Yesteryear

Written by: Caro Claire Burke

First line: This is the last day of the life I imagined for myself. 

Why you should read this book: Natalie has always known that everyone around her is stupid, and that her beliefs about marriage and family and femininity are the only intelligent ways to view those concepts, so naturally, when her marriage falters after the birth of her first child, she focuses increasingly on creating a media empire based on her identity as a "trad wife," showcasing a perfect farm life based on conservative ideals. But Natalie's perfect world is shattered when she wakes up mysteriously transported to some strange nineteenth century farm, held hostage and forced to serve as a wife and mother to a husband and children who are sort of like her real husband and children on land that is a lot like her actual home, but not quite. Told in a series of flashbacks, Natalie's journey exposes the dark side of the lifestyle and the hypocrisy of the young women influencers promoting it. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: Natalie is an utterly irredeemable character, smug and self-righteous with zero self-awareness, an unreliable narrator who absolutely deserves every awful thing that happens to her, which is interesting to read, but an unusual way to write a protagonist. 

Evangelina Everyday

Written by: Dawn Burns

First line: "I feel adrift," Evangelina said, sitting at the kitchen table reading but not really reading the Elkhart Truth as Russel went about his business preparing a fire for the night because on cold December nights, that is just what they had come to do over their twenty-one years of marriage. 

Why you should read this book: From the outside, Evangelina looks like an ordinary woman in an ordinary marriage, but on the inside, she's keenly aware that something about her is different, and something about her life isn't quite right, not when held up against the lives of the people around her. Told as a novel in short stories, this book gives a gripping picture of this meaningful year in her life, the year when Evangelina has to stop dismissing the quiet disconnect and occasional revulsion in her relationship with her husband and the sense of loss and longing she's felt since her best friend moved away, feelings that other women in her circles don't seem to grapple with. Evangelina is no everyday woman, and when she finds the space within herself to ask who she used to be, who she is, and who she wants to be in the future, her entire world will change. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: You're not ready to stop dismissing your quiet disconnect and occasional revulsion. 

Zarifa: A Woman's Battle in a Man's World

Written by: Zarifa Ghafari and Hanna Lucinda Smith

First line: The men wanted to know everything about Germany.

Why you should read this book: Educated and outspoken from a young age, in a time and place where girls were typically not allowed to be educated or speak in public at all, Ghafari gained fame and notoriety as the little girl who went on national television and demanded answers from the president of Afghanistan as to why her village had no roads and her school had no computers or English classes. Repeatedly blown up by the Taliban, defied by her family, and opposed by ignorant yahoos in her quest to finish school and reform her country, she never backed down regardless of how often people told her she couldn't do the thing she was already doing. Although the Taliban's capture of Kabul in 2021 effectively ended her political career and forced her to temporarily flee the country, she continues to fight for the rights of all Afghan people, and especially for the rights of girls and women to receive an education, to walk freely through their own streets, and to earn their own money.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Ghafari is tough, but she's not made of steel and her distress over the Taliban's murder of her father and their invasion of Kabul is palpable and heart-rending; this is a book about how you can fight your entire life, always do the right thing, and still be overwhelmed by evil. 

The New Girl

Written by: Cassandra Calin

First line: Bucharest Henri Coanda International Airport Otopeni, Romania

Why you should read this book: Leaving her grandparents and all her friends behind in Romania to start a new life in Montreal when she doesn't even speak French is hard enough, but Lia hasn't even gotten on the plane when nature throws another wrench in her plans: Lia gets her first period in the airport, and seems destined for monthly debilitation. Even though she's in a special language class where nobody else speaks French either, Lia feels lost, lonely, and increasingly frustrated with her inability to communicate with the people around her, along with her regular menstrual difficulties, which are also impacting her social life. But, in time, she does learn French, and she does make really good friends, and she does find ways to make her monthly flow less incredibly traumatic. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: If you're the kind of person who flips out at the very thought of menstruation, be aware that Lia just keeps getting her period throughout the book. 

Pride and Prejudice

Written by: Jane Austen 

First line: It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

Why you should read this book: I can't believe I've never blogged this one before; it's the literary equivalent of a warm blanket and a cup of cocoa with marshmallows for many readers, and the story of the Bennet sisters, who must marry well before their father's estate is entailed to their unctuous cousin, is one I've consumed many times. Elizabeth Bennet, the second oldest sibling, has a lively mind and wit, and on first acquaintance is deeply unimpressed with the wealthy, condescending Mr. Darcy, but as the story unfolds, she realizes that there is more to Mr. Darcy than snobbery and smug disapproval. There are lies and betrayals and romance and all kinds of snide remarks and cutting observations and true danger and, as in every Jane Austen novel, everyone gets the husband she deserves. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: You have to actually be a reader; if you don't like reading you will find Austen's prose difficult to detangle. 

Everyone Is Lying to You

Written by: Jo Piazza

First line: There are things I know I should be doing before bed in order to get a "good" night's sleep.

Why you should read this book: Lizzie and Bex were best friends in college, but they haven't spoken for over a decade, until Bex, now a famous trad wife influencer, invites Lizzie, who writes for a women's magazine, to join her at a conference and get the exclusive scoop. Lizzie's entire industry could use a boost, and Lizzie definitely wants to know why Bex ghosted her in the first place, so she takes the job and finds herself navigating the strange, plastic world of Mommy content creators. When Bex disappears after her husband is brutally murdered, Lizzie is reminded of her investigative journalism background and, following clues seemingly provided for her by an unseen friend, decides to uncover the truth.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Definitely a guilty pleasure sort of thing.

The Star Side of Bird Hill

Written by: Naomi Jackson

First line: The people on the hill liked to say that God's smile was the sun shining down on them. 

Why you should read this book: Their mother suffering from a lethargic malaise they cannot understand, sixteen-year-old Dionne and her ten-year-old sister Phaedra are shipped off to spend their summer with their Grandmother Hyacinth, in Barbados. The quiet neighborhood of Bird Hill, where everyone knows everyone and has since they were born, is a far cry from the from the familiar boundaries of their lives in Brooklyn, and while Phaedra finds herself interested in Hyacinth's knowledge and her own heritage, Dionne bristles thinking of the excitement she's missing in New York and how this island pales in comparison. Heartbreaking and uplifting, this is a story about family and the splendor of love, and the power and meaning of those things. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: So sad. I cried like three times. 

Sold

Written by: Patricia McCormick

First line: One more rainy season and our roof will be gone, says Ama.

Why you should read this book: Despite her stepfather's gambling addiction, Lakshmi and her mother are getting along pretty well, and Lakshmi is excelling in school and looking forward to one day being married, but following a drought and a flood and heavy gambling losses, she is determined to take a job as a maid in the city, so she can send money home and give her mother a real roof. Unfortunately, the auntie who promises to find her paying work sells Lakshmi into sexual slavery in another country, and she becomes a prisoner in brothel, forced to perform sex work to survive. As she comes to understand more about her circumstances, she must tease apart the lies that control her from the truth that might set her free. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: It's a novel about a 13-year-old girl being sex trafficked. It's not happy. 

Uncle Tom's Children

Written by: Richard Wright

Firstline: My first lesson in how to live as a Negro came when I was quite small.

Why you should read this book: This collection features five short stories and one biographical essay written early in the author's career. These pieces all describe the inherent terror of the Jim Crow south and the way it victimized Black people in twentieth century America, with violence and murder featuring prominently among the arsenal of tools used by segregationists to enforce social control. These are dangerous, frightening stories about a zero-sum game that is always fixed in favor of the house, wonderfully written with deep insight and wisdom, but difficult to read in terms of the suffering of the characters.

Why you shouldn't read this book: There aren't really any happy endings and four of the stories have absolutely brutal endings. 

Girl Juice

Written by: Benji Nate

First line: Nana...Naaaana! Help! I'm booored!

Why you should read this book: This absolutely irreverent and somewhat madcap comic follows perpetually sexy and slutty Bunny, who wants nothing more than to remain "hot and simple" forever, being admired by everyone who sees her and having weird freaky sex with everyone she meets, without taking responsibility for anything, a position that fascinates and grates on her roommates. Some of these pages stand alone, and others follow little arcs that involve scenarios like Bunny going camping or her roommate being possessed by a demon. Lighthearted but not lightweight, this book is always funny and sometimes serious.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You get bent out of shape by sexual debauchery and go out of your way to shame sluts who refuse to feel shame, or you are afraid of clowns. 

Wash Day Diaries

Written by: Jamila Rowser and Robyn Smith

First line: Stand clear of the closing doors, please.

Why you should read this book: Four young Black women support each other as they navigate relationships, careers, family, mental health issues, and their hair. Kimana is avoiding an abusive ex while preparing for an upcoming gig; Cookie is repairing her relationship with her homophobic grandmother while crushing on a new girl, Nisha is navigating being pursued by two hot guys who are also professional connections, and Davene is hiding chronic depression. The ride-or-die friends are always there for each other, accepting of their foibles and journeys and rejoicing in each other's success.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You don't believe in accepting other people's foibles and journeys.

A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy

Written by: Tia Levings

First line: This was my fault.

Why you should read this book: A young woman intent on finding the key to contentment falls hard into a dangerously misogynistic branch of Christian fundamentalism, entering into marriage with a violent and mentally ill man who promises her happiness, provided she can offer complete obedience and subjugate her personality and will to support his increasingly unstable decisions under the guise of church doctrine (spoiler alert: no human on earth could keep that guy happy). This is an intimate look into the high control cults made to appear wholesome and harmless to outsiders in popular media while crushing women, children, and anyone who cannot fully assimilate and stay within the strict and narrow boundaries prescribed by cult leaders. This book will break your heart, but if you aren't already aware of the danger posed by dominion theology (and based on the results of the last US presidential election, tens of millions of Americans are unaware of the danger posed by dominion theology), this book offers a chilling but sharp-eyed view into the workings of a movement that seeks to control your life and undermine American freedom on a macro level in the same horrific way that they almost destroyed Levings. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: Brutal descriptions of domestic violence, infant death, and spiritual abuse. 

The Ladies of Grace Adieu

 

Written by: Susanna Clarke

First line: Above all remember this: that magic belongs as much to the heart as to the head and everything which is done, should be done from love or joy or righteous anger. 

Why you should read this book: These short stories are all set in the same world as the author's award-winning novel Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, but even without prior knowledge of that paracosm, a general interest in fairy tales should be enough for the reader to glean a proper conception of the British Magic referenced within. Told in different styles and voices through different time periods, in these pages we meet the witches who protect children, young women who make deals with fairies, common men who call the irritation of the gods down upon kings, and magic all around. On its own or as a companion to the original work, this is just a delightful collection.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You might like it more if you read the other one first. 

Jane Morris and Me: Learning to Listen

Written by: Jane Herlihy

First line: It is over. In the love of his friends -- not all, but some of his closest. 

Why you should read this book: While recovering from a horrific case of Dengue fever, the author becomes fascinated with the Victorian artist's model Jane Morris, darling of the pre-Raphaelites, and the ways that women's stories are so often dictated by men who have no inkling of their rich inner lives, and begins to write a meticulously researched diary revealing a very different Janey than the one described by the artists who painted her. From there, the project blossoms into an examination of disability and illness, sitting quietly with information and waiting for understanding, opening oneself up to the freedom and possibility of the creative life, and grappling with permanent change, among other issues. This fascinating work of creative nonfiction is both biography and autobiography, nonfiction and historical fiction, traditional and feminist, and one hundred percent art. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: You've happily devoted your life to the care of invalid relatives, despite being something of an invalid yourself. 

The Waters

Written by: Bonnie Jo Campbell

First line: Once upon a time M'sauga Island was a place where desperate mothers abandoned baby girls and where young women went seeking to prevent babies altogether.

Why you should read this book: For Bonnie Jo Campbell's forthcoming (WW Norton, January 2024) novel, I have to abandon my typical 4-sentence format. If you're not familiar with my creative relationship with Bonnie Jo Campbell, you can learn a great deal about it here on my visual art website. If you do know about the 4 volumes of comics based on her work I've published, you probably won't be surprised to learn that I drew the map that will appear as the frontispiece of this new novel, and that I read an early draft (the version she sent to the publisher) last year and that I just finished reading the ARC. I'm deeply inspired and I've just been telling people for well over a year to keep an eye out for this book, because I think it's going to knock people's socks off. 

Obviously, this is a biased account and not a true book review. Because I freaking love this book. 

Like most of Campbell's work, it's set in rural southwestern Michigan, is deeply tied to the land, and features a quirky and colorful cast moving through circumstances that perfectly balance comedy and tragedy. It covers new ground by opening the world up to a fairy tale sensibility and the possibly of true magic.

Hermine "Herself" Zook, age unknown, has always lived on M'sauga Island, and has long been the resident witch of the town of Whiteheart, guided by the spirit of her mother, Baba Rose, who haunts her right arm and also the eternal flame of her stove. In addition to providing natural remedies to those who need healing, she also adopts unwanted babies, and, if approached properly, provides herbal abortions. And thus the tale unfolds. Now raising her granddaughter Dorothy "Donkey" Zook in her footsteps, Hermine finds herself increasingly at odds with a hypocritical world that want to use and control her strength even as the poison of modernity seeps into the swamp from every direction. 

I have a million things to say about this book, which I'm saving for the comic I want to write about it. However, if you like rural noir, fairy tales, strong female characters, strange children, the state of Michigan, nuanced debates about ethics and religion, or detailed descriptions of the natural world, you will probably like this book. 

Pre-order it from your local bookstore or public library and be the first to know. 

Becoming

Written by: Michelle Obama

First line: When I was a kid, my aspirations were simple.

Why you should read this book: These are the memoirs of First Lady, Michelle Obama, wife of the forty-fourth president of the United States of America, who considers herself an ordinary person on an extraordinary journey, despite the fact that vast majority of human beings simply wouldn't be capable of undertaking most of the things she has accomplished so far in life. From her beginnings as a driven child on the South Side of Chicago to the day she and her husband left the White House, she describes, with candor and humor and seriousness, her life experience and her full range of emotions, how she fell in love with her husband, how she evolved as a mother, how she dealt with the hatred and ugliness she encountered in the public sphere, and how she kept herself and her family together throughout. Echoing her husband's message of hope, augmented with her own sense of realism, this is an enjoyable and mostly uplifting autobiography of a very interesting life.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You are interested in the life of Michelle Obama.

When Women Were Dragons

Written by: Kelly Barnhill

First line: Greetings, Mother— I do not have much time.

Why you should read this book: Over the course of a few hours in 1955, when Alex was still a little girl, hundreds of thousands of women suddenly, and, apparently, of their own volition, turned into large, beautiful, fearsome dragons (often devouring their male oppressors in the process) and flew away, leaving behind children, family, and the smouldering remains of their homes. Alex's mother isn't among the dragons, but her aunt is, and "dragon" becomes an especially dirty word, even as Alex's younger orphan cousin (who Alex is told in no uncertain terms has always been her sister) seems fascinated with a subject that no one ever, ever discusses. This novel by an award-winning fantasy author harnesses the power of women who are larger on the inside than the are on the outside, who have swallowed their rage for too long, and who are still realizing how much power they possess. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: You might not find much to enjoy if you're some kind of misogynist.

Rubyfruit Jungle

Written by: Rita Mae Brown

First line: No one remembers her beginnings.

Why you should read this book: Irrepressible Molly Bolt knows from an early age who she is—an independent, sexually liberated girl destined to follow her own path in a time when women simply aren't given space to be different—and what she wants—to make love to beautiful women without guilt or commitment or people freaking out about the L word. Unapologetically queer and nonmonogamous, her troubles always involve being betrayed by the people to whom she makes herself vulnerable, as if love in inextricably bound up in disappointment. But through it all, Molly remains true to her own values and follows her own compass, with the knowledge that as hard as her path is, it would be infinitely harder to walk any other. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: You don't like to think about that time in college.

Grand Theft Horse

Written by: Corban Wilkin 

First line: I can't believe I'm about to do this. 

Why you should read this book: I adored this deep but endearing nonfiction graphic novel about the author's cousin, the first person to be charged with "Grand Theft Horse" in a hundred fifty years. Gail Ruffu, who has devoted her life to the love of horses, defies a group of powerful and unscrupulous lawyers to save a racehorse called Urgent Envoy, but she sacrifices everything else in the process. Just a tremendously enjoyable story about a remarkable person demonstrating tenacious devotion in pursuit of doing the right thing. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: You would kill to commit insurance fraud.

Giant Days Extra Credit Volume One

Written by: John Allison 

First line: At the very edge of the boundless sweep of space is where you will find me, Day-zee. 

Why you should read this book: I saw a couple panels of Giant Days on somebody's social media and thought it would be a nice series to read straight through, so I looked online and reserved this book at the public library, thinking it was the first in the series. In fact, it is a bonus book intended to be read after you've read the entire series, beginning with a "what if" story depicting a world in which the first book never happened, and is probably much more meaningful and enjoyable if you were already vested in that world, rather than beginning in the alternate one. I still enjoyed these little one-off comics about an unlikely group of girls attending their freshman year of college in the UK. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: It is definitely not the first one in the series.