My Fav Reads of 2016

In the spirit of looking back on the past year (and in putting off writing reviews a bit longer), as well as on the suggestion of a friend, I've decided to put together a BEST BOOKS of 2016 post.

These are the best books I read in 2016. I thought about looking through my spreadsheet (NERD!) and thinking long and hard about each of the books I read and what they mean to me at the end of the year and determined what are the best books.

Then I remembered that Goodreads does that for me, and shows me which books I marked as 5 stars and I am lazy so let's look at those! In order of when I read them, here are the 5 star books

1. Hamilton by Ron Chernow
I read this with a group at the beginning of the year when a bunch of us realized we all got it. This is a big book and had the possibility of being a very dry read so we needed the moral support. Luckily, Chernow has written an engaging biography, even if he lets his fanboyness come through a few times.

2. Hamilton: The Revolution by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter
Let's keep the Hamilton good times rolling. Because really, the whole reason I read the first book is because of this show. It shouldn't be too much of a surprise that this book, which is a history of the play, annotated lyrics, and beautiful photos, would also be a favorite.

3. My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix
This book was so much fun. It's campy and scary and ALL ABOUT female friendship. There are high school insecurities and class insecurities and it's all bundled up in a neon '80s package. Thinking about the book makes me smile.

4. Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal by Mary Roach
I love me some pop science, especially when it's a topic that maybe we don't think too much about and it's explained by an amateur whose enthusiasm is infectious. If anyone's going to make me want to learn more about spit, it's Roach. I feel like I should give an honorable mention to Grunt her book about military technologies, which I gave 4 stars yet loved as much and should perhaps re-evaluate the rating. This is why I hate rating systems.

5. Difficult Women by Roxane Gay
This book. I was blown away by Gay's take on so many different women, focusing on themes of sex and race and assault and family and love. These were difficult women, because they were complex, because they dealt with difficult situations.

6. Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
Family and secrets and the things we don't tell each other. It's excellent and you should read it.

7. Moranifesto by Caitlin Moran
This was just a great book for the end of the year. The end of this year. It's a collection of her columns, some light hearted and ridiculous, the sort of thing that is great when you just want to escape. And then others are serious and make you realize some things are shit and you better get off your ass and do something to make it right.

Here's to even more 5 star reads in 2017.

Don't make me undone by loving you

I received a copy of Difficult Women from NetGalley in exchange for a review and after reading her collection of essays Bad Feminist I was pretty excited for this one. Where Bad Feminist had a mixture of tackling tough issues and more light-hearted fare, this one was a punch in the gut. But in a good way.

Difficult Women is aptly named as it gives vignettes about a bunch of difficult women. Either women put in difficult situations, or complicated women, or a mix of both. There are few what I would consider stories, but it's more a glimpse into the lives of many different women. There are a few themes throughout the work. There's a lot of sex (I think in every story). Many of the stories deal with rape and there are a few stories about child abuse (so quick warnings to people who may want to pick this up. Nothing is too explicit and it doesn't feel gratuitous but it is rough). There are unhealthy relationships. A number of the stories take place in Michigan. There's a few about professors. Siblings and especially twins come up a few times.

There's not much in the way of plot in any of the stories. Nothing necessarily happens. Mostly it's a quick look at the lives these women lead. My favorite story, "Difficult Women", is even more a collection of vignettes of different types of women. Loose Women and Frigid Women and Crazy Women, what they do and how they act and why they are.

I loved "Florida" too, which followed "Difficult Women" and again, gives us vignettes about a number of different people although instead of female archetypes its different people in and around a gated community in Florida. Some are the wealthy women who have lived within the community for years, others are newcomers trying to figure out where or if they fit in here, and others are women who interact with the women of this community but are on the outside. This also included one of my favorite parts in the collection

"Por favor, Caridad," they said, "no mas." The ladies in her classes loved to speak to Caridad in broken Spanish, to show her they were comfortable with her ethnicity despite the paleness of their skin and the wealth of their husbands. Each morning before work, Caridad stared at her reflection in the mirror and practiced not rolling her eyes so she could smile politely at the ladies in her classes.

The story "North Country" is probably the most like an actual full short story. A woman has recently gotten a position at an engineering college in the Upper Peninsula and she's trying to find her place both in this new landscape as well as in a department where she is not only the sole woman but the only black person (everyone assumes she's from Detroit). She meets a lumberjack but has trouble opening herself up to a relationship, sabotaging things at every possible step.

There are a few stories that are on the stranger side of things, like the woman who is married to a man who is an identical twin and the men switch places every once in awhile. There's another story of a woman married to a sweet man who loves her but she also has a boyfriend (that the husband knows about) who physically abuses her. Someone she stays with because she feels she deserves the punishment.

A couple other quotes I highlighted

We were young once and then we weren't. 

She tries to walk not too fast and not too slow. She doesn't want to attract any attention. She pretends she doesn't hear the whistles and catcalls and lewd comments. Sometimes she forgets and leaves her house in a skirt or a tank top because its a warm day and she wants to feel warm air on her bare skin. Before long, she remembers. 

Parker stared at his plate, cleared his throat softly, wondered when he became the kind of man who looked down instead of standing up.

This is not necessarily a collection I will find myself returning too. The stories have a beauty to them and writing is wonderful, but they can also be difficult to face.

Gif rating:

Also totally unrelated to the book, but if you do not follow Roxane Gay on Twitter, especially when she's live tweeting House Hunters, you are missing out.

Title quote from location 2430

Gay, Roxane. Difficult Women. Grove Press, 2017. NetGalley.