June 2022, goals and romcoms and nonalcoholic beverages
cheers to a really long and hard month
I’m not going to talk about abortion here because I’m so tired and I don’t feel well and the sky is really pretty and I just want to think about the sky being really pretty. I have, however, written about abortion fairly recently so please enjoy that instead.
Do y’all set goals? I used to be a big goal-setter but because of the way life is and feels now, I don’t go as hard for making a list of 5-15 aspirational things I hope to achieve. But every turn of the season, my little-list-making mind wonders if I should do it. Like most ~writers~, I have more journals than I really need and many of them are full of old lists. Some are nostalgic and funny but some upset parts of me I can no longer access. Sometimes I laugh and feel so happy my younger adult years were full of such messy discovery. Sometimes I feel fucking bummed that “lose ___ pounds” is on every old goals list and similarly, proud that “read 20 books this year” is now an incredibly easy task to accomplish. I may have let myself down time and time again by not becoming A Runner, but at least I flexed that bookworm muscle and got that back. Little Jess would be proud. (Little Jess also did not run.)
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Before I completely segue into books—”get your passport” is on every old goals list I can find and I finally did it. The government still has my actual birth certificate because for some reason that’s how it works. You send away your actual birth certificate even though everything I’ve ever learned about the paper documents that prove I am a person or whatever says otherwise. I hope it—and my actual birth certificate—get here sooner rather than later so I can file them away.
To the books.
[Books I Read]
Gray Hair Don’t Care by Karen Booth (2021) | Quick summary: A makeup artist and entrepreneur with naturally gray hair has her life flipped upside down when she runs into an old friend.
Two things I didn’t know before reading this: this is a self-published romnov(el)! and it comes with a matching playlist! Music is a big part of this love story between Donovan and Lela, college besties with bad communication and timing. The two end up reconnecting later in life through work and Donovan’s daughter Echo. Though the story is light and certainly too-tidy, it made me want to dye my hair gray and has multiple sex scenes, if you’re into that kind of thing. A fun way to start my summer reads.
[fiction, romance, written by a white American “midwestern girl,” quickish read]
Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters (1998) | Quick summary: The life and love of down-home oyster girl, Nancy.
This has been on my TBR for almost longer than anything I can think of. Once upon a pre-pandemic world, I was in a book club and this was on my short list of novels to recommend. My book club met monthly and we’d take turns picking the book and I just never got around to recommending it and then a pandemic started and the book somehow got hidden in my mental (and actual) TBR list. The only reason I’m sharing this boring backstory is because as soon as I started it, it became one of those books I am annoyed I haven’t been reading all along.
[historical fiction, LGBTQ+ romance, written by a queer British novelist, long read]
Heavy: An American Memoir by Kiese Laymon (2018) | Quick summary: A memoir about growing up Black in Mississippi navigating body, education, family, and race.
This is one of the best books I’ve ever held in my hands. An extreme shoutout to my friend Kailee for not only recommending it but for loaning me her copy. I was unfamiliar with Laymon’s writing and was immediately taken in, like he was writing this book for me. And then, of course, I learned that he kind of was. Reading (and movies and shows) don’t bring me to tears as often as they used to (I take sertraline lol) but Heavy had me deep in my feelings.
[nonfiction, memoir, Black storytelling, written by a Black southern writer from Jackson, Mississippi, long read]
[Books I Heard]
Nothing Good Can Come From This by Kristi Coulter (2018) | Quick summary: Memoir-in-essays about giving up alcohol and life without the trusty numbness.
Love whenever a writer lives or has lived in Seattle. The chapter where Coulter dissects how frustrating it is to not have non/alcoholic options in bars and restaurants, especially ones I’m familiar with, is a nice reminder that things have changed a lot on that front. Even earlier today, I took notice of an n/a section of a drink menu at a bar that was nearly as long as the cocktail menu itself. It’s nice that there’s more of an option than San Pellegrino, tea, and sugary sodas—only one of which is appealing at dinner and none of which quite do the trick in a bar. I like to read about sobriety and recovery and alcohol and I really liked this memoir and felt very akin to the author. A cool thing is she followed @nwaafund the day after I finished this and I got to thank her for writing it and she responded and thanked me/us for our work and it was a wonderful moment on the hellscape that is twitter.
[nonfiction, sobriety, written by a white American (Seattleite, like me!) memoirist and author, medium-length read that deserves a second-go round so I bought it]
Finding Me by Viola Davis (2022) | Quick summary: The life of phenomenal actress Viola Davis.
Wow, wow, wow. Obviously I think Viola Davis is wonderful and a superb actress but I didn’t know much else about her. Davis has a story, unlike many other celebrity memoirs I’ve read. (That is not shade for the other celebrity memoir below!) I bet it’s beautiful to read this physical book but the audio was a gift and a treat. To hear Davis speak about her own life, experience, love, family, race, trauma, and strength is the way to go here. I can’t stop thinking about Davis’s mother.
[nonfiction, celebrity memoir, written by a Black Academy-Award winning actress and philanthropist, average-length listen]
Mean Baby: A Memoir of Growing Up by Selma Blair (2022) | Quick summary: The life of actress Selma Blair, with a focus on living with multiple sclerosis.
Even though I’m absolutely the Selma Blair generation, I feel like I didn’t know her very well before. The cult classics she’s a part of—Cruel Intentions, Legally Blonde—are ones I didn’t grow up repeat watching and I haven’t seen much of her other work but I’ve admired her advocacy work and was interested in hearing more about who she is. I don’t know that the audiobook was my favorite way of reading this one but I do admire Blair’s ability to storytell. I thought it was very cool to hear she grew up wanting to be both a writer and an actress and here she is, doing both.
[nonfiction, celebrity memoir, written by a white writer, actress, and activist, average-length listen]
[What I Recommend]
- If you’re into light romance: Gray Hair, Don’t Care by Karen Booth
- If you’re into not-light romance: Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters
- If you’re a writer or a person with feelings or reader who appreciates genre: Heavy by Kiese Laymon
- If you don’t drink or don’t want to drink anymore or have a history of alcoholism in your family and just like to read about it sometimes: Nothing Good Can Come From This by Kristi Coulter
- If you like good memoirs: Finding Me by Viola Davis
- Donating to your local abortion fund or an abortion fund in a state that insists on fucking its residents over
- Drinking a lot of water and taking deep breaths
“It’s either wrong or it’s imperfect. Your choice.” Gray Hair Don’t Care
“Like the freckles, it made her - not unremarkable, as I had feared to find her; but marvellously, achingly real. Hearing it, I understood at last my wildness of the past seven days. I thought, how queer it is! - and yet, how very ordinary: I am in love with you.” Tipping the Velvet
“For a few seconds, I remembered that the most abusive parts of our nation obsessively neglect yesterday while peddling in possibility. I remembered that we got here by refusing to honestly remember together. I remembered that it was easier to promise than it was to reckon or change.” Heavy
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