Sydney Reads and Reads: Summer Reading

How's everyone doing? Despite the impending election, COVID, and any number of other things, I'm on a bit of an emotion upswing. Thus, the mega-jumbo book round-up I have for you!

Wherever you are, I hope you're finding ways to nourish your mind and body and unplug from the news every once in a while. When you do, maybe you'll pick up one of these books to help you. 

Not since The Jane Austen Book Club have I been so excited to read a story centered around devoted fans of Jane Austen. In The Jane Austen Society, by Natalie Jenner, eight strangers, a laborer, a young WWII widow, the local doctor, a housemaid, an heiress, an employee of Sotheby's, and a movie star, come together in an attempt to save the English countryside estate where Austen spent her final days.

This story shares very strong familial links with The Gurnsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, though rather than sharing one collective loss, the members of The Jane Austen Society are each weathering individual private tragedies.  Tragedies which bring them both closer to Austen's work and each other. 

Getting through Brown Girl, Brownstones, by Paule Marshall, for our book club was a struggle for me. It's a dense, imagery heavy book, usually my favorite, but it's also a coming of age family drama, my least favorite. Those two aspects combined with the July heat and my impending move to Colorado left me short of the patience required to truly ground myself in this story. 

What I did enjoy was following Selina as she came to terms with the person she wanted to be while reconciling with the expectations her Barbadian mother has for her.  Following along as she defined herself through first friendship, first relationship, neighborhood, education, and relationship to her father. 

The last three pages of the book, when Selina has walked out on everything and, quite literally, finds herself walking through the rubble of her former neighborhood are *chef's kiss* absolute perfection, making my sometimes trudging journey through this story completely worth it. 

Though I had a difficult time with this book, like many classic, or more literary novels, I'm grateful for how it pushed me.  Pushing my concentration to new levels, pushing me outside my realm of lived experience, pushing me to understand a different side of the BIPOC literary canon. Thanks, Melendy, for choosing it for our book club!

The only way to read The Dutch House, by Ann Patchett, is to listen to the audiobook narrated by Tom Hanks. 

In it, we follow siblings Danny and Maeve through five decades as they struggle to unpack and cope with the love, loss, and rage life has dealt them. Clinging to each other, striving to overcome their past, all while fighting the continuous pull back to the family home, The Dutch House. 

Though (as I've said) I am not usually one for family dramas, I love a story centered around a home. Rebecca, The Clockmakers Daughter, The Haunting of Hill House... much like Danny and Maeve, I can never seem to resist their pull. 

Circling back to Tom Hanks, if you're a fan of America's Dad, rom-com's, and New York City, get your hands on a copy of Tweet Cute by Emma Lord.

Within its pages, you'll meet Pepper and Jack, which I'm only just now realizing combine to make Pepperjack, who find themselves locked in a Twitter battle for the ages. When Pepper's family fast-food chain, Big League Burger, claims ownership over Jack's grandma's iconic grilled cheese recipe they'll go to the mattresses and maybe fall in love in the process. This charming novel is You've Got Mail for teens and I could not be more here for it! 

The End of October, by Lawrence Wright, follows WHO researcher and epidemiologist Henry Parsons as he races to stop a novel Coronavirus pandemic from wiping out the population of planet earth. Really.

Far from exacerbating my COVID anxiety, reading along as Henry and his colleagues marshal their intelligence and resources to fight and track the virus felt oddly soothing to me. Plus about halfway through the book, things take a turn far and away for the worse placing it just far enough into dystopian science fiction for my brain to handle.  

The End of October may not be for everyone right now, but it was easily one of my favorite books of the summer. 

Pride, by Ibi Zoboi, turns Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice its head, unfolding before us in gentrifying Brooklyn. 

The first book I picked up after my move to Colorado, it was both comforting and exciting to follow Zuri and Darcy through the familiar points of one of my favorite plots. Perhaps my favorite part of the adaptation was seeing five Afro-Latio sisters bring the Bennet sisters, or the Benitez sisters, as they're known in Pride, to life. Their selfie-taking, private school partying antics felt so of this time, and yet so authentic to the heart of these girls, it was perfect. 

The updates Zoboi made to the social and cultural themes of the plot also felt important to me. It's easy to laugh at Wickham and Lydia running off in the night to elope in Gretna Green, but when that becomes sexual violence and online bullying in the 21st century parallel it's all too serious and relatable.

The most important thing I have to say about In Five Years, by Rebecca Serle, is that it should come with a trigger warning, so I'll give you one here. If you are at all averse to consuming books about cancer, or the loss of a best friend you can walk right on by this baby. It's not particularly well written, or memorable, though it made me miss New York in the fall so much I was crying by the second page. It was a fine way to spend an afternoon, yet, had I known what the book was really about, I would not have picked it up. Moving on!

It was with somewhat bittersweet excitement that I cracked open The Full Scoop, by Jill Orr this summer. The final chapter in The Riley Ellison Mysteries, finds Riley reeling from the death of close friend and colleague, Hal Flick, and closer than ever to discovering who murdered her Granddaddy. And we're off! 

All of your favorite Tuttle Corner residents are back including Holman, Ridley, Ryan, and of course Coltrane. As for the millennial life advice you've come to depend on, this time you'll receive it in the form of daily astrological forcasts! 

The same things I've always loved about this series come through in The Full Scoop. Riley is smart and driven, her relationships are messy, and the plot is action-packed, all crafted in a way that is incredibly relatable. 

The Vanishing Half, by Brit Bennett, introduces us to the Vignes twins. Sisters who, inseparable as children, choose to live in two different worlds as adults. One Black one White. 

I learned so much from The Vanishing Half, not the least of which was the depth to which colorism can permeate Black communities. The idea that a town like Mallard, founded by the Black son of a deceased plantation owner, on the premise of creating a population as light-skinned as possible could exist was entirely new to me. 

Beyond the deep look at race within the book, the Vignes sisters forced me to examine the ripple effects of my decisions and judgments. How the outcome of one single decision, of the things we choose to share or keep secret, truly can define the rest of your life.

A high point for me was the curious and loving way Bennett explored the queer and trans characters in the story.  Those relationships became my favorite to return to, helping me expand my views and empathy time and again.

After that exploration of race and identity, I jumped headfirst into something completely different, Amish Maidel Romance! In Morning Star, by Charlotte Hubbard, we meet Regina Miller and her four maidel friends as they combine forces to turn an abandoned barn into the Morning Star Marketplace. A storefront for their community to sell Amish products to English customers, and for Regina to sell her cherished paintings to the world -- in secret. When fellow Old Order member Gabe Flaud's curiosity exposes Regina they'll both face the full weight of their community's judgment, forcing them to examine their relationships both to their deep faith and to each other. 

Whether it's homesteaders on the American prairie or Amish communities, Charlotte's novels have this way of helping my escape the stressors of my life, while somehow teaching me how to overcome them. I don't know how she does it, and I don't care.  Just as long as she makes her two book deadlines every year. Lucky for us, Morning Star is the first in a new series! Keep your eye out for First Light in Morning Star coming out in December. 

I spent Labor Day weekend with two illustrious ex-pats. James Baldwin, and Earnest Hemingway. 

What can I say about Baldwin's The Fire Next Time that hasn't been said, or would do it any kind of justice? Nothing, that's what. So I'll just say this, I still can't stop thinking about it. What higher praise is there than that?

I like to close out each summer by reading some Hemingway.  There's something about Papa that begs for hot September afternoons and a tumbler of whiskey or rum.  Having left it a little late this year, I turned to The Old Man and the Sea.

Setting aside the machismo that is inherent in Hemingway, I believe there was some divine timing in this choice. What better time is there to read a story about persistence, about setting your sights on an objective and marshaling every ounce of inner strength to see it through, and then taking a deep breath and starting all over again when life kicks you in the ass?

With that being said, please go vote! - xo Sydney