Banished: Surviving My Years in the Westboro Baptist Church by Lauren Drain (✰✰✰)

Banished fell far short of my expectations. I picked up this book because I wanted to understand why anyone would join an organization known for picketing funerals of fallen servicemen and women and first responders to 9/11. It was inconceivable to me that anyone claiming to be Christian could do something so disrespectful. I was also curious how a cult whose members live among regular society manages to keep their people in line.

This book never went below the surface emotionally and analytically. I got the feeling that Lauren herself does not know the answers to my questions. From middle school into adulthood, she, for the most part, did what she was told. Even while describing what it was like to live under the constant scrutiny of her parents and other church members, it was as if she was writing from a perspective that was still too close to the person who thought that was normal. The part of her that got out knows that free people do not live like that, but the part of her that still yearns for the love of her family and the fellowship of the church cannot see how warped it is. The result was writing that was flat and lacking in self-awareness.

When she wrote about the thing the church is best known for — picketing — her prose was so matter-of-fact that it was as if she could not bring herself, even now, to condemn the behavior and see it for how appalling it is. Even in the book’s epilogue, where she offers an apology to the families of the deceased and the other groups, in particular homosexuals, whom she reviled thousands of times, she hedges. Instead of just offering her apology, she tempers it by saying that she will never advocate for the causes she used to advocate against. Why add that? It is her right to still feel that way (after all those years of brainwashing, it is understandable), but it made her apology seem so disingenuous, and that really bothered me.

My thought with this one is that either not enough time has past for Lauren to process her feelings enough to be able to answer all the “why” questions with honesty and depth or she is simply unable to think that profoundly, maybe due to having her every thought dictated to her for eight formative years of her life. Either way, she admits that she never found a scriptural reference to support why the church takes the position they do on homosexuals. Asking others did not get her an answer either. She did say that in one way or another, all of the church’s stances stem from hatred of homosexuality and hatred of the Jews (who they blame for killing Jesus). All in all, the book did give a glimpse into what life is like for members but no substance in terms of their theology or philosophy.

Warriors Don't Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High by Melba Pattillo Beals (✰✰✰✰✰)

The poorly chosen, tabloid worthy subtitle of this memoir almost made me give it a pass, but I am so happy I didn’t. Over the past year, I have been reading a lot of books by and about people whose lives are radically different from my own, due either to the color of their skin, their religion, of their politics. I have been deeply disturbed to see the rifts that are developing in the United States in terms of race, religion, and political affiliation. Looking back in history and analyzing how issues were resolved —or failed to be resolved — helps me to understand where things stand in our country today.

The author of this book, Melba Pattillo Beals, was one of the Little Rock Nine, nine Black teens chosen to forcibly integrate Little Rock, Arkansas’s Central High School in 1957. At just fifteen and sixteen, an age when high school is tough enough, she was being ushered to class — on days when she was lucky — by members of the famed Screaming Eagles, the army’s 101st Airborne Division. On not so lucky days, her “protection” came from members of the Arkansas National Guard — who more often than not stood by and made a spectator sport out of the treatment of the Nine.

These young people and their families endured death threats, beatings, broken bones, scaldings and humiliation in locker rooms, flaming paper bombs, and an endless stream of smaller physical abuses, as well as verbal and emotional abuse. Intervention went as high up as the President of the United States, Dwight Eisenhower, who allowed sporadic use of the 101st but was mostly managed by Arkansas officials who were adamantly opposed to integration. They hoped that the abuse the teens suffered would lead to either the students backing down and returning to their Black high school or for adults to refuse to allow them to continue for safety reasons. Every day, these nine young people went to war, not on foreign soil, but in a school. Right here in the United States.

Melba, who was inspired by the journalists who spoke her truth and that of her eight classmates, decided that one day she would become a journalist, too, so she could pay it forward. Despite being encouraged to tell her story, it took her more than thirty years to be able to face her own past. I don’t know who chose this book's ridiculous subtitle (“searing” is such a histrionic word), but the text itself sets the perfect tone. Melba neither champions herself nor lapses into self pity. She lays out the facts in a forceful, organized, and documented fashion, drawing on the diaries she diligently kept and contemporary newspaper reporting.

If you have never read a book about the Little Rock Nine (I never had, despite several languishing on my TBR), I highly recommend this one. Melba left me in absolute awe of these nine young people who showed such strength of conviction and character. The audio, narrated by Lisa Reneé Pitts, perfectly matched the tenor of the text; it, too, gets five stars from me.

The Indigo Girl by Natasha Boyd (✰✰✰✰✰)

At only sixteen, Eliza Lucas is put in charge of her family’s faltering American plantations in South Carolina while her father travels to the Caribbean to attempt to salvage the family’s fortunes on their holdings there. Set in 1739, Eliza battles not only paternalism and misogyny but also the British and the Spanish. Uninterested in marriage, Eliza, despite the tremendous pressure it puts on her young shoulders, gamely picks up the baton and rallies her family, friends, and slaves in an attempt to preserve not only their livelihood but the fabric that holds all of their lives together. 

The novel explores themes of feminism, friendship, racism, master/slave relations, education, and plantation culture. Eliza was an early precursor of the Southern women who would hold together the plantation, slave-based economy of the South while the men went off to fight in the Civil War, only to be expected to step aside once the men returned. 

Based on a real woman, Eliza Lucas is the center that holds the novel together. She is mentally agile and unafraid to step up when her family needs her. Thinking outside the box, she chooses the as yet untried indigo plant and the dye it produces as the vehicle with which to save her family. Drawing strength from some characters and thwarted by others, Eliza’s hands-on zest for her endeavor lends tension to what otherwise might be a slow-paced read.

I absolutely loved this novel. It was rooted in characters without being slowed down by their development. It also avoided a lot of the stereotypical characters that are so common in Southern plantation literature. The science of indigo was lightly woven into the tale, giving a perfect balance of information and plot development. The one weakness was that historical happenings off the plantation with the British and Spanish were a bit too underrepresented. 

I listened to the audio version, marvelously narrated by Saskia Maarleveld. Her interpretation took an already lovely novel and brought it to a whole new level.

The Decade's Top Twenty: 2011-2019: A Recap

During the past nine years I have maintained this blog, and my reading lists on it, with varying degrees of accuracy. Some years every nonfiction and quality fiction book I read was faithfully recorded, others, not so much. Even with the lazy years and being one year shy of a decade, it is humbling to look back and realize that I recorded 620 books as read over the last nine years; I remembered to record an average of 68.9 books a year. In America, the mean average (the number inflated by the most avid readers) is 12 per year, but the median (meaning the number read by the typical reader) is only 4 per year. My goal as we enter the third decade of the 21st Century is to faithfully record every nonfiction and quality fiction book I read (I love romance novels but do not track those) and see what my number is at the end of 2029.

I thought it would be fun to do a Top Twenty list of the the number one fiction and nonfiction picks for each of the nine years the blog has been active plus a couple of wild cards. That means these twenty books have beat out six hundred(!) others to make the list. At the end, just as I do on my annual lists, I'll list each year's top audiobooks, which usually amounts to one or two from each year. Some titles include some kind of a synopsis, others don't. Some titles are linked to their review; hover your cursor to check, as they ended up looking different colors and states of underline here.

The Recap:

Top Ten Fiction:
2011: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (World War II Germany: an ordinary German neighborhood...narrated by “Death”...profound)
2012: Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
2012: The Poisonwoood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
2013: The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham
2014: The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd (Hetty and Sarah will live inside my head for a very long time.)
2015: Bohemian Gospel by Dana Chamblee Carpenter (Strongest novel I have read in forever; originality; deep characters; great setting; tight plotting)
2016: The Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly (I received a galley of this novel and began talking about it weeks before it was available to the public; my enthusiasm never waned all through the year. Considering that books I read at the beginning of the year sometimes get short shifted when it comes to the weeding process for the "Top Ten" list, it speaks volumes about how memorable this one truly is.)
2017: The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne (John Boyne is best known for his stark, shocking novel, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. He has managed to take all the emotion that he poured into that YA novel and double it in his newest adult release, The Heart’s Invisible Furies. This novel explores those universal questions: who am I?, where do I come from?, and where am I going? Layer in an intricately wrought exploration of love, and you have a novel being justifiably hailed as “transcendent.” As I think back on reading this tale, it isn’t plot twists or even the characterizations that come into my mind. It is the way the book deposited a lump in my throat and a tightness in my chest every time I cracked open its cover.)
2018: The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah (If you follow my reading life, you might recall that I really hated Hannah’s much lauded The Nightingale. Taking that into consideration and the fact that the last book I read that was set here in Alaska, Dave Eggers’s Heroes of the Frontier, was just flat out awful in every regard, I had darkest depths of a crevasse expectations for The Great Alone. Since I wrote a review for this novel, I’ll direct you there for more of my thoughts.)
2019: The Lost Queen by Signe Pike (This is one of those genre bending novels that will appeal to a variety of readers. Between its covers you will find an historical fiction telling of the life of a real queen, Languoreth, in sixth century Scotland. Set in the era of the confluence of ancient pagan beliefs and Christianity, the novel is imbrued in a spirit of mysticism and taut with the kind of conflict that only an all out brawl to preserve ones' way of life can render. This novel will obviously find favor with readers of historical fiction and those who have a fascination with ancient Scotland, but those who love fantasy, myths and legends, strong woman protagonists, and atmospheric writing will also find much to love here.)

Top Ten Nonfiction:
2011: Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand (World War II Pacific theater/biography: fantastic writing; story so amazing in parts it is difficult to believe it is not fiction)
2011: The Fear by Peter Godwin (Contemporary Zimbabwe: possibly the most powerful book I have ever read)
2012: Ghost Soldiers by Hampton Sides (nonfiction)
2013: The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown
2014: Four Queens: The Provencal Sisters Who Ruled Europe by Nancy Goldstone (A wonderful story of four sisters who’s lives paint a vivid picture of life in thirteenth-century Europe.)
2015: In the Kingdom of Ice by Hampton Sides (Not as good as Ghost Soldiers, but still has characters you tuck away in your heart and a fascinating tale.)
2016: The Way to the Spring by Ben Ehrenreich (Without a doubt, this book gets my vote for the work that hasn't received near the attention it deserves. It is difficult, as an American writer, to write a book about the side of a conflict--in this case the Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories--that most Americans do not support. Given recent decisions made by the Israeli court system regarding illegal actions by Israeli settlers in the Occupied Territories, I would love to see more American readers give Ben's book another look.)
2017: The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir by Alexandria Marzano Lesnevich (I knew from the moment I finished this true crime story that it would be my number one nonfiction of the year. It is just that striking; I’ve never read another book like it. The author tells the story of her own abuse woven into the fabric of the story of a death penalty criminal for whom she has been tasked to prepare a legal defense. It is a story of wrestling with demons, finding moral footing, and exploring whether truth can ever be an absolute. If you struggle with dealing with an abusive past, this might be too intense for you; for all others, this is a must read. This would be a fabulous, fabulous book club selection!)
2018: In Extremis: The Life and Death of the War Correspondent Marie Colvin by Lindsey Hilsum (One of the biggest issue that I tend to have with biographers is that they fall in love with their subjects. It would have been easy for Hilsum, who was both a friend and a colleague of Marie Colvin, to do so. Marie Colvin is, without a doubt, the most renowned female war correspondent of all time and was loved by those who spent time with her in the world’s darkest places for her willingness to help, positive attitude, courage, and passion for the mission she felt called to—that of shining a light on the most egregious happenings so that the world could not claim ignorance. For all her wonderful attributes, Marie Colvin fought some sizable personal demons every day. Lindsey Hilsum shows her readers that part of what made this woman so awe-inspiring was that everything didn’t come easily for her, that as dark as her professional world was, her personal world often shone rather less than bright, too. This is an outstanding, if at times grim, biography that I recommend to anyone curious about imbedded war correspondents. recommended for book clubs)
2019: The Thousand-Mile War by Brian Garfield (This is a work of military nonfiction, which isn't usually my favorite genre by a long shot. However, Garfield, who wrote fiction thrillers, was clearly passionate about his subject and brought all his storytelling skills to the table. The book, a history of Alaska's Aleutian Islands and the role they played in World War II, was chosen by me as part of a high school Alaska History curriculum I wrote and taught last school year. All of my students and I approached the book with a bit of hesitation due to its length, boring cover (shallow, I know), and potential to be very dry. We were all pleasantly surprised and soon found ourselves immersed. Garfield showed his suspense writer chops, keeping up a brisk pace and setting a vivid scene, but what he did best is something not all thriller writers do well: he made us really, really fall in love with the men at the heart of his tale and care about what happened to them. Despite its length and 1960s publication date (mid-20th century history books tend to lack the narrative flair of those written in the 21st), this work is highly readable and engaging.)

Top Audiobooks:
2011: Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey
(narrated by Humphrey Bower, who does such an excellent job with Parrot’s and Olivier’s voices that I thought there were two separate narrators)2011: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
(narrated by Allan Corduner, who is absolutely pitch perfect as the narrator, “Death”)

2012: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, narrated by the incomparable Ruby Dee.

2013: North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell, narrated by Juliet Stevenson

2014: The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd (Powerfully told through the excellent narration of Adepero Oduye and Jenna Lamia.)

2015: No audios listed for the year
2016: A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James (This complex tale of life in Bob Marley's Jamaica earned its author a well-deserved Booker Prize. Although the novel only earned three stars from me, its prose, scope, and characters definitely deserved much higher honors. The reason I rated it so low was because the subject matter and language (both profane and dialectal) made it such a difficult read that I cannot say that I truly enjoyed it. The audio--which featured an ensemble cast of narrators: Robertson Dean, Cherise Boothe, Dwight Bacquie, Ryan Anderson, Jonathan McClain, Robert Younis, and Thom Rivera--was very helpful to anyone who struggles to read the dense dialect of an unfamiliar culture. One huge downside to listening to this one is that it shifts lighting fast through a large cast of characters and back and forth along a very lengthy timeline. The voices used for some of the characters were so close that if I missed the announcement of who was speaking, or came back to listening after pausing it for a time, I was quite lost. Overall, though, I think the audio is the way to go with this one if you struggle, as I did, trying to read the dialect in print.)
2017: Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (This was another book that was strongly in the running for my number one fiction slot this year. I’m glad the audio is so fabulous, allowing me to give this story of two sisters, one sold into slavery, the other married to a slaver, its due. This novel, which reads like a series of interconnected stories, traces the descendants of both sisters for three hundred years. The audio can get a little challenging to follow who is narrating, but the quality of the narration makes up for those issues. Whether you do it in print or audio, this is a must read! If you would like to read my full review, you can do so here.)
2018: Beartown and its conclusion, Us Against You, by Fredrik Backman (Narrator Marin Ireland not only masters voices for each of the characters, she successfully conveys all the subtle emotional nuances needed to accurately impart the message behind the happenings in Beartown. There was some criticism that Marin Ireland didn’t attempt Swedish accents or that the publisher didn’t select a Swedish narrator for the audiobook, but I disagree. Her performance is so pitch perfect in every other regard. I also feel that a Swedish narrator would have taken the global aspect away from the story, which is written in such a way that it is not obviously set in Sweden. Because an American narrated the story, I could absolutely picture this tale playing out in any hockey crazy small American town. Fantastic story. Fantastic narration. What more could you ask for?)
2019: The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich (This is narrated by Anna Fields, a narrator that was completely new to me. Everything from her individual voices to a tone that leant the novel just the right amount of gravity made this the perfect road trip listen as we drove through the area in the US where the book is set.)
2019: Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (This is narrated so ably by Adjoa Andoh that at times I would have sworn there was more than one narrator. Not only did she master and consistently deploy all the many accents of this vast cast, she gave each of those voices character attributes that made them breathe: the jaded, exhausted med student single mother, the impatient elderly relative, the opportunistic house-husband.)

2019: The Top Ten

This year's Top Ten is extra fun because these are the books that will define the end of a decade for me. Numbers-wise, this has been the worst year in recent memory, with only sixty-five books read. I can't remember the last time I read less than seventy, and only a shocking few--twenty-two--were print. In general, the books were far shorter than normal as well. If you would like to see my complete list of 2019 reads and my stats, you will find them HERE. A list of all my five star books is HERE. On the plus side, for the first time in a very long time, I completed a fairly sizable challenge, the Reading Women Challenge. My results are HERE. Despite having a smaller pool of contenders, this year's Top Ten could easily have held their own in any reading year.

Top Five Fiction:
It was a difficult decision settling on the best of my five fiction selections. The first three books on this list were all strong novels, and I loved them all for different reasons. In the end, my number one fiction of 2019 is Signe Pike's The Lost Queen.

The Lost Queen is one of those genre bending novels that will appeal to a variety of readers. Between its covers you will find an historical fiction telling of the life of a real queen, Languoreth, in sixth century Scotland. Set in the era of the confluence of ancient pagan beliefs and Christianity, the novel is imbrued in a spirit of mysticism and taut with the kind of conflict that only an all out brawl to preserve ones' way of life can render. This novel will obviously find favor with readers of historical fiction and those who have a fascination with ancient Scotland, but those who love fantasy, myths and legends, strong woman protagonists, and atmospheric writing will also find much to love here.










The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich was also a huge hit for me this year. Storytelling at its finest is on display in this story of a priest, Father Damien, who has spent his life serving the Ojibwe. An intricate web is woven out of the priest's own secrets and those of a nun, Sister Leopolda. The twining together of their lives and Father Damien's end-of-life wrestling with truth at all costs is told against the backdrop of the dissipation of traditions and the dying of a way of life. This novel is all about character and moral dilemma.





Roses by Leila Meacham was a huge surprise for me and another that spoke loudly in my mind as I tried to select the number one novel of 2019. I had never heard of this novel or its author and selected it on a whim while perusing ideas for a multi-generational novel for the Reading Women Challenge. I was in Texas at the time and wanted something that was set there. This novel follows three founding families of a small east Texas town, spanning the twentieth century and three generations. All about legacy, this narrative is centered around choices made at pivotal moments and the trickle down affect they can have on the ones we love the most.



Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, while not at the top of my list, was a novel that I pondered a lot while I listened to it and after. Its immigrant subject matter is definitely timely, but I think it will hold its own in any decade, as there will always be movement of peoples around the globe. I loved how unapologetic this novel is and feel that that is what sets it apart from other novels I've read in this genre. Even though I have never been an immigrant in the US, I was raised overseas and laughed aloud at how Adichie's characters perceived their adopted country and its natives. The point that she makes--that everything American isn't the only way or even the best way--is very valid and makes for reading that is in turns humorous and poignant.

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy seems to be one of those books that is either a hit or a miss with people, and I can see why. The first half of this story--about an Indian family and how caste and racism can result in a chain of events that begins slowly and gains momentum until the climactic moment that ruptures their lives--was slow moving and full of nebulous plot lines. That, combined with prose that was a bit too formulaically sprinkled with figurative language for me at times, left me doubting the book would get more than three stars out of me. However, once those plot lines began to weave themselves together, Arundhati Roy's ingenious grasp of story crafting swept all other considerations away and sealed this novel's spot in my Top Ten.


Top Five Nonfiction:
Choosing my number one nonfiction is always tricky because there is such a vast variety of material. This year was different in that one book really grabbed me. The biggest surprise came by way of the book's genre. Brian Garfield's The Thousand-Mile War had me from start to finish.

The Thousand-Mile War by Brian Garfield is a work of military nonfiction, which isn't usually my favorite genre by a long shot. However, Garfield, who wrote fiction thrillers, was clearly passionate about his subject and brought all his storytelling skills to the table. The book, a history of Alaska's Aleutian Islands and the role they played in World War II, was chosen by me as part of a high school Alaska History curriculum I wrote and taught last school year. All of my students and I approached the book with a bit of hesitation due to its length, boring cover (shallow, I know), and potential to be very dry. We were all pleasantly surprised and soon found ourselves immersed. Garfield showed his suspense writer chops, keeping up a brisk pace and setting a vivid scene, but what he did best is something not all thriller writers do well: he made us really, really fall in love with the men at the heart of his tale and care about what happened to them. Despite its length and 1960s publication date (mid-20th century history books tend to lack the narrative flair of those written in the 21st), this work is highly readable and engaging.



Blood and Thunder by Hampton Sides would have been the book that all my reading friends, having seen my list of 2019 five star reads, would have predicted would be my top nonfiction pick of the year. Don't get me wrong. I loved this book about the conquest of the American West, focusing on Kit Carson's three pivotal decades from the heyday of the mountain man to the dying of both his way of life and that of the Navajo and other Native American tribes. That said, I feel like Sides chose a topic that was a bit too vast with this one. In his other books such as Ghost Soldiers and In the Kingdom of Ice, Sides was able to tell a tighter story that focused on the men at the heart of his tales. While you do get a good feel for Carson, I think I was a bit disappointed that it wasn't on the same visceral level that you get to know the men in Garfield's Alaska, the level that Sides normally delivers on. As a history, Sides definitely still delivers in his fantastically narrative five-star way, but because history is, for me, about the people who made it, Garfield gets top billing.

Spineless by Juli Berwald was bound to be a winner for me as I am endlessly fascinated by the creatures at its heart: jellyfish. This is one of those books that the entire time I was reading it I was constantly saying, "Did you know...?" to anyone who was nearby. In addition, I related in an intimate way with the author of this natural history memoir. Juli Berwood, like me, put her own academic pursuits on hold to raise her family and then gradually drifted back to them as her children grew more self-sufficient and made fewer demands on her time. The biggest complaint reviewers have about this memoir is that there is either too much personal narrative or too much natural history, dependent upon what the reader wanted or expected. I found it the perfect balance of both.

Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward was one of the first books I read for the year and one that stayed with me. While I could not identify at all with the subject matter--the author's loss, over the span of five years, of five young men who were important in her life, losses that stemmed from growing up black in the poverty and racism of rural Mississippi--I felt that reading this book helped me to better understand and sympathize with their reality. We cannot walk in each other's shoes, but books by someone from the inside which so clearly, for the understanding of outsiders, unpack the experiences of their people can go a long way towards building a bridge across racism and class divides. This is a beautiful eulogy that gives a greater meaning to the all too brief lives of those young men.

Heartland by Sarah Smarsh is another such book. When I first read about the book, I thought that is sounded like one big long excuse. I couldn't have been more wrong. Just like Jesmyn Ward, Sarah Smarsh is able to look at herself, her community, and her country and see, without excuses or judgement, both the micro and macro picture of poverty in working class middle America. While Ward's book is about black poverty, Smarsh's tells the story of white poverty. As with Ward's book, this is cultural commentary at its finest and from someone on the inside. Reading these two books together was extra eyeopening. 



Top Audiobooks:
This year two audiobooks, both from books that made my Top Ten, both so different from each other, really stood out equally among this year's listens:

The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse is narrated by Anna Fields, a narrator that was completely new to me. Everything from her individual voices to a tone that leant the novel just the right amount of gravity made this the perfect road trip listen as we drove through the area in the US where the book is set.

Americanah is narrated so ably by Adjoa Andoh that at times I would have sworn there was more than one narrator. Not only did she master and consistently deploy all the many accents of this vast cast, she gave each of those voices character attributes that made them breathe: the jaded, exhausted med student single mother, the impatient elderly relative, the opportunistic house-husband.

Reading Women Challenge 2019 -- COMPLETE!

Learn more about Reading Women HERE.

For 2019, I decided to try a new challenge, the Reading Women Challenge. Not that I had much hope of succeeding. Challenges for me tend to be more of a roadmap for what I'd like to read during a given year, and I rarely succeed at them. This challenge, however, proved to be an exception to the rule. 

As the year progressed, I noticed that I was making very good headway and was thoroughly enjoying the books I read, which motivated me to continue. The Reading Women Challenge encourages the reader to read books by and about women and makes your reading life a bit more focused by giving you specific guidelines to follow as to what you read. I followed the spirit of the challenge to the letter; all of the books I read were by female authors and had women as their subject or protagonist.

Many readers, even women, find upon analyzing their reading that they read books that are predominantly written by men and about men. When I looked at my reading life from the previous few years, I discovered that for me that wasn't necessarily true. Regardless, I decided to give the 2019 challenge a go.

I would like to give a shout out to my many friends and family who responded with great enthusiasm to my Facebook post requesting suggestions for the 2019 categories. You will see many of your suggestions reflected in the books I ultimately read. Thanks for helping to make my reading year wonderful! I look forward to all your suggestions as we move forward into the next decade. 

If you would like to see the 2020 Challenge list, you can find it HERE.

Here is my completed Reading Women Challenge 2019:

Reading Women Challenge 2019: (This challenge celebrates women, as authors and subjects. For more info: readingwomenpodcast.com)

1. Mystery/thriller by a WOC: My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
2. Woman with a mental illness: Sybil Exposed by Debbie Nathan (⭐️⭐️⭐️)
3. Author from Nigeria or New Zealand: Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
4. About or set in Appalachia: The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
5. Children's book: Becoming Madeleine by Charlotte Jones Voiklis (⭐️⭐️⭐️)
6. Multi-generation family saga: Roses by Leila Meacham (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
7. Featuring a woman in science: Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA by Brenda Maddox (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
8. A play: A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
9. A novella: The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
10. About a woman athlete: Run the World by Becky Wade (⭐️⭐️⭐️)
11. Featuring a religion other than your own: I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem by Maryse Conde (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
12. Lambda Literary Award winner: Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
13. A myth retelling: Circe by Madeline Miller (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
14. A translated book published before 1945: Ourika by Claire de Duras (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
15. Written by a South Asian author: The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
16. By an indigenous woman: The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
17. From 2018 Reading Women Award shortlist: Hunger by Roxane Gay (⭐️⭐️⭐️)
18. Romance of love story: I Owe You One by Sophie Kinsella (⭐️⭐️⭐️)

19. About nature: Spineless by Juli Berwald (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)

20. Historical fiction: The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
21. Bought or borrowed in 2019: The Lost Queen by Signe Pike (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
22. Read because of the cover: The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
23. From a series: The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers (⭐️⭐️⭐️)
24. YA book by a WOC: Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo 
25. BONUS: By Jesmyn Ward: Men We Reaped (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
26. BONUS: By Jhumpa Lahiri: Interpreter of Maladies (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)

#ReadingWomenChallenge

When You Read This by Mary Adkins ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️⭐️

When I was offered an Advanced Reader's copy of Mary Adkins’s debut novel, When You Read This, I was a bit skeptical. The book has a very serious theme: a woman passes away tragically young; how do her death and her final wishes affect those she leaves behind? The epistolary format of the book, composed mostly of blog entries, emails, and text messages, seemed a little irreverent to me. However, I enjoyed Maria Semple’s Where’d You Go, Bernadette?, which also utilizes an epistolary format, so I decided to give it a go.

I’m so happy I did. Through the blog posts of Iris (the woman who passed away from cancer) and various forms of communication primarily involving her boss, Smith; her replacement at work, Carl; and her sister, Jade, this novel achieves flow and a lovely arc of emotion as those left behind find their way through grief and living and come to terms with how they can honor Iris’s final wishes in ways that also honor their goals for their own lives and help them come through Iris’s death more in touch with themselves.

Watching Jade and Smith process their shared grief as they read through blog posts and drafts that Iris left behind resonated with me. I lost my mom and my daughter within ten months of each other four years ago. After their passing, I thought about so many things that I wished I had done with them or spoken about with them. I realized, in particular with my mother, how many questions I had never asked her, questions for which I will now never have the answers.

I think most readers will feel a kinship with the characters in this book and be able to identify with those left behind after Iris’s death. The only reason this book didn’t get a fifth star from me is something which in another reader might be why they would give it a fifth star. I didn’t like some of the humor in the book. Sometimes it felt forced and other times it seemed silly or inappropriate. Other readers might like this aspect of the novel because it keeps it from being too somber.

If you have never tried an epistolary novel, this one would be a great place to begin as it utilizes a number of elements characteristic of this format and does so in an effective manner. If you are already a fan, I think you will enjoy this novel immensely. The only people I might caution against this book are those who have very recently lost a loved one as some of the humor might not meet you where you are right now.