Leaving the Witness: Exiting a Religion and Finding a Life by Amber Scorah (audiobook)

 genre: nonfiction, religious deconstruction

I know I am reading a lot about religious deconstruction lately and it's super helpful for me to hear the stories of women from other religions who begin to examine their own beliefs in a more rigorous way.  This was different because the author was actually living a life as a secret missionary in China when her questioning started.  MUCH of this book is about the author speaking Chinese, about her life in China as well as memories from her past.  Her actual deconstruction is a small part of the book and for me, it wasn't quite enough.  The choice to sort of fire bomb her life wasn't easy, obviously, but I felt like she was telling me the story from far away.  It was strangely impersonal and the narrative felt rambling and almost random on more than one occasion.  I appreciate that I have learned more about the Jehovah's Witness experience but this wasn't a huge standout read for me.

The Villa by Rachel Hawkins (audiobook)

genre: historical/contemporary fiction

The Villa is told in two timelines: modern and in the 1970s.  This book has a bit of the vibe of Daisy Jones and the Six, where we hear podcast episode and articles, talking about the famous and artistic young adults whose trip to an Italian villa was cut short by tragedy.  When Emily and her childhood bestie Chess end up staying at the same Italian villa, the whole murder mystery of it all is like a blanket covering the place.  There is a ton of foreshadowing here, more than is necessary, in my opinion.  The relationships always felt uncomfortable - between characters in all storylines, there is no real trust.  The narrators don't feel completely reliable either and when you occasionally throw into the plot some pages of a gothic horror novel as well, it's just a LOT.  I had my footing by the time I was 25% in.  I did want to listen and I finished it quickly.  But the ending didn't make me love it more, unfortunately.  It definitely deserves 3 stars but I don't think I can give it more.

The Change by Kirsten Miller.

 genre: contemporary mystery

In the sleepy seaside village of Mattauk, something strange is happening.  Harriett, the woman who was a director at an advertising firm?  She's apparently either missing or has lost her mind because her once perfectly manicured yard is looking more like a jungle.  Jo, former hotel executive?  The way her body has been changing makes her feel a kind of rage that needs a focus.  And Nessa?  Well, Nessa's special.  Because she's got a gift that is only now coming into fruition - and it's the kind of gift that reminds Nessa of how dangerous it is to be a young woman.

Okay, I had NO idea where this book was going to go.  I can't even remember what list I found it on that made me want to try it.  But from the beginning, I was intrigued.  There is evidence of a murder.  But then you find out about more murders.  And in this world of crazy wealth and old boy's clubs, these three women are about to tap into the kind of power they can't even imagine to stop it. As a perimenopausal woman myself, I loved these ladies.  The friendship they create and the way their different strengths played out struck me in a believable way.  There is a lot going on here between the three main characters's own stories plus the story they are in together, but it worked for me.  It's violent sometimes in a startling way - and also startling is that in this story of women-taking-back-their-power, we as readers are just supposed to roll with it, which I mostly did.  I liked the witchy vibe. I liked the female strength vibe.  I definitely liked it.

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

genre: fiction

Background that only matters to me, probably: when I heard about this book initially, I was vaguely intrigued.  I've always loved Kingersolver's work but then I saw how long it was and THEN I knew that if I wanted to have the best experience when reading it, that I should read David Copperfield FIRST.  And that one is also SO LONG.  So I put it in my backpocket until this past Christmas when this beautiful colorful cover on a paperback edition was on the table at the bookstore and I knew it was meant to be.  I had to read this book and it had to be THIS particular edition.  Of course, I DID do David first and IT WAS THE RIGHT CHOICE.  READ D.C. BY DICKENS FIRST.  It will make what she's done in this novel feel like an actual marvel of the written word.

Demon.  Born to a single mama in Lee County.  His home: a rented single wide trailer in the hills of this nowhere Appalachian backwater.  From his first breath, Demon is fighting for a chance to have enough.  Because in this part of the world, having enough is just not a given, not when your mama is strung out to her last thread and there isn't anyone else to be in charge of you.  Told in the same first-person narrative as David C., Demon has a unique voice: snarky and crass and tender, all at the same time.  I wasn't two pages in before I went to get a pen and I knew I'd be reading with one for all 546 pages.  The writing is that good.  Demon's story is a tale of heartache and child labor, the foster system and small town schools and the kind of pain that can sweep over a valley and burn it down to stubble.  It's the story of all the kids who get lost in the mechanized hamster wheel of CPS, who need to be loved and allowed to be children, just like everyone else.  And when you can't just be a kid, you work it out yourself, like Demon does.  But the consequences will rip your heart out. 

I am floored by this novel. By how she took the mean-streets-living Victorian London of David Copperfield and plunked it into an Appalachian town and retold this story in the most lyrical, beautiful and depressing way.  In Demon, she especially created a character with the kind of wit and foul-mouth that can surprise you with his tenderness.  I rooted for Demon, right from the start.  I rooted for him all through the horrible things that happened to him and then the horrible choices he made because of how broken he'd become.  OH the ache when I could see things coming - both because I knew what had happened in Dicken's tale but also because this is modern history and we know what has happened to forgotten souls in these places of poverty and disenfranchisement.  Kingsolver does SUCH a good job of making you find compassion for those who call Lee County home, despite it seeming to be a one way ticket to nowhere - and she explains through the voices of her characters how it came to be what it is.  The way she's created modern characters that parallel the ones in Copperfield is so, so good.  Plus, they are WAY less verbose here and that was much appreciated.  

It's not going to be for everyone.  There is everything horrible here that you can imagine in terms of the underbelly of the world, and Demon does not mince words.  This boy doesn't only spell it all out, he draws us the upsetting picture too -  the kind of pictures that we can't look away from.  We watch him go to dark and upsetting places but we want so much for him to make it back out okay, we stick by his side.  We see where he's going to be able to find redemption, if he'll just grab onto it.  And then, when he does - you feel like you yourself have washed off the filth of years and the rainclouds have parted.  

It's a work of art, this book.  And while not for everyone, it is absolutely for me.

No Nonsense Spirituality: All the Tools

genre: non-fiction,spirituality

I stumbled upon the author's content online and it really spoke to me.  As someone who has been experiencing a massive faith transition over the last several years, her explanations and hot takes on certain issues really resonated with something deep in myself.  When I saw she'd written a book, I knew it would be good for me to try and dig deeper into the idea of a spirituality that doesn't require me to believe in things I can't believe in anymore.  

It took me a while to get into and it wasn't a fast read.  It was thoughtful and required my heart and my brain. I kept a pen in hand because there was a lot that I processed as I read.  The chapters on Secular Morality and Awakening the Feminine really connected a lot of dots already in my mind to even bigger ideas.  Ideas about the patriarchy and how it has impacted the relationship I've had with deity, ideas about how I don't have to reject the "spiritual" experiences I've had in the past just because I'm in a different space now.  I feel like the inner compass and integrity I've been truly relying on the last three years has been validated, now that I've been not just reminded but assured that listening to my heart and mind and treating people with compassion truly is enough.

She brings many different faith/spirituality/philosophy traditions into this look at how to take what is good and then leave behind what no longer serves or is even causing harm.  

It needs better editing, this is true.  I caught several actual typos and sometimes the narrative was a little rambling.  But for people like me, trying to rebuild a spiritual life from the ashes after a spiritual crisis has burned down our belief a high-demand religion, it feels like a life raft in a wild ocean.  I know there are parts of this book I will be returning to again and again.

Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harai (audiobook)

genre: nonfiction

Holy smokes. This book was an exercise in some serious meta existential thinking. The author takes us way way back in time before sapiens were at the top of the food chain. We learn about the evolution of homo sapiens along with neanderthals and why one species won out in the evolution game. We look at the creation of societies and religions, and the author forces us to look deep at a kind of godless reality that is sometimes a little startling, even for me. The premise that so much of our life is based on imaginary concepts that we've decided as a species to collectively believe in really made my brain have to work hard, but in the end, I feel like it was worth the effort. The balancing of biology and history and chemistry made me seriously consider some long held assumptions and feel a new wave of both fear and revulsion about what we are doing to our planet.  Sometimes it gets a little bit longwinded and boring. But overall, this book has created some new pathways in my own sapien brain and I am grateful for that.

Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid (audiobook)

genre: historical fiction

Joan has known ever since she was a girl that her place was in the stars.  After getting as much school as she possibly could and taking the best chance ever, she finally gets the opportunity to go to Houston's Johnson Space Center.  If she works hard, she might get a chance to be among the stars herself, as an astronaut.

This is a novel that goes back and forth in time, from when Joan begins her journey at NASA and during a mission in December of 1984 where everything changes.  And what we don't know is what happens between those two periods, who Joan meets and how seismic this shifts thing.  It is strange that a story set during my childhood is "historical fiction," but there is no other way to categorize it.  It was a time when people, especially women or anyone not CIS white man, was put into a box.  And getting out of that box took a kind of fearlessness that I honor and I mourn.  

It didn't grab me from the start.  There were a lot of characters that I never super cared enough to keep straight.  But I cared about Joan and the dreams she was trying to make come true while staying true to herself at the same time.  The last hour of this book was so powerful and painful and beautiful at the same time.  Four stars for making me care and making me teary and reminding me that the fact we've made it into space at all is a literal miracle.

My Friends by Fredrik Backman

 genre: contemporary fiction

The painting Louisa finds at the museum, the one of the sea, isn't just a painting.  It's a encapsulation of one perfect day - and artist knows this because he was there.  But for Louisa to meet the artist would take the kind of twist of fate that can only happen when your eyes know beauty when they see it and your heart has been broken enough to know that life is pain.  But the story of Louisa and the painting is only one thread in this story where past and present are so mixed together that we as readers realize it't not really the order in which life happened that's important - it's who we lived it with.  This is a story of finding your people and how your people save you.  In all the ways.  

During the last fourth of this book I had tears in my eyes twice, I was so touched by the tenderness of it.  What is so painfully beautiful about this book is that the heartbreak and the trauma and the actual horror that some of these characters live through somehow manages to stay just off center stage enough that instead of absolutely hating how horrible life can be, the bright light of how people can surprise you makes the story almost glow.  This is a story about how there are people who want to break people and there are people who want to keep people put together and that people can actually shift from one to the other if only there is enough safe space to allow it.  It's a well written, powerful and funny story, even with the desperate pain you feel for children that deserve better than what they get.  I also loved how it is an homage to art and the way that creative pursuits have a value beyond the product - that making something beautiful or SEEING something beautiful can literally change everything.

Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood (audiobook)

genre: contemporary fiction

When the narrator of our story visits a small religious commune in the Australian Outback, she doesn't anticipate that one day she will choose to make it her home.  With losses both personal and existential weighing on her, the women she serves with will become a kind of family. When tragedy comes to the door in more than one form, can the peace she finds within these secluded walls be enough to help her forgive herself?

I decided to read (listen) to this because it recently won the Booker Prize.  For me it was slow-going and I always felt like I was watching the story through a dusty window instead of being present.  Like our narrator's issues clouded my own viewing of what's happening.  I haven't read much about rural Australia or about small religous communities, so it wasn't like I was disinterested, I just didn't find myself connected enough to be eager to keep returning.  There are beautiful (and upsetting) parts, I just left it feeling blah.

The Amalfi Curse by Sarah Penner

 genre: historical/contemporary fiction

Off the coast of Italy lies the little town of Positano.  The women who live here have a secret that has kept Positano safe from all kinds of dangers - they can control the sea.  With their spells, ships can sink and the ocean temperature can rise or fall.  Their magic can't keep away tragedy, though, and more than a century later, when Hazel arrives as part of an archeological crew to study shipwrecks, something is afoot in Positano.  

This is my second book in a row with two different time periods that are connected and I genuinely like this device in general.  The magical world building here is fairly basic - the only magic that exists is that there are these red-haired Italian women who can do sea spells.  It's an intriguing idea and I think that the historical portions of the book were done well enough - it kept me interested and the main character isn't completely one dimensional.  The modern storyline just didn't work as well for me.  It jumped around a bit and it felt like I just had to believe the author that things were happening without the story itself ringing true to me - I don't know how much sense that makes but it's hard to describe.  

I'm not sorry I read it but I can't heartily recommend it.  If you adore Italy you might appreciate it just for the vibes, which were not bad at all.