

There were so many interesting little stories throughout the book. For instance, when Barack first won the presidency, the Bush family made a huge effort to make the transition as seamless as possible. They made sure there were binders of information regarding the household, including social calendars and that sort of thing, and apparently went beyond what was usually done for these transitions. They were also very gracious hosts when the Obamas first visited. The Bush daughters gave Sasha and Malia their own tour, showing them the fun parts of the White House. It was really very touching.

Also, did you know that the President's family gets billed for food, toilet paper, and expenses from when they have guests visit? I had no idea. I really had very little knowledge of how things worked behind the scenes at the White House so it was pretty eye-opening in that way.

The audiobook was 19 hours long (!) which concerned me because I generally stick to books that are around 8-9 hours if I can help it. The only other audiobooks I've listened to that were so long were in the Harry Potter series. But it wasn't a slog to get through, as I had feared. It was an interesting story that was very well narrated by Michelle Obama, who could probably do this as a career if she wanted to. (I've also listened to Barack narrate his own memoir and as much as I hate to say anything negative about him, it's a good thing he had another career to fall back on.) All in all I'm glad I read this and, more than anything, it made me really miss the Obamas. They were a pretty cool First Family!

Scrappy Little Nobody

Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick (2016), narrated by Anna Kendrick

I'm a huge fan of the Pitch Perfect franchise. Even though I hardly ever go to the movies, I've seen all three in theaters with friends, and we will continue right through Pitch Perfect 99 if they go that far. When Pitch Perfect 2 was about to be released, I organized a sing-along to the first movie at the library, which was attended primarily by library staff. But the important thing is that it forced me to purchase the Aca-Awesome Sing-Along edition on DVD, which now lives in my personal collection.

I also enjoy a celebrity memoir on audio, especially if it's nice and short like this one. But the truth is, I could have happily listened to a couple more hours of this.

Anna Kendrick is a fellow Mainer, which I didn't realize until I started this book (though for the record she's from Portland, which most of us don't consider to be real Maine.) She chronicles her early life, especially her high school years when she began getting into acting, and her later move to L.A. where she scraped by until she really got her career off the ground.

Her stories were great. She tells us about how her parents were supportive, but also had jobs, so after a few trips to New York for auditions when she was 12, they decided that her 14-year-old brother was a good enough chaperone and they sent the two youngsters off together. The day trip turned into a few days because of her callbacks, so the two kids stayed at a hotel and washed their underwear in the sink, and managed to explore New York a bit without any major mishaps. She talked about being outside of Maine in the theater world and not knowing which of those things accounted for the strangeness she experienced. She pondered "Is that what everyone outside of Maine is like?" (I've asked myself that same question.)

There was a point at which she became successful enough to have a stylist but not enough to be making much money and her stylist told her to buy $1000 shoes, which was far more than the rent she was struggling to pay. She still lived with roommates. At one point she ended up asking if she could downgrade her hotel room, and keep the difference because she needed the money. This aspect of her early success was fascinating to me. She attended the Independent Spirit Awards while still in high school and her classmates, teachers, and family were totally unimpressed because they were unfamiliar with that particular award.

She didn't really talk about making the Pitch Perfect movies - I think she only mentioned them briefly. She talked more about Up In the Air, probably because she was nominated for an Academy Award. Also, she was in the Twilight movies, which I didn't even realize. Oh, she also talked about some of her experiences with Into the Woods, which I liked a lot! But mostly she didn't talk a lot about her actual work. It felt more like an introduction to what she's like as a person.

I liked her already, but getting to know what an awkward, rule-following, anxietal person she is was really reassuring and made me like her even more. She doesn't take things too seriously (like fashion, which she reminds us is supposed to be fun) and is pretty down-to-earth for a person who has never had a normal job.

She narrates the audiobook herself, which made the whole experience feel like she was just telling me about her life. It was a lot of fun!

Can't Nothing Bring Me Down

Can't Nothing Bring Me Down: Chasing Myself in the Race Against Time by Ida Keeling (2018), narrated by Lisa Renee Pitts

When Ida Keeling was in her early 60s, both of her sons were murdered within a couple of years of each other. She plunged into depression. One day one of her daughters came to her and explained that she was taking Ida to run a 5k. She didn't know what else to do, but she couldn't let her mother continue to just sit at home in despair. Ida became a successful athlete and still runs today at the age of 103.

As it turns out, the book didn't actually talk a ton about the running. I expected her to really focus on that part of her life and how it helped her deal with grief, but that was really just a couple of chapters at the end. Mostly, though, it was just the story of her long and fascinating life. (Which is just as well since running is kind of boring.)

She was born in New York in 1915, and I really liked hearing about what it was like for a black woman growing up at that time. Interestingly, she had her two sons with a man she wasn't married to, which is something we seem to think was a huge scandal back then, but not the way she tells it. It turns out the reason this guy was dragging his feet on getting married is because he already was. Ouch. She talks about all the jobs she had in factories and what it was like to try and get by as a single mom. She lived through the depression, World War II, and civil rights. She went to hear black leaders like Malcolm X speak often, and was even present when Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his famous "I have a dream" speech.

Ida Keeling has lived a long time, experienced many things, and learned a lot from her experiences and observations. In many ways, she's pretty old school: she's a religious woman and thinks you should always listen to your parents, who apparently can't possibly ever be wrong. But she's far from stupid. She talks at one point about how men's heads are filled with "crap" that leads to the "good old boys" way of thinking. She also states the importance of not letting people aggravate you. She says, "Like President Barack Obama, I absolutely refuse to tolerate drama." She loves Obama.

This book isn't going to win any literary awards. Keeling is an athlete, not a writer. It wasn't terribly written, but she often used vague phrases like "or something" and "things like that" and listed the specific addresses of all the places she lived and worked. It was just a bit unpolished. Likewise, the narration wasn't of the quality that I'm used to. Again, not terrible, and none of this was enough to turn me off.

In the end, I came away with a great deal of respect for this lady who has learned and experienced a lot in her 103 years. She's smart and tough, has lived through a lot, and proves you're never too old to change your life.

Fetch

Fetch: How a Bad Dog Brought Me Home by Nicole Georges (2017)

I don't really read "dog books." I'm sure I'm being unfair, but I always assume they are sentimental homages to the author's dearly departed pet. Plus, other people's dogs are apparently wonderful, loyal friends and mine is predominantly a whirlwind of biting and growling. So maybe it's just jealousy. But I saw this one on a list somewhere, and thought it was a book that could possibly make me feel better about having a bad dog, since it's about someone else with a bad dog. But to be honest I went into it with some skepticism.

I needn't have worried. This memoir is, indeed, about a bad dog and, rather satisfyingly, the dog doesn't magically become a wonderful, affectionate creature - rather, Nicole learns how to be Beija's companion in a way that minimizes the bad behavior and allows them to remain together. The relationship is fraught with difficulty. Unstable housing situations meant that Nicole had to make some major life changes from the beginning to accommodate her pet, such as moving in with her boyfriend when she was only 17. The difficulties were so severe a couple of times that Nicole even tried to rehome Beija. But over time, her situation became more stable, and so did her relationship with her dog.

Fetch isn't just a book about a dog, though, it's about Nicole's coming-of-age, her family, her relationships and sexuality, and her life in the 90s punk scene. All of this brought more depth and context to the story; Beija was the constant who stayed with Nicole through all the major changes in her early adulthood.

I like the style of illustrations, which of course is important in a graphic novel. Often, I can still get into it when the style isn't my kind of thing, but her illustrations were definitely the sort that I like. Her character drawings are fairly cute, but still convey a range of emotions. I liked looking at the art just as much as reading the story. In one two-page spread she's at the park observing a guy throwing up leaves in the air, his dog leaping in joy and playfulness. So Nicole tries the same thing with Beija, who just runs away in fear. I feel you, Nicole, I really do. My dog once barked in terror at a baked potato.

For some reason I haven't been picking up graphic novels as much recently; I'm even behind on Saga, which I love. Sometimes I think I just don't want to read that in format, though to be honest when I start reading one I always kind of forget that I'm reading a different format than I usually do, if that makes sense. At any rate, I'm glad I happened across this list of new-ish dog books and I'm glad I impulsively requested this through my library's network. I read it all in one day, which is really the best way to enjoy a graphic novel if you ask me. If you like stories about young people struggling through their 20s and trying to find their way in life, or appreciate stories about difficult pets, I do recommend this one.

Lab Girl

Lab Girl by Hope Jahren (2016)

Hope Jahren is an accomplished award-winning scientist, and her memoir is filled with stories from her professional and personal life. From her rural upbringing with stoic parents, to her many adventures in the field, she talks about what it's like to be a woman working in a male-dominated field and about her longtime friendship with a fellow scientist and outcast named Bill. Her stories alternate with short chapters of scientific content about plants and trees.

Jahren grew up in her father's lab, becoming comfortable at a young age with the equipment and other trappings of scientific life. As much as she loves the work, she doesn't gloss over the challenges - funding is a constant source of anxiety, as is the uphill battle of trying to achieve respect in the field, especially if you're seen as an outsider. From the beginning, there were few women in her field and she had to fight stereotypes and convince her peers that she was serious. I wish she had followed this thread a bit more in the book though - she talks about it a lot at the beginning, but later she didn't discuss how being a woman in science changed, or didn't change, and how it may have affected her later in her career.

Her friendship with Bill was a large part of the story. He was pretty stand-off-ish and others didn't take to him the way Jahren did. He was obviously poor and socially awkward, but brilliant, and they became very close friends. He often lived in a vehicle or in a lab, though eventually he secured more stable housing. It was an unusual relationship; they worked together and when Jahren would move away for another job she would take him with her so they could keep working together. It was unclear how she logistically made this happen, but I get the idea that she was given a certain amount of money that would cover hiring lab assistants and that's how she paid him. At any rate, I love how close they were, how they helped each other, and the fun adventures they had on their field trips. We could use more positive portrayals of relationships.

Interestingly, she came across as a total workaholic early in the book and everything was focused on her career and friendship with Bill, and then suddenly she begins a romantic relationship, gets married very quickly, and has a baby. It was a bit jolting. She had made maybe one mention earlier in the book about dating and somehow I was quite shocked that she chose to have a child. The parts about being a mother were so incongruous with the rest of the book, and I still liked these parts, I just think that maybe the different threads of her story weren't woven together well. It's the same for the sections in which she talks about her bipolar disorder - this was a bit more woven in with the parts about motherhood, but I still have a lot of questions about how it may have affected her work.

I learned a lot about plants and trees from the short chapters that focused on botany. Her descriptions of the process of trees shedding their leaves and how plants are affected by things that happened when they were just seeds made me think about plants as truly being alive in a way I hadn't considered before. We think of plants as being so passive just because they don't move in a way that we can see, but they really aren't passive at all. I've been sort of interested in Peter Wohlleben's popular book The Hidden Life of Trees for a while, and now I'm even more likely to eventually read it.

I've seen this book on a lot of "best of" lists and one of my coworkers personally recommended it as well. I found a lot to like here and generally enjoyed reading it, though I do think it was a bit disjointed and lost some of the thematic threads at various points. But overall, I liked it and it gave me a lot to think about. It's only near the end of the book that she mentions the importance of writing to her, and it's true that her writing is quite beautiful, especially when describing the trees and other plants about which she is so passionate. Hopefully this means we'll see more books from her in the future.

Hunger

Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay (2017)

As a child Roxane Gay endured a horrific sexual assault that she did not know how to deal with. Afterward, she began to overeat, trying to hide herself. She writes candidly about what it's like to live in her body, one that is much larger than is acceptable in our society, and the numerous indignities that she suffers every day because of it. Although it's a memoir, much of it consists of vignettes on various topics, such as how inhospitable certain seating is for her, what it's like for her to go to the gym or to the doctor, and her thoughts about weight-loss shows like The Biggest Loser.

This book is intensely personal. She admits things that must be very difficult to admit, and though it's incredibly reassuring to hear as a fellow human, I can't help but wonder what it costs a person to write a book like this. She is really laying bare everything about herself and that has to affect her relationships and her interactions with people (including friends and family) who have read it.

Although it's more personal than her other books, her trademark wit is still apparent. In a chapter about Oprah Winfrey and her weight loss, she mentions a commercial in which Oprah says, "Inside every overweight woman is a woman she knows she can be." We've all heard that idea, of course, that there's a skinny woman inside, just waiting to get out. Gay's thought every time she sees the commercial is, "I ate that thin woman and she was delicious but unsatisfying." I also found it rather charming that she refers to her romantic partner as her "person."

I'll admit I was a little disappointed at the lack of a narrative thread through much of the book; I think I was expecting more of a traditional memoir than a collection of thematic essays, but she gives us a great deal to think about. It's not as though I was unaware of how our society looks upon people who are overweight or some of the specific problems (like airline seating), but there was so much I hadn't thought of. It's like this with any marginalized population, of course. Those of us who aren't part of that population can only understand a fraction of what they experience. Although many people have written about their weight and body image, I don't think I've read anything this detailed or personal or honest.

Gay came across as resigned to many unhappy aspects of her life, which left me feeling rather downhearted. She's appreciative of the many good things about her life, and rather likes herself though she feels like she's not supposed to. It's definitely a book that is more thought-provoking than enjoyable so I can't enthusiastically say how much I liked it. So much of it was unpleasant to hear and think about. But it's good, there's no doubt about that. She's incredibly talented and brilliant and it's always worth listening to what she has to say. Hunger is a must-read for anyone who's a fan of her work.

The Fact of a Body

The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich (2017)

Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich went to Louisiana for an internship at a law firm, where she learned about the case of Ricky Langley, who was convicted of murdering a 6-year-old boy. He was a pedophile and the more she learned about his case, the more memories it brought back about her own childhood and the grandfather who had abused her. The story of Ricky Langley and the story of Marzano-Lesnevich's childhood are both told in alternating chapters, resulting in a book that is both true crime and memoir.

Neither story is simple or straightforward. Ricky's life even began in a strange way, born while his mother was confined to a body cast after an accident that killed two of Ricky's siblings. At the time of the murder, Ricky was living with a couple and their two kids. Apparently the man, Terry, had been known to abuse at least one of his own kids. Ricky maintains he did not sexually abuse the young kid before murdering him, but there was some physical evidence showing that he was possibly abused at that time. However, DNA tests showed that evidence wasn't related to Langley. Just a few months after the murder, Terry drove his motorcycle into the side of a moving train, killing himself and his son. Ricky kept asking for help and it was denied. He tried to educate people about pedophilia in an attempt to help deal with other pedophiles and nobody wanted to listen. He wanted to be in prison so he wouldn't hurt anyone.

Marzano-Lesnevich, coincidentally, also lost a sibling. She and her brother thought they were twins until it was revealed they were actually triplets, and their sister died as an infant. Her grandfather sexually abused her and her sister for several years. As if the abuse itself weren't enough, her family later denied that it ever happened. Her parents consulted a child psychologist at the time who advised them not to press charges, not to even confront the abuser, in an effort to minimize impact on the kids. As an adult she overheard a conversation at a party in which her father told someone, and I think he was laughing about it, that she was the only one who remembered the abuse. Her sister made a conscious decision to pretend it never happened.

Reviews of the book make too much of the author's views on the death penalty and her reaction upon meeting Langley, when she suddenly felt that she wanted him to die. I thought this whole book would be about how her feelings about capital punishment changed through this case, but it wasn't. There is so much to this story, to both stories.

Her writing is beautiful and evocative, and I became completely wrapped up in both stories. Part of what made it so immersive are the detailed descriptions that go beyond what you normally find in nonfiction. She cleverly achieved this by using words like "maybe" and "perhaps" to describe what things may been like for a particular character. For instance: "Standing outside is a woman. Maybe she's leaning against the side of the building, one hand resting on the top of the trash can, her head thrown back as she exhales into the night sky." In this way, she was able to paint a scene quite vividly without actually making it into fiction. It was brilliant.

In fact, the whole book was brilliant and powerful and thought-provoking. If you like true crime or memoirs - and especially if you like both - I highly recommend reading it.

Born a Crime

Born a Crime: Stories From a South Africa Childhood by Trevor Noah (2016)

You may know Trevor Noah as host of The Daily Show, a job he took over from Jon Stewart in 2015. I hardly ever watch tv so I've only seen clips here and there. The reason I picked this book up, though, is because it's all about Noah's life growing up in South Africa in the waning days of apartheid. The title refers to the fact that his mother is black and his father is white, and that sort of racial mixing was illegal at the time. His status as "colored" - the South African term for a racially mixed person - had huge consequences for his childhood.

Noah talks a lot about race in this book, as you might expect. As a kid, his mother wouldn't hold his hand in public and if an authority figure was nearby, she'd pretend she didn't know him. Growing up, he had a tough time fitting in with any of the racial groups. He mentions the way apartheid was taught in South Africa and compares it how racism is taught in America, contrasting it with the way the Holocaust is taught in Germany: "Not just the facts of it but the how and the why and the gravity of it." In America, we learn about slavery and Jim Crow and the Civil Rights movement of the 60s and that's it. I find that so strange and I'm glad he brings it up. I have to wonder what it is about our culture and South African culture that result in a similarly incomplete way of teaching history. He also discusses privilege in the context of making CDs and DJ-ing, which he was able to become successful at only when his white friend gave him a CD writer. You know the saying "Give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he'll eat for a lifetime." Noah adds his own caveat to it, which is "And it would be nice if you gave him a fishing rod." Another really interesting thing he mentioned is that people in South Africa don't view the Holocaust the same way we do and aren't as familiar with Hitler as villain. Hitler is part of the white world with which they are unfamiliar, but the people of Africa have their own villains in the colonial powers that divided up the continent and exploited its people.

It's not all serious discussion about race. There are also funny stories, like the time as a kid when he burned down some white people's house, and the time he ended up in jail. It's not as funny as listening to him on The Daily Show, but memoirs by comedians are always less funny than their performances because it's not an act, it's real life. I really liked hearing about his everyday life and family. Despite his status as an outsider, and despite his family's poverty, he sounds like he was pretty happy. His life was the only life he knew and it wasn't really worse than anyone around him.

I should also mention that Noah's mom is pretty awesome. This book is as much about her as about him, I think (and in fact it's dedicated to her.) She's a smart, strong woman who never let her son feel like he was less than others because he was of two different races. She played by her own rules too, going wherever she liked and doing what she wanted, even if some of it was understood to be for white people. She prepared her son for the freedom from apartheid that they had no way of knowing would come so soon. She wanted him to know that the circumstances of their lives weren't all there is, that more was out there. Plus she taught him how to be respectful towards women, though she herself was unfortunately in a relationship with someone who did not treat her as she deserved.

At one point I got a little distracted by language, as he mentioned speaking a couple of different African languages, and ended up down a rabbit hole of YouTube videos in the Xhosa language. If you're curious, this one has a bit of Noah speaking Xhosa, which is very cool-sounding.

I knew almost nothing about South Africa before reading this book, and still need to learn more, but I really enjoyed hearing about what it was like to live there during this time, and his perspective on the world was refreshing and different from what I'm used to reading. I'm very glad I picked up this book.

Bleaker House

Bleaker House by Nell Stevens (2017)

When choosing where to go for her writing fellowship, Nell Stevens took the opposite tack as many of her peers. Rather than going to a European or Asian city bustling with activity, she picked a remote island in the Falklands where she would be the only inhabitant for most of the time she was there. Her goal was to focus on her novel with no distractions. Of course, what we got was this memoir about her experience so obviously the result of her time on Bleaker Island wasn't what she was aiming for.

Chapters about her time on the island alternate with experiences from her past and bits of her writing. Snippets of the novel she's working on were to be expected (and I might have been disappointed without a taste of the work around which her whole trip centered) but she also included some short stories, presumably also written while she was there though she doesn't really talk about working on projects other than her novel. I got the feeling these were included because she couldn't publish them elsewhere, or because she needed filler; after all, there wasn't much to write about on this lonely island. Still, I didn't dislike the stories (or novel snippets) and if she does eventually publish a fiction book I may well read it. I like her style.

Her trip was planned carefully and mostly went smoothly, except that she really screwed up with food. She had to carry all her food to the island with her and because of weight restrictions on the tiny plane, she had to measure and weigh everything ahead of time. After arriving in the Falklands she learns she could have arranged for supplies to be delivered to her while she was there, but this would have to have been set up far in advance. I can absolutely understand not having this bit of information ahead of time; if nobody told her, it probably wouldn't occur to her to ask. What I can't understand is why she thought it was adequate to allot herself just over 1000 calories per day. A simple Google search or, I don't know, asking a friend, could have easily disabused her of the idea that it was enough calories for anything but temporary survival. So she was hungry a lot, and as we know from learning about the importance of school lunch programs, it's very difficult to concentrate when you're hungry.

This is not the first trip Stevens has taken in service to her writing. She's a bit apologetic about it, but to me it seems like having a lot of experiences in different places is a good way to learn things about the world you wouldn't otherwise know, and would expand the breadth of writing fodder. At the same time, it's completely obvious from the outset that her novel became a memoir so when she writes about her epiphany - that what she really needs to be writing is not a novel but a memoir about herself - it is both a little too meta (writing a book about writing the book) but also, yeah, we know you ended up writing a memoir. There's no need to point it out as though it's a shocking plot twist. I am also reminded of the passage in her piece of fiction "Character Study" in which a student consider's her teacher's autobiographical book of poetry: "Her marriage was not as interesting as she seemed to think it was. Why did she imagine her life merited so much scrutiny, so much attention? It was an ordinary life." It's as though Stevens knows she doesn't quite have enough for a real memoir (hence all the pieces of fiction woven in) but she needed something to show for her time there, if not the novel she set out to write.

Yet, I enjoyed the book most of the time I was reading it. Sure it fell a bit flat at the end, and there weren't nearly as many penguins as I had hoped for based on the cover art, but I'm glad I read it. Although there wasn't much to talk about regarding her experiences on the island, I still quite enjoyed the parts about her trip and her stay there. I also think someone interested in the writing process might benefit from some of her insights regarding success and failure and the way she integrated her life experiences into fiction.

I'm also - as always - interested in other books in which people travel to cold, remote settings so if you have any suggestions please let me know in the comments!

Night

Night by Elie Wiesel (1958)

I read this for the first time in high school, and after that I read a ton of Holocaust literature for years until I felt like I had overdosed on it. Since then I have sort of avoided World War II books, with a few noted exceptions. But after Wiesel's death a few months ago, this book was recommended for the Community Read committee and made it to the shortlist.

In case you haven't read it, Wiesel tells the story of his family's capture by the Germans in Hungary and their subsequent journey by train and marching to a couple of different concentration camps. He and his father were moved from place to place, not fed or even given water sometimes, and saw many people killed at the hands of the Nazis. His story is filled with human cruelty, but also some kindness and hope.

It's a very short book, but it's relentlessly brutal. It's made worse because the story ends pretty much the moment Wiesel is liberated. In the beginning he alludes to his mother and sisters being split off to go with the women as the last time he sees her or his littlest sister. But what of his other sisters? He doesn't mention them at all. I know the story is just supposed to be this one experience, but it felt incomplete without this information. I wanted something about the aftermath of this experience, even just a few pages.

His writing style is simple, but with the sort of profound moments that come when one is faced with death at every turn. Only fifteen when he was captured, Wiesel lost his faith in God and humanity pretty quickly. He records a pivotal moment when he remained silent as someone struck his father, recognizing that even the day before he would have fought the attacker. He also noted at one point how he was no longer affected by all the people he saw die every day.

But I also saw hope and strength in some passages: "We had transcended everything--death, fatigue, our natural needs. We were stronger than cold and hunger, stronger than the guns and the desire to die, doomed and rootless, nothing but numbers, we were the only men on earth."

The way that some of them just kept going when other succumbed to the cold or hunger or brutality made me wonder which group I'd be in if I were in that situation. Hopefully I will never find out.

Reading this now - as hate and prejudice seem poised to take over here in the US - seems somehow appropriate, and a good reminder of how easily hatred can take over. Comparing Trump to Hitler used to seem rather heavy-handed but the more I hear from our current day hatemonger the more I wonder how different he really is. Especially chilling in Night were the passages at the beginning about how unconcerned many people were, and how they refused to listen to someone who had actually seen what was going on. Even Wiesel's own father downplayed the seriousness of the situation when the Jews were told they had to wear yellow stars. "So what? It's not lethal..." Neither is deporting all Muslims from the US. But that's how it starts, doesn't it?

So it is timely, though I think it is always timely to talk about bigotry. But is it the best choice for a Community Read? It's certainly not the worst choice, and obviously has important themes and could generate valuable conversations. However, I think most people read it in high school and in the town where I work it's definitely on the summer reading lists. I know high school is quite a while ago for many of us, but I do like to pick something that everyone hasn't already read.

Still, I'm glad I took the opportunity to revisit this short volume, which I read entirely in one sitting. I do recommend it if you haven't read it before as it's an important work about a time in history that I hope we never repeat.