Category: Read This Book

Though this book is almost five years old, I am not surprised that it is still deeply relevant to understanding the inherent racism in Western standards of beauty, especially around body size and shape. Sabrina Strings, Ph.D. is the North Hall Chair of Black Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and had a dual postdoc appointment in both the Department of Sociology and the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley.

This is not a light read. In fact, it is incredibly dense and very academic. It is a slow, thorough examination of historical artwork, historical texts, historical policies, advertisements, periodicals, and more that draws an undeniable link between the prevalent beauty ideal of being thin and racism. I’ve often wondered how Western society strayed so far from the desirably plump ideal of the Rubenesque woman. This book lays it all bare, and it is a deluge of answers to that question. Of course, you can’t talk about these things without also talking about white supremacy, eugenics, puritanism and John Harvey Kellogg. The author goes deep into all of these subjects (and more) and repeatedly shows how it is all tied together. She not only writes about the origins of the slender ideals in art but also clearly shows how the medical establishment hopped on the anti-fat train and got to where we are today.

When we talk about intersectional feminism and how we can make sure our feminism is worth a damn, we also have to talk about racism and homophobia and ableism and multiple other intersections of identity. This means we must talk about anti-fatness when we are talking about racism and feminism. If you’re a reader who has been reading a lot of books on antiracism over the past few years, I highly recommend that you also read this book.

The author refers to a lot of artwork, and there are photos in the physical copy. I found myself stopping to Google image search everything I was hearing about on the audiobook. Many content warnings for racism and anti-fatness.

Iris Winnow’s brother went to war, and she hasn’t heard a word from him since. In his absence, she had to drop out of school, find a job, and care for her mother, who had succumbed to addiction. She’s lucky, though — she’s found a job as a junior reporter at Oath’s biggest newspaper. The only problem is that she’s competing against Roman Kitt — wealthy, privileged — for one columnist spot. At night, Iris writes letters to her brother that she slips into her wardrobe…where they disappear. What she doesn’t know is that are magically transported to Roman’s own wardrobe, and he’s been reading them for weeks. But when tragedy strikes for Iris, and Roman finally begins to write back, anonymously, it sets them on a path that will take them all the way to the war front, where they will learn the truth about each other and the war sweeping their land.

I am a sucker for any fantasy world that looks very similar to our own but is definitely not. Some call it “low fantasy,” but I find that to be an inexact descriptor for this world, which feels like England circa World War I, but is its own world with its own legends and lore surrounding the mythological gods and goddesses who have been sleeping for centuries and are now responsible for the war tearing apart the country.

But all of that is revealed slowly. First, you meet Iris and Roman, and you get to know them as people. I thought Ross did a wonderful job creating their characters, and while she mainly sticks pretty close to Iris’s perspective, we do get to see Roman’s point of view. They start out as rivals, but as Roman gets to see the vulnerable side of Iris, he falls in love with her…but she leaves town for the front before he has a chance to confess his feelings. The book then takes a turn as Iris goes to the war front, where she works as a correspondent, and finds that the war of gods is closer than she realizes and more perilous than she can imagine. The second half of the book unfolds, contrasting the war-time danger with the romance between the two characters, ending on a cliffhanger that will ensure you’ll want the sequel, Ruthless Vows, on hand. I was so mesmerized by the writing, and rooting so hard for Roman and Iris that I could barely put the book down — and the sequel is a wonderful follow-up that expands upon the lore that Ross seeds in the first book. Definitely don’t sleep on this duology!

Back in January, Roxane Gay announced that Start Here was going to be the January pick for her Audacious Book Club. This is the first time that Gay has chosen a cookbook for the book club, and with her love of all things cooking and baking (her love for Ina Garten is unmatched), I trusted her recommendation wholeheartedly. And as if Gay’s recommendation of the book wasn’t enough, Samin Nosrat — the author of Salt, Fat, Acid Heat — writes the foreword. Ugh! How could I not love this book?

Start Here is an easy, step-by-step guide that gives you detailed instructions on common recipes and provides inspiration and ideas on how to take your cooking to the next level. The egg section alone is worth its weight in gold. El-Waylly’s instructions are straightforward, with just the right amount of scientific explanation (and illustrations!) to properly explain why a recipe is crafted in a certain way. For example, in the egg section, she describes why the correct amount of heat is vitally important for the perfect omelet.

The photos are stunning — bright, vibrant, delicious-looking — and the page layout with color blocking makes it easy to follow even the most detailed of recipes. There are sidebars about ways to break out of the typical recipes and conversion charts to swap out ingredients. Basically, It’s everything you want for the perfect cookbook. So, if you’re looking for the must-buy cookbook for yourself or a friend (or both!), you’ll definitely want to pick Start Here. It has everything you need.

I truly love the premise of this poetry anthology, and it absolutely delivers. There are times that I’ll read a collection or anthology of poetry or sometimes even a single poem and it is so incredibly unrelatable to me as a Black person who lives in a city. I think this was my primary experience of poetry when I was a young adult, looking back at what is considered canon or classic. Finding entry points to poetry, especially for young people and especially for young Black people, can be tedious if you don’t know where to look. This anthology feels like something that younger me would have appreciated because current me definitely does.

This anthology not only includes poems that are relevant to the Black experience (as mentioned in the title), but after each poem, it has a small paragraph of explanation, which makes it more accessible to a reader who maybe isn’t experienced with reading a lot of poetry. As per the introduction, this anthology is really a celebration of Black poetry, folklore, and history, and I love the range and variety of poems included. While poems about Black pain and Black trauma are deeply important, I appreciate that there are more than a few poems that focus on Black joy and even just Black existence. We’re here. We exist. We are not a monolith, and we move through the world in myriad ways.

As I alluded to earlier, this book also feels like a direct response to the types of poetry that are often taught in schools and the gatekeeping between who gets to be called the title of poet versus who does not. The poetry included is not only contemporary, but it spans a range, so there are also poems from over half a century ago. It’s not only standing up to shout that “we’re here” but also “we have been here” and more than that, “we are here today because our ancestors survived being brought here.” I really loved this read.

Skye is in her late thirties, and she owns her own business, leading international travel tours for Black women. She spends most of her life on the road and only comes back to her hometown of Philadelphia a few times each year to crash with her oldest friend. While she’s on one of her sporadic trips home, she is shocked when a 12-year-old girl named Vicky approaches her and reveals that she is the result of an egg that Skye donated to a one-time friend with infertility over a decade ago. As if this isn’t jarring enough, Vicky clearly wants a relationship with Skye, and Vicky’s aunt Faye is the woman that Skye recently tried (and failed) to pick up. Although she’s always been more of a cut-and-run type, Skye decides to stick around and see what happens when she takes a chance on getting to know someone.

This book is a truly laugh out loud funny story, and Skye is a really charismatic person — the type of person you definitely want to be friends with, and who always has wild stories, but whose judgment when it comes to relationships (familial, platonic, and romantic) may not be the best. Despite this, I was rooting so hard for her when she decided to stick around Philadelphia and attempt to relate to a kid that she doesn’t know, but nonetheless shares a unique bond with. There is really nothing maternal about Skye, and she makes it clear to Vicky that she can’t be her mom, but that’s why it’s such a joy (and sometimes very hilarious) to watch her learn how to relate to Vicky as an older cousin/aunt/friend/egg donor while also re-examining (and not always liking what she sees) all of her relationships, from her oldest friendships to her fragile relationship with her mom and sometimes contentious connection with her brother.

One thing that I really enjoyed was how well McKenzie brings the Philadelphia setting to life. She writes about the neighborhoods that Skye and Vicky haunt with such loving, affectionate detail, and she details how dizzying Skye finds it when beloved landmarks get lost to gentrification. I’ve never spent much time in Philadelphia, but the setting felt so real it made me want to visit right away. McKenzie also touches upon issues of police violence and the implication of gentrification beyond losing beloved bars and shops and how these things affect the day-to-day lives of the characters. It provides moments of growth as Skye realizes that Vicky isn’t just a cool little friend she hangs out with but someone she begins to feel a responsibility for, and for the first time in her life, that responsibility can be a positive thing. The longer Skye stays in Philadelphia, connecting with Vicky and crushing on her aunt, the more Skye has to face that she has deep connections to her hometown, and jetting off to Brazil or adding another stamp to her passport isn’t a fix when things get tough. McKenzie balances the serious with the humor so well, and I inhaled this delightful book in about two days.

When I’m reading publisher emails and combing through book catalogs, I try to keep in mind that some of the best books can fly under the radar, especially books by authors from outside of the U.S. So when I spotted Dinner on Monster Island, I flagged it immediately and added it to my list of books that I wanted to look into more later.

Tania De Rozario’s essay collection Dinner on Monster Island follows her messy life as a biracial, fat, queer femme growing up in Singapore. Many of her essays center around girlhood and the intense fatphobia and queerphobia she experienced. While in her younger years, she was required to do extra exercise because the government deemed her BMI too high. At her all-girls school, the administration made it a priority to find and punish girls suspected of lesbian conduct. And De Rozario’s classmates made fun of her mixed heritage. Everything about her school experience told her that she didn’t belong.

De Rozario grew up with a single mother who became extremely religious and forced De Rozario to have an exorcism to get rid of her queerness. Once she reached adulthood, De Rozario left her mother’s house and never looked back, choosing a life couch surfing and facing eviction rather than spending a single second more with her mother.

The author tackles these subjects from an anti-colonial perspective as she tries to untangle the mess that is the modern world. Now, she lives in Canada, which has its own set of issues. But De Rozario brings it all together, capturing her struggles as a child and connecting with the trauma she’s working through as an adult. Dinner on Monster Island is a hidden gem of 2024 that you definitely won’t want to miss.

I used to be a sex educator, and so I’m incredibly picky about the sex and intimacy information that I trust. Dr. Emily Nagoski’s work is definitely work I can get behind. Her work is science-based (yay!), and she writes and educates in a way that is both compassionate and accessible. Her book Come As You Are offers such an excellent framework for looking at the sexuality of cisgender women.

While she was writing Come As You Are and then publicizing it and going on tour and giving talks, her sex life with her spouse was practically non-existent. She was writing a lot about sex and talking a lot about sex and actually having very little of it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with having little or no sex if that is what you like, but in Dr. Nagoski’s case, she actually wanted to be intimate with her partner, and it just wasn’t happening much. This is a position that a lot of folks in long-term relationships find themselves in, both straight and queer. So, Dr. Emily Nagoski did what she does and took a look at the existing literature and advice; and it all ranged from not-helpful to flat-out incorrect. A lot of the advice out there is about spicing things up and novelty and variety, and when it comes to a sustainable, lasting sexual connection, this advice misses the mark.

Through this book, Dr. Nagoski takes us on a journey of exploring first the question: is having sex something important to the reader and their long-term partner or partners or spouse? Sex is not a necessity, and no one will die if they don’t have sex with another person. It is, or should be, something that people do because they want to. Then she gets to her primary recommendation: Center pleasure. The rest of the book explores how to do that, including how to create a context with your partner where pleasure is possible, how to navigate your internal emotional floorplan so that pleasure is more accessible, and more. Dr. Nagoski recognizes we don’t live in a vacuum, so she also writes about all the external factors that get in the way of cultivating and experiencing pleasure, like gender norms and expectations, heteronormativity, and traumatic experiences.

I love how this book is rooted in research and conversations with real people. It makes it more accessible and realistic and relatable. If you are in a long-term relationship then this book might be helpful to you.

Raine is a traveling musician who makes her living by playing at street corners and parks, in pubs and under monuments. She gave up holding down a “real” job, and now she travels across Europe wherever she wants, not having to worry that her ADHD will get her fired. But when her beloved guitar is stolen in Cobh, Ireland, Raine is facing the very real prospect of having to return home to Boston, defeated. Until she lands in a pub called The Local and meets a very hot tattooed man named Jack. When she confesses that The Local is rather lacking in character, Jack reveals that he owns it…and then offers her a job. As Raine is tasked with making The Local a destination, Jack can’t help but fall in love with her, even as he worries that his OCD might get in the way of a happy ending.

I had never read a Sarah Grunder Ruiz romance before, and this one is a companion to her previous novels (Luck and Last Resorts; Love, Lists, and Many Ships), but you don’t need to have read those in order to enjoy this one. I really loved the wonderful banter between Raine and Jack, which kicks off at the very beginning and doesn’t let up. This is a fantastic romance about falling in love while mentally ill and neurodivergent, and it’s also a great example of a romance where the love interests have great chemistry, are super into each other, and don’t have a big, extravagant miscommunication or external force keeping them apart…which I think is actually more difficult to pull off, but Ruiz does exactly that. Raine has ADHD, which she fears makes her annoying and unreliable, especially as she sometimes struggles with time management and doesn’t want to let Jack down. Jack has OCD, and while he’s been in therapy in the past, he’s struggling with intrusive thoughts that make taking a chance on love scary, and he feels because he is unable to do the things that he used to do—notably, work as a tattoo artist and travel.

As the story unfolds and Raine works at transforming the bar into a place that locals and tourists will love, she has to grapple with the idea of putting down roots while also fearing that she’ll disappoint Jack, and Jack worries that his OCD will hold them both back. But as they work through their fears and skewed perceptions, their love only grows, and they realize that the only thing standing in the way of giving it a shot is themselves. As an added bonus, the setting felt warm and inviting, so much so that I am a bit sad that The Local isn’t a place I can visit IRL, and there is a very, very cute cat character that I adored. This might be my first Ruiz romance, but it won’t be my last!

Kiley Reid’s debut novel Such a Fun Age was longlisted for the Booker Prize and chosen as  Reese’s Book Club pick. With both critics’ and readers’ love of this book, the bookish world has been buzzing about her next book, Come and Get It.

After sitting out for a year, Millie is back at the University of Arkansas to finish out her senior year. As a resident assistant, she’s responsible for helping the dorm residents settle in for the upcoming school year. If she can just get through her last year and graduate, she’ll be able to start her life and buy a house. At least, that’s the plan. So when Agatha Paul, a visiting writer and professor, offers Millie money to let her interview students, Millie thinks, what’s the harm? What follows is a wild series of events full of college drama.

Reid excels at dialogue, giving readers pages and pages of conversations with different residents of the dorm. These young women discuss their rich daddies giving them allowances, clueless about their own privilege. Other girls have to fight for funding for their education; while others are given scholarships they are barely qualified to receive.

Nicole Lewis performs the audiobook, giving a stellar performance of the different characters’ dialogue. In another narrator’s hands, the pages of dialogue might have become dull or overdone, but Lewis’ narration makes these sections of the novel shine.

Whether you read via audio or print, Reid’s skillful storytelling and vibrant characters are sure to give you a great time.

This work of young adult fiction is incredibly heavy and an absolutely absorbing read. Our protagonist is Tracy Beaumont, a Black teenage girl whose father, James Beaumont, is in prison. James Beaumont was wrongly accused of murder, and at the beginning of the book, he has 275 days before he will be executed. The book is told from Tracy’s point of view, and interspersed with the chapters of prose are Tracy’s weekly letters to Innocence X, a nonprofit legal organization that helps to prove the innocence of people who have been incarcerated. They only accept requests via handwritten letters, and Tracy has been writing weekly for seven years.

Tracy is a high school junior and lives with her mother, her older brother Jamal (a senior who runs track), and their little sister Corinne. Tracy is involved with the school newspaper and also runs a Know Your Rights class at the local community center in the Houston, Texas, suburbs where they live. Flash forward, and there has been a murder, and Tracy’s brother Jamal has been accused. This book is not only a tale about police brutality and abuse of power but also the insidiousness of white supremacy, not only the blatant KKK history of the town this takes place in but on the micro level as well. On top of all this, it’s a high-stakes anxiety-inducing mystery. Tracy is simultaneously trying to get help for her father while also trying to prove her brother’s innocence and keep him from facing the same possible fate. Of course, she is also trying to keep herself from being harmed by the police. Just to make things more complicated, she’s trying to manage friendships and relationships as a teen because it’s not like all those things stop when something larger is going on.

I have a lot of content warnings for this book: murder, anti-Black racism, including discussion of lynching and cross burning, anti-Asian racism, and an incarcerated loved one.