What I Read: March 2022

 The saying goes that March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. This March was pretty lion-y all the way through.

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 Here's what I read while I tried to stay warm and navigated my way through a month marked by college auditions for my oldest and our family's reckoning with COVID.

1. The Sentence by Louise Erdrich

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This was our March book club book but I had bought it the second it came out because I was just coming off a high from The Night Watchman.

The Sentence tells the story of Tookie, a Native American woman who works at Louise Erdrich's bookstore. Louise Erdrich herself was a character (one of my favorites). Anyway, Tookie is haunted by a ghost in the bookstore and ghosts from her past. This happens at a time marked by riots and racism and the pandemic. It's a lot.

Erdrich's writing hits me hard. I love the graceful way she illuminates things I had no idea about. I love the characters she creates and captures. I love the worlds she builds that are touched with a hint of magic. This book is not easy though. The bits about the pandemic and the riots laid bare some latent grief I've had over the last two years. But the book was short enough and hopeful enough that I didn't feel stuck in a pit of sadness. Instead, it helped me process my feelings and introduced me to characters that I could relate to and learn from and I loved it. 

2. Yinka, Where is Your Huzband? by Lizzie Damilola Blackburn

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Speaking of books I loved...

I heard about this book from Annie Jones at The Bookshelf. She is a rom-com reader like me. We both prefer a heavier emphasis on the com than on the rom. The cover of this book was so eye-catching and Annie's recommendation was so persuasive that I just couldn't resist.

Yinka is a young woman working in London and she does not have a husband. When she is asked to be a bride's maid in an upcoming wedding she formulates a plan to find a date. Hijinx ensues.

This book made me smile every time I picked it up. It was a lovely, fun story and sometimes that's just what you need. 

3. Beach Music by Pat Conroy

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This book has been sitting on our shelves for twenty years. One night, while I was hosting book club, a friend said she read it and loved it and thought it would be a great book for me to read. I decided to finally take the plunge. 

Conroy tells a wide-ranging story that covers a lot of physical and emotional ground. There are so many hardships faced that sometimes I rolled my eyes a little (the terrorist attack was especially over the top). But I think Conroy's readers like the melodrama. Aside from feeling slightly overwhelmed by how many bad things were happening, I appreciated Conroy's ability to write gripping dialogue and the way he painted complete pictures of Italy and South Carolina using only words. But trigger warnings for...everything.

The writing helped me get past some of the soap-opera-ish action. When I finished I was glad I read it and might consider reading another book by Conroy when I'm in the mood for a family saga that will make me feel all the feelings.

4. Act Like You Got Some Sense by Jamie Foxx

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In February I listened to Dave Grohl's book and loved it so I figured I'd continue my streak with celebrity memoirs on audio and downloaded Jamie Foxx's book.

This was so much fun. The way he talks about his family is so real, both funny and tender. Just like with Grohl, I now feel like Jamie Foxx and I are best friends. 

What put this book over the top for me was Foxx's candor and humility. His parenting advice is good because it's based on grace and love and he presents it so humbly. He doesn't try to act like an expert and he shares his mistakes openly, but he keeps trying because he loves his girls. I respect him so much more after listening to this.

5. The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka

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This was a beautiful little novel about cracks that will break your heart. 

The beginning is about a pool where a group of recreational swimmers goes to destress, relax, and work on their strokes. The pool gets a crack and the reader gets to see how this affects the swimmers. The second half of the book is about one of the swimmers, Alice, who is dealing with a specific crack in her life, dementia. The writing style puts the reader into the group of the swimmers and up close and personal with Alice and her daughter.

This book wrecked me with its honesty and I keep thinking about how the two halves of this book speak to each other. The author's mother passed away from the same form of dementia that Alice has and you could feel the personal experience in this novel. Alice is a character I won't forget and this book touched me deeply.

6. The Mystery of Henri Pick by David Foenkinos

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After so many heavy reads I needed a lighter book to turn to before bed. This one has been on my shelf ever since Anne Bogel included it in one of her summer reading guides. A French story about a literary mystery in the publishing world, yes, please!

This novel is about a library for books that were rejected and how one of these books gets discovered as a great work of fiction that sets the French literary scene on fire. People want to know who wrote it almost as much as they want to read the actual story. And over the course of the book, you meet a cast of characters that are so very French that you feel like you're there and not sitting on the couch in a messy living room while your family is waiting for you to make dinner for them.

I love books in translation because they make me feel connected to the world. This one also helped fill me with a little hope and renewed my belief that reading can be good and fun not just heavy and depressing.

7. A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki

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Speaking of depressing...A friend gave me this book for my birthday last month and we decided to read it together. 

Despite the cheery cover, this book goes to some dark places. As an empathetic reader, there were parts of the story I found completely devastating. 

This book is about an author, named Ruth (inception, I know), that finds a diary on the shore. She becomes invested in the author of the diary, a girl in Japan named Nao. Nao keeps a log of the bullying she faces at school, her time with her grandmother who is absolutely amazing, and her father's suicide attempts. The good news is it ends on a hopeful note, so don't let the darkness keep you away.

Another dark book for me in March, but I LOVED the writing. Ozeki is a master and I will be reading other books by her. The way she captured a teenager's vacillation between deep emotion and apathy and Ruth's relationship with her husband was brilliant. The Japanese culture was treated with so much love and respect. It was clear Ozeki loves and respects her readers as well in the way she explained how certain Japanese are defined and traditions that are uncommon to western readers. I felt like Ozeki held my hand and guided me through Ruth and Nao's stories, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Don't sleep on Ozeki.

8. Gentle and Lowly by Dane Ortlund

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I meet with two friends once a week to discuss faith and our lives. We usually have a book to discuss to ground our conversations on faith. Over the last few months, we read this one, and at first,
I hated it.

It's dense and you have to read it slowly. In the first few chapters the author uses the word "heart" approximately 1, 2048 times and it drove me crazy. So why all the stars?

Ultimately this book changed the way I see and relate to God. I was raised in 90's evangelical Christian culture and my drive to keep God happy is kind of ridiculous. This book showed me that God's love is so big that I could never understand it. The author also draws a picture of God like a father with a sick child. He does not hate his child because he has a sickness. Instead, he tries to comfort and help the child. This book was like a balm to my high achieving, anxious heart.

What did you read in March? Leave a comment and let's talk.