Memorial by Bryan Washington
303 pages

What’s it about?
 Mike and Benson are a couple living together in Houston and trying to make their relationship work.  Mike is a Japanese American working as a chef- and Benson is a Black, daycare teacher.  Mike discovers that his estranged father is dying in Osaka, just as his mother arrives to visit from Japan.  No one is happy when Mike decides to leave his mother with Benson (whom she has never met) and go care for his father. Mike's decision to go leaves both men wondering what is happening to their relationship.  

What did it make me think about?
 This story is a slice of America.  It is also about love, about family, and about redemption. 

Should I read it?
This book has gotten so much hype that I hate to pile on- but this book was really good- so I am piling on! What a love story.  Bryan Washington has a gift for dialogue.  What isn't said, is just as illuminating as the conversation itself.  Be prepared for a gay love story and all the sex that comes with it.  In the end you will be rooting for both Mike and Benson- no matter what the outcome.  

Quote-
"That loving a person means letting them change when they need to.  And letting them go when they need to.  And that doesn't make them any less of a home.   Just maybe not one for you.  Or only for a season or two.  But that doesn't diminish the love.  It just changes forms."

If you liked this try-
Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson
​If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha
​How We Fight For Our Lives by Saeed Jones
​On Earth We're Breifly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

​9 stars

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
343 pages

What’s it about?
 Identical twins Desiree and Stella grow up in the small Louisiana town of Mallard, which was founded by their great-great-great grandfather Alphonse Decuir.  Alphonse was the son of a white land owner and a slave.  His dream was to create a community for light skinned negroes who would not be accepted as white, but saw themselves as set apart. "Lightness, like anything inherited at great cost, was a lonely gift.  He'd married a mulatto even lighter than himself.  She was pregnant with their first child, and he imagined his children's children, lighter still, like a cup of coffee steadily diluted with cream.  A more perfect negroe.  Each generation lighter than the one before."  When Desiree and Stella turn 16 they run away from this small town to New Orleans.  Years later,  Desiree will return to Mallard with her daughter in tow, but not much has changed.  “In Mallard, nobody married dark....Marrying a dark man and dragging his blueblack child all over town was one step too far.”   Desiree and Stella make different life choices- as we will soon see.  The choices these women make will reverberate in the lives of their respective daughters.  

What did it make me think about?
Identity- racial identity, gender identity, and what influence do others have on how we see ourselves and what we become?  This novel also made me think about racism, loneliness, consequences, acting versus lying, and so much more.  My one wish is that Stella's daughter would have been written as less of a caricature.  

Should I read it?
 Yes! For some reason I have put this book off and I am so glad book club chose this one.  Brit Bennett has written a very thought provoking book that is easy to read.   Not to mention her writing, "Her death hit in waves.  Not a flood, but water lapping steadily at her ankles.
   You could drown in two inches of water.  Maybe grief was the same.".  I will look forward to a good discussion- as there are many ideas to explore in this story.
 
Quote-
"People thought that being one of a kind made you special.  No, it just made you lonely.  What was special was belonging with someone else."

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Dominicana by Angie Cruz
Ruby by Cynthia Bond
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
Washington Black by Esi Edugyan

9 stars

Anxious People by Frederik Backman
336 pages

What’s it about?
A group of strangers are all looking for an apartment.  They happen to be at the same open house when someone runs into the apartment waving a gun.  There has been an attempted bank robbery on the same block and the robber is trying to evade the police.  What was once a robbery is now a hostage situation.  

What did it make me think about?
 My mom always said to me, "Everyone is doing the best they can."  It seems to be a common theme in  Frederik Backman  novels.  I think this is what draws me to them.  My mom would love Frederik Backman!

Should I read it?
 Full disclosure- I hated the first half of this book.  I actually deeply considered giving up on it altogether.   Before quitting I decided to look at some of the reviews- everyone loved this book!  So I decided to keep reading.  The second half of the book was much stronger for me that the first.  I am not sure if it was my mood or what- but I hated the beginning of this book.  It was SO wordy and actually quite boring.  The big question is whether the second half of the novel makes the first half worth it...    I love Frederick Backman's  messages of hope, but I have enjoyed some of his books more than others.  ​A Man Called Ove and Beartown are two favorites thus far.  I am in the lone minority of not LOVING this latest novel.  The end did almost make the pain of the first half worth bearing.

Quote-
"Everyone in the apartment was wrestling with their own story."

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​Standard Deviation by Katherine Heiny
Florence Adler Swims Forever by Rachel Beanland
Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson
​The Garden of Small Beginnings by Abbi Waxman

7 1/2 stars

What Are You Going Through by Sigrid Nunez
210 pages

What’s it about?
 This slim novel chronicles the ordinary events of one woman's life as she narrates them to the reader.  Along the way she visits a friend who is dying, goes to a lecture that leaves little hope for future generations, thinks about what makes a great writer, and enjoys the solitude of nature.  Her observations are thoughtful and quiet.

What did it make me think about?
 Friendship, love, connection, death, and climate change.  Along with another theme I have read before- can writing do justice to the human experience? "Understood: language would end up falsifying everything, as language always does.  Writers know this only too well, they know it better than anyone else, and that is why the good ones sweat and bleed over their sentences, the best ones break themselves into pieces over their sentences, because if there is any truth to be found they believe it will be found there.  Those writers who feel that the way they write is more important than whatever they may write about- these are the only writers I want to read anymore, the only ones who can lift me up."

Should I read it?
 This was a short, beautiful novel.  It is written in such a quiet way, and yet has so much to say about the human experience.  I just finished Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar and while his novel seemed written in bold type- this book was quite the opposite.  Each writer seems to have matched their writing style to the message they were trying to impart.   It was interesting to read these books back to back.  I would definitely recommend both books.  I plan to go back and read previous works from Sigrid Nunez.

Quote-
"I think it's largely true, what I once heard a famous playwright say, that there are no truly stupid human beings, no uninteresting human lives, and that you'd discover this if you were willing to sit and listen to people.  But sometimes you had to be willing to sit for a very long time."

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Driftless by David Rhodes
Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill
A Children's Bible by Lydia Millet
Levels of Life by Julian Barnes
​
9 stars

Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar
343 pages

​What’s it about?
 Ayad Akhtar is a Pulitzer Prize winning playwright and novelist.  His newest book is written as a novel, but at times seemed more like a memoir or a collection of short stories.  Much like Akhtar, the narrator is a American born man of Pakistani descent.  This novel gives us vignettes of the Muslim-American experience and insights into how America got to the place it is now.

What did it make me think about?
 Family, belonging, the economics of America, and hard work.

Should I read it?
 This was an interesting and thoughtful look at what it is like to be a Muslim artist post 9-11.  The narrator tells many different stories that shed light on his life experience. His relationship with his father was the ballast of the book for me.  I was also fascinated by the hard work he has put in to pursue his craft.  I tend to think of writing as a gift you are innately born with, but Akhtar details the work he put into becoming a prize winning writer. This is a thoughtful, intellectual look at many facets of the American experience.  If you are open to listening then I highly recommend this book.

Quote-
In the mark of a great book their are so many quotes to choose from.....

"We are more obsessed with what they think of us than what we think of ourselves.  We spend way too much time trying to correct the impression the West has of who we are.  We've turned defensiveness into a way of life. Edward Said writes a book about how wrong they've been about us, and it becomes our bible, a high road to self-knowledge. But that's not what it is.  Not remotely. Constantly defining yourself in opposition to what others say about you is not self-knowledge.  It's confusion.  That much I'd figured but the time I was in high school."

"Increasingly, the benefit to the consumer become the dominant metric of common good, and that benefit would be solely defined by the lowest price." 

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A Terrible Country by Keith Gessen
Deacon King Kong by James McBride
Exit West by Moshin Hamid
Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie

9 stars