April Reads

2024

Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s Anger by Soraya Chemaly

This book was a recommendation I read somewhere. Since the death of my mother in August of 2023 I’ve been newly aware of anger. It’s old and it’s putrid and it has a tendency to ooze out unexpectedly with slight or no provocation. Over time I feel it less, but in an effort to understand and effectively manage my feeling and expression of anger, I hoped this book would be a resource.

I’m impressed by 100 pages of notes and references. I like science and I like data; this author has intensively researched her subject and is not afraid to show her work. She references many other books, some of which I’ll seek out and read.

This is an important book because it brings much of women’s hidden lives and unacknowledged struggles into view. It normalizes the kind of anger I’m feeling and the author suggests constructive ways to channel our rage as a tool for change so all women can experience relief from some of the chronic tension of being female in a patriarchal world. It explores complex, multigenerational aspects of female rage. I found it validating, informative, and sad. I’m hanging on to this one.

Broken Light by Joanne Harris

A Different Class by Joanne Harris

Holy Fools by Joanne Harris

Blackberry Wine by Joanne Harris

Coastliners by Joanne Harris

I started rereading the Harris titles I owned last month.  In an astounding piece of synchronicity, I picked up Broken Light, a new book for me, at the same time I was reading Rage Becomes Her. I gulped it down in 24 hours. It’s a powerfully written story about menopause, female power, and misogyny. It made me laugh and it made me cry.

A Different Class was a bedtime read. I hadn’t read it before, and I usually don’t read new material at bedtime, but I discovered this was a sequel to Gentlemen and Players, one of my favorites, which I had just reread.

Holy Fools is another new book for me. Set in France in the 17^th century, it’s as compelling as the rest of Harris’ work. I loved every page of it until the end. A vulnerable woman and her daughter, who have taken refuge in a convent on the coast of France, become entangled with a dark trickster, a man from the woman’s past. He’s charming, sexy, handsome, completely amoral, and incapable of loving anyone but himself. A typical narcissist. At the end of this novel, the central female character takes him back. (Head in hands.) She takes him back.

It's a wonderful story. I’m glad I read it. I’ll never read it again and it can’t have shelf space in my library!

(She took him back!)

Blackberry Wine is an old favorite, a bedtime reread.

Coastliners is new to me. It’s a book about community, a big interest of mine and one I explore at length in my own fiction. This particular community is an island off the coast of France. I’ll keep this one for reread.

A Game For All the Family by Sophie Hannah

The last Hannah book I owned. I started rereading her in March. Wonderfully twisty and mysterious, like all her work, but once again I failed to really connect to any of the characters. I reread it for old times’ sake and passed it on.

From Below by Darcy Coates

I had never read this author before, though she’s a bestseller and writes in one of my favorite genres. This book is billed as horror, though I wouldn’t go that far. It was a recommendation from somewhere, so I added it to my to-buy-used book list. It was a compulsive read. Dark, macabre, gradually increasing tension until you can’t set it down even though your heart is racing and you’re biting your nails! It’s an intense read. I enjoyed it, but I don’t need to reread it. I might see if the library has any more of her books. She’s very good, just not an author I want to collect. I have a friend at work who loves this genre, so I passed it on to him.

Where the Deer Were by Kate Barnes

I like to have a book of poetry going. Barnes is a fellow Mainer; I discovered her after I moved here and fell in love with her beautiful work. I read two or three a day, savoring, reading aloud, admiring her talent. This is a reread.

Substack

Kimberly Warner at

Unfixed

has written a moving and vulnerable memoir titled Unfixed. She and I have exchanged comments on the subject of “fixing,” surrendering, and what constitutes “broken.” A wise, authentic voice.

At

Blinking Blue Line

by Sara Dietz you can read ‘Remembrance’. This is a gripping serial in progress centered around a medical mystery. I’m hooked!

At

Struggling for Words

by Charlie Garratt you can read his serial in progress, ‘A Handkerchief for Maria’. I enjoy historical fiction and I’m eagerly following along as Maria tells the story of her life and family her unconscious daughter.

A Poem A Week by Anagha Smrithi

My favorite poet on Substack so far!