Books to Read in Quarantine

Find yourself with some time on your hands lately? I feel you.

Once you're done doing all the puzzles and watching all the Netflix and making all the bread (who's making all this bread and why has no one brought me any??), you may be looking for something to read! 

I've found it's hard to concentrate right now, so you have to find something REALLY good. And, preferably something that doesn't involve a global health crisis. 

I made a list of some of my favorites over the years that fit the bill for reading in the time of coronavirus. These books transport you and get you out of your own head for a bit. Some are a little heavy, but not too heavy - and, all have unforgettable plot and character. Oh, and one is a true story of a man-eating shark. But, you're not going to the beach anytime soon anyway.

Here are some of my faves and links to my original reviews. Oh, and, if you can get these books by ordering from your favorite independent bookstore, even better. If you don't have one, may I suggest Auntie's Bookstore in Spokane!

City of Girls: I read this last summer and have recommended it to EVERYONE. Strong women in the 20s, living life on their own terms. One of my favorite books ever - and, it will take you into a different world.

Daisy Jones & the Six: I'd read this 1,000 more times if I could get the feeling I got from the first time. It's the story of a band in the 70s who made it big, then disappeared. Think Fleetwood Mac meets Janis Joplin meets.. I don't know, it's just amazing. It's told through magazine-type interviews with each of the band members. It's going to be a TV series soon, so watch it first. It also has my favorite line in a book - maybe ever.

Close to Shore: The shark book! This is my only non-fiction selection and yes, it's about sharks eating people, but it's one of the most fascinating, riveting books I've read in years. It's about the shark attacks off the Jersey shore in the summer of 1916. It's a wild story. As long as you're not planning to swim in the ocean anytime soon, I highly recommend it! (Note: I read it on vacation at the lake and I was actually scared to get in the lake...) 

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry and Bear Town: It's weird to lump these two very different books together, but I'm trying to tell you that if you're not reading everything Fredrik Backman writes, you're doing it wrong. You're doing LIFE wrong. These are two of my favorites of his - one about the magic of grandmothers and neighborhoods, the other about the irrationality of sports fans and how they respond to scandal involving their favorite team. Both will lift you up, leave you in tears, tear you apart. Backman is a master and these are two of his best.

Love and Other Consolation Prizes: I couldn't love this book more. It's in the top five of my favorites of all time. I lent it to someone and I can't remember who, which breaks my heart every day. Jamie Ford is a fantastic writer whose books capture Seattle and the northwest in the early 20th century. This one is based on nugget of information - that they auctioned off a baby at the Seattle World's Fair in 1909. No one knows what happened to that baby, but it formed the premise of this book. It's about Seattle's history, family secrets, brothels, love... what more could you ask for? I want to carry this book in my pocket forever. If I could just get that mystery person to give it back...

Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo: Set aside a day, grab a patio and dive in. I read this book in one weekend on a sun-drenched backyard couch and it crawled into my heart forever. In case you haven't noticed, I like books about women who don't have to apologize for themselves and their sexuality. It's a theme. Evelyn Hugo is a star long past her prime who finally decides to tell her own story. The story of all those affairs, all those husbands and the one relationship she kept secret from everyone. It's sweeping and beautiful and an absolute pleasure. I want to be Evelyn Hugo when I grow up.

Beautiful Ruins: I don't have a review for this because I read it long before I started this little blog, but this is the kind of book you should either read on vacation or when a global pandemic doesn't allow you to go on vacation. Written by Spokane author Jess Walter, who is a total rockstar in my world. I actually interviewed him for a news story and he hinted at this book, saying it involved Elizabeth Taylor and Italy... When I finally had the chance to read it, it absolutely blew me away. Even the cover will captivate you. Whenever friends ask what they should read on vacation, I ALWAYS tell them this - and, they're never disappointed. Here's the link/reviews from Auntie's Bookstore - you can just order it from here while you read them!

Hope this helps you make some quarantine shutdown picks! 

Now, go wash your hands... 

The Boatman's Daughter

If you asked me where this book takes place, I would tell you quite simply: the underbelly.

The setting of this book is an unnamed bayou where men traffic in women and children as easily as they traffic in drugs. It's dark, a bit supernatural, haunting and lyrical. Mostly, though, it's DARK.

I thought of the series Ozark as soon as I began reading this book, so immediately our protagonist Miranda took the form of Ruth Langmore from the Netflix series. Even Ruth would be disturbed by what takes place here; if you watch the series, you know that's saying something.

The story begins on a terrible night when the boatman and his daughter transport a witch, carrying what is presumed to be a dead baby into the woods. The mystery comes at you fast, as if you opened a hot oven and stuck your head right inside. You never get a breath after that. There is no lightness as the boatman's daughter Miranda navigates this world of drug dealers and pimps and corrupt police officers that control her life. At the center of it all is that baby - who wasn't dead after all, but is something of a mutant with fish scales and webbed hands and feet.

This sounds weird, I get it. But, the writing is beautiful and clear enough that you accept this reality and all the magic that goes along with it as Miranda uncovers secrets deep in the woods that lead her to places darker than most of our nightmares. 

Did I mention there's a lot of graphic details about eyeballs in here?

Look, it's dark. It's strange. It's mysterious. It's also incredibly well-written. But, it just needed a little light somewhere - a little hope? - to make me consider it a book worth recommending. 

Know My Name

This book needs to be a textbook.

It needs to be required reading for every law student, every journalist, every HUMAN BEING. This book is axis-shifting and transforming. The person who told me to stop whatever I was doing in that moment and read it was absolutely right.

Now, I'm telling that to all of you.

After reading this, I hate to use this as an identifier, but Chanel Miller is the woman who was sexually assaulted by Stanford swimmer Brock Turner. The fact that he gets that biographical intro and she has the victim moniker to introduce her is exactly the problem this book tries to address. Any illusion any of us have that victims are taken care of and protected is an absolute sham. Even if you knew that on some level, this book will find that point driven further into the deepest part of their soul.

The first most of us knew about Chanel Miller the human came when her victim impact statement was released. Millions of people read it online. Many, myself included, read it through blurry eyes with tears streaming down our faces. This book is the story behind that statement and everything that came after it.

Consider this: Chanel Miller only told two people outside of her family that she was the Stanford rape victim. So, the entire time leading up to the trial, people she knew and loved would talk about the case and she would suffer in silence. She read stories about the case online and the horrifically insensitive comments that people with zero knowledge of the case wrote about her. She ended up unemployed, broke, unsettled beyond belief - but still with faith that justice would come at the end of it. She describes in honest and excruciating detail the isolation and loneliness of that process, even though she was surrounded by family and her boyfriend.

Also consider that she doesn't remember at all what happened. She remembers before - and, then she woke up in the hospital with her hair littered with hundreds of pine needles, her underwear gone and nurses ready to conduct a rape examination. Imagine not being able to account for a huge chunk of your life and knowing that, in those moments, you were violated. She was saved because of two Swedes on bicycles who came upon the attack and saw a man victimizing an unconscious woman and chased him down.

The book leads through that unimaginable purgatory and into the trial where she had to face this asshole and have his attorney try to destroy her credibility because she was a woman at a frat party in a tight dress who had too much to drink. Even though I knew the jury would find Brock Turner guilty, I found myself in tears - released, somehow - by that tiny victory. But, as a reader, you know the great injustice that would follow. You brace yourself for Chanel all over again.

"It was time to see what justice looked like. We threw open the doors and there was nothing."

There is so much here that we don't hear of enough. We talk about rape victims by defining them as the act that was committed against them. We tell biographical details of perpetrators and leave the victims as objects of doubt. We look away because it's easier. But, this book forces us to stare directly at this. Stare at the double standards and the rape culture and the male toxicity. Stare at it and call bullshit on the whole damn thing.

Chanel's victim impact statement went viral and she became a hero in the MeToo movement. Hillary Clinton quoted her in her concession speech. We all believed time was most certainly up. But, honestly, what has really changed? There are so many Brock Turners out there, so many judges unwilling to sacrifice a (white) felon's potential for justice. So many universities who care more about covering their collective asses than actually stepping forward to do what's right.

This book isn't the final chapter, but it actually did leave me with hope.

I was in tears so many times in this book. The way Chanel talks about her sister, the way she worries about the impact on her parents, the frustration over the system as a whole. But, as it came to a close, I cried as much for her grace in telling this story unflinchingly. The lives she will save by showing victims they may feel isolated, but maybe they aren't alone.

Towards the end of the book, she describes the frustration of dealing with Stanford, which seemed more interested in preventing litigation that preventing actual rape. They promised to build her a garden with a quote from her victim impact statement, then rejected every quote she chose. She described wishing she could sit in that space behind that dumpster near a frat house, telling someone about the "real" hopeful garden - the spot where the bystanders brought her attacker to the ground: "Ninety feet away from where yous it, there is a spot where Brock's knees hit the dirt..."

I clenched a fist in victory for her, tears streaming down my cheeks.

My Dark Vanessa

Dark is the operative word here.

This book is dark. 

A co-worker suggested I read this and I trust her opinion on books so implicitly, I didn't even question it. She wanted me to read it because there's so much about to discuss. Then, I read it and this whole coronavirus situation happened and she has been working remotely and now I have no one with whom to discuss it. Except for you guys! Thanks!

It's a book about a high school student who begins a sexual relationship with her teacher. I hate even saying it like that. It's her teacher, grooming and sexually abusing her. The story shifts back and forth from that time in her life to her time years later as an adult as we see the way the abusive relationship has affected them both (spoiler alert: her life is destroyed. His - at least initially - is not.)

Some have described this book as a modern retelling of Lolita, a book the teacher gives to Vanessa, among others. I've read some reviews that describe their relationship as complicated, as she "initiates" and "encourages" much of the contact and the continued relationship. I fall so far on the other side of this. I think this was sexual abuse, plain and simple.

There's a quote here that encompasses his blaming her, which is among the more troubling subplots of this book. "The world has a vested interest in keeping you helpless," he told her. The interest was all his, however. Her being helpless kept her dependent on him, long after the two were physically separated.

It's a tale that rings true across true and fictionalized versions of affairs and sexual abuse. I saw it in the true stories depicted in Three Women, a book I reviewed last year. The men seem to walk away from these situations unscathed. The woman take all the blame and all the aftermath.

It is a fascinating read from a young girl's perspective and a story we hear about all too often. It's dark nature makes it hard to call the book "good" but, it's well-written and a fast read, as you just find yourself praying she will eventually find a way out.

Savage Appetites

Did you know there's something called CrimeCon? Where people gather together in convention center hotels and talk about true crime? It's a real thing - and women flock to it every year.

What is this obsession with true crime? Women are less likely than men be victims of crime, perpetrators of crime, investigators of crime, prosecutors of crime and adjudicators of crime. Yet, networks like Oxygen thrive with female viewership. When the network initially changed a block of programming to true crime, ratings in that daypart went up by 42%. They rebranded the whole network - and it's one of many.

I learned that fact from this fascinating book, which explores the female fascination with crime from four unique perspectives: an heiress-turned-dedicated investigator before her time; a woman so obsessed she moved into the guest house at the old Sharon Tate estate, then intertwined herself in Tate's family's life; a woman who fell in love with an inmate; and a young woman obsessed with mass murder who nearly carried out one herself.

It explores every angle of that obsession. Why do women flock to this? To feel like we have control? To feel prepared? To feel safe? To feel scared?

I'm the daughter of a woman who reads voraciously about crime. Once, I brought home court files from the Green River Killer and she read them like a novel. I believe she once said she read The Shining while I was in utero. Still, I don't get it. I'm not a Dateline girl. Monroe's book peers into why many women are - and, why that obsession can be both liberating and debilitating.

This is a fascinating exploration of four unique stories and the women who found themselves in deeper than they ever would have expected to go. At times, each section got a little more into the minutia than was probably necessary. Still, if you find yourself fascinated by the people fascinated by other people's crimes, it's an interesting look behind the curtain into their world.