For my reading challenge, I need a book recommended by a librarian. If you are a librarian or know one, please send suggestions my way!
Hi fellow readers and bookworms! We’re well into July now, and how time flies! School and work have kept me pretty busy, but I’m grateful for all the reading opportunities I’ve had this year. Since it’s summer, I think this is a good time to pause for a moment and reflect on my progress.
I’m working through a category reading challenge with an added twist: in January I promised myself that I would read harder. This year that means reading more books by women and/or people of color (POC), and being mindful of how those specific voices are presented (or not) in every day life (i.e., trips to the bookstore, what people around me are reading, etc.).
Brief synopsis (Goodreads): National Book Award finalist Cristina García delivers a powerful and gorgeous novel about the intertwining lives of the denizens of a luxurious hotel in an unnamed Central American capital in the midst of political turmoil. The lives of six men and women converge over the course of one week. There is a Japanese-Mexican-American matadora in town for a bull-fighting competition; an ex-guerrilla now working as a waitress in the hotel coffee shop; a Korean manufacturer with an underage mistress ensconced in the honeymoon suite; an international adoption lawyer of German descent; a colonel who committed atrocities during his country’s long civil war; and a Cuban poet who has come with his American wife to adopt a local infant. With each day, their lives become further entangled, resulting in the unexpected—the clash of histories and the pull of revenge and desire.
Rating: ✈ Travel companion
Long story short: I really enjoyed The Lady Matador’s Hotel. The plot is slow-moving, but that works in the book’s favor, since the characters are far more interesting and are ultimately what make the book a compelling read. In addition, the writing is charming; it has a poetic cadence that juxtaposes provocatively with the occasional gore and violent imagery.
If you’re on vacation or at the beach, I recommend picking it up! Keep reading for a more in-depth review:
Continue reading “Review: The Lady Matador’s Hotel by Cristina García”
As summer quickly approaches—yay!—I’m working on kicking my reading challenge into high gear. I’ve been slowly making my way through the 52 books I want to read, and hope to knock out most of them in the next four months. I’m also looking forward to connecting with friends over books, something I’ve been sorely missing.
To that end, I’m inviting you all to write book reviews to post on my reading blog. I don’t have a huge number of followers, so if your goal is exposure this might not be the best forum, but it’s a fun way to flex your writing muscles and share what you’ve been reading. No rules really, except that you keep things polite and professional.
If you’re interested, let me know!
I am so excited about Anne With An E that I started writing this review before finishing the series (I have since watched all seven episodes). But before I get started, I should admit that I have not read the books (I know: blasphemous). However, I am a huge fan of the 1985 Anne of Green Gables mini-series, which I understand was a faithful reproduction. Any comparisons I make will be to the 1985 series, and not the books.
To be honest I was pretty nervous about seeing Anne With An E. I needn’t have worried. It is an exceptional rendition of everyone’s favorite smart, bold, dramatic, red-headed girl, and I highly recommend you watch it.
In this version, the general storyline is the same, apart from a few enjoyable twists. The characters are wonderfully fleshed out and have a depth that I don’t remember seeing in the 1985 series. Amybeth McNulty plays a fantastic Anne; she is spunky, fiery, and so authentic. I am really looking forward to knowing her better.
This adaptation is darker and more melancholy than its earlier counterpart, which has rubbed some people the wrong way. Certain flashbacks and subtle dialogue make the narrative grittier and not the same kind of wholehearted fun that was the 1985 version. I think this is a necessary and brilliantly inventive retelling of the classic story. To think that Anne was not traumatized and troubled by her past is a disservice to her character; we cannot truly appreciate her lightheartedness without understanding her sorrow and heartache.
One poignant quote in the first episode points to this compassion:
I had to run a bunch of errands on Monday, which meant having to hunt down an elusive parking spot in the city. Luckily for me, I found a place that validated parking. All I had to do was…buy some books! What a wonderful win-win!
I only noticed after I got to the checkout counter that all my picks were non-fiction/memoirs. Maybe my mind is trying to tell me something…
- You Can’t Touch My Hair: And Other Things I Still Have to Explain by Phoebe Robinson
A hilarious and affecting essay collection about race, gender, and pop culture from celebrated stand-up comedian and WNYC podcaster Phoebe Robinson…As personal as it is political, You Can’t Touch My Hair examines our cultural climate and skewers our biases with humor and heart, announcing Robinson as a writer on the rise.* - Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl by Carrie Brownstein
Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl is the deeply personal and revealing narrative of Brownstein’s life in music, from ardent fan to pioneering female guitarist to comedic performer and luminary in the independent rock world. This book intimately captures what it feels like to be a young woman in a rock-and-roll band, from her days at the dawn of the underground feminist punk-rock movement that would define music and pop culture in the 1990s through today.* - The Accidental Asian by Eric Liu
Beyond black and white, native and alien, lies a vast and fertile field of human experience. It is here that Eric Liu, former speechwriter for President Clinton and noted political commentator, invites us to explore. In these compellingly candid essays, Liu reflects on his life as a second-generation Chinese American and reveals the shifting frames of ethnic identity. Finding himself unable to read a Chinese memorial book about his father’s life, he looks critically at the cost of his own assimilation. But he casts an equally questioning eye on the effort to sustain vast racial categories like “Asian American.” And as he surveys the rising anxiety about China’s influence, Liu illuminates the space that Asians have always occupied in the American imagination. Reminiscent of the work of James Baldwin and its unwavering honesty, The Accidental Asian introduces a powerful and elegant voice into the discussion of what it means to be an American.* - Original Zinn: Conversations on History and Politics by Howard Zinn
Touching on such diverse topics as the American war machine, civil disobedience, the importance of memory and remembering history, and the role of artists—from Langston Hughes to Dalton Trumbo to Bob Dylan—in relation to social change, Original Zinn is Zinn at his irrepressible best, the acute perception of a scholar whose impressive knowledge and probing intellect make history immediate and relevant for us all.* - Create Dangerously by Edwidge Danticat
In this deeply personal book, the celebrated Haitian-American writer Edwidge Danticat reflects on art and exile, examining what it means to be an immigrant artist from a country in crisis…Combining memoir and essay, Danticat tells the stories of artists, including herself, who create despite, or because of, the horrors that drove them from their homelands and that continue to haunt them. [She] also suggests that the aftermaths of natural disasters in Haiti and the United States reveal that the countries are not as different as many Americans might like to believe.*
I’m making my way through a couple of reading challenge books at the moment, but I’m hoping to sneak one of these in soon! Have you read any of them? What did you think?
*Descriptions taken from Goodreads
Bustle recently posted a list of the best indie bookstores in every major U.S. city. I’ve made a small dent, but have a ways to go. I think a road trip is in order! 😉
✔ Left Bank Books Collective—Seattle, WA
✔ Powell’s City of Books—Portland, OR
✔ Dog Eared Books—San Francisco, CA
The Last Bookstore—Los Angeles, CA
Tattered Cover Bookstore—Denver, CO
South Congress Books—Austen, TX
Myopic Books—Chicago, IL
A Cappella Books—Atlanta, GA
Books & Books—Miami, FL
Politics & Prose—Washington, D.C.
The Book Trader—Philadelphia, PA
✔ Strand Bookstore—New York City, NY
Brattle Book Shop—Boston, MA
Where have you been? What would you add to this list?
Brief synopsis (Goodreads): In Do Cool Sh*t, serial social entrepreneur, angel investor, and all-around cool sh*t–doer Miki Agrawal shows how to start a successful company—from brainstorming to raising money to getting press without any connections—all while having a meaningful life! With zero experience and no capital, Miki Agrawal opened WILD, a farm-to-table pizzeria in New York City and Las Vegas, partnered up in a children’s multimedia company called Super Sprowtz, and launched a patented high-tech underwear business called THINX. Miki has seen significant growth in her businesses. She pulls back the curtain of how you can live out loud, honor your hunches, and leave nothing on the table.
Rating: 
Left behind
Long story short: Miki Agrawal, the founder of WILD and THINX, proves that you can’t be good at everything in her narcissistic and poorly-written debut book.
I mean, I couldn’t even finish it because her self-obsession got to me. To be fair, she has accomplished a lot at a very young age, but her tone smacks of privilege and conceitedness that goes well beyond being confident.
Agrawal went to an IVY league school, worked in finance, and had the luxury of leaving that well-paying job to pursue entrepreneurship. It’s not hard to “quit your day job, start your own business, and live happily ever after” if you don’t really have to worry about stuff like money *eye roll*.
She has also been accused of sexual harassment among other work discrimination claims while she was CEO of THINX. Yikes.
In terms of content, there are some good tips buried deep in the pages, but they aren’t earth-shattering or life-changing. Mostly normal stuff like:
- Think about where you want to be, and then work backwards to fill in the gaps in what you need
- Feed or offer some other incentive to people whom you’re asking for help
Sure they serve as good reminders, but this book isn’t the only way to find advice on how to be your own boss (honestly, anything else is probably better).
Then there’s also plenty of creepy stuff like:
- Telling the soccer coach, “I like Italian men!” in Italian, as a way to stand out during tryouts
- Accosting a restaurant owner during a social gathering to ask if you can shadow him, thereby forcing him to say yes or look like a douchebag
*Shudders*
Have you read the book? What did you think?
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