Tag Tuesday: Book recommendations

Hello, biblios!

Yeah ... I'm still in crap mode when it comes to posting regularly. In my defense, I work in political news, so you know ... every day basically feels like the fucking apocalypse is around the corner.

IT'S SO MUCH FUN.

(It is not fun.)

But I wanted to do a short and sweet Tag Tuesday for you, as well as to give my brain at least a few minutes of thinking about something non-Trump related.

The Book Recommendations tag was created by ZarriahRose very recently, and is just four basic but crucial questions.

1. Recommend the best book that you read last month.

It's the second to last day of January, but it is still technically January, so I'll use December for this. And the best book I read in December was Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng. I wrote about this one in my Favorite Reads of 2017 post, so you can hop over there to see why I loved it. But basically, it's a beautifully written and very authentic story that touches on so many issues of family, love, society, class, and about who gets to make mistakes and how much we punish them for doing so.

2. Recommend an old favorite.

There are so many I could choose, but I'll go with In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez, one of my all-time faves. This is a historical fiction novel about four sisters living under the dictatorship of General Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic. At the beginning, three of the women are found dead at the bottom of a cliff in an apparent car accident. But as we hear their stories over time and across miles, much comes to light about who Las Mariposas — the "butterflies" — truly were, and what they risked in the fight against political oppression. It's absolutely haunting and gorgeous, and it was a novel and a cast of characters that stayed with me ever since.

3. Recommend a non-fiction book.

LOL, well — I read a decent amount of non-fiction, and most of my favorites are in the doorstop category. I know most people aren't into the idea of reading an 800+ page book on anything, especially non-fiction that can feel too close to schoolwork for some folks.

So I'll choose one that's a reasonable length but absolutely brimming with brilliance and sharp insights, and that offers a perspective that deserves a much bigger platform in this country. Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America by Melissa Harris-Perry is a deep and thoughtful exploration of what it means to exist in our society at the intersection of Black womanhood. The stereotypes of Jezebel, Mammy, and Sapphire force Black women into what Perry terms the "crooked room" from which they must attempt to navigate a straight line in a country that seems dead-set on knocking them down, and on ignoring the issues that affect their daily lives. It's a must-read for anyone who truly cares about equality, especially for those of us who inhabit a higher place of privilege and ought to be using that position to better the lives of those more marginalized than us.

4. Recommend a book that will help people escape.

My mind immediately went to Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor. This is the first volume in a young adult fantasy trilogy that I absolutely adored, partially because Taylor's writing is so captivating, and partially because it does indeed help you escape even this garbage world in which we're now mired.

Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.

In a dark and dusty shop, a devil’s supply of human teeth grown dangerously low.

And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherwordly war.

It's dark and dangerous and scary, but in a fantastical way that makes it fun and exciting, rather than terrifying like, well ... *glances in the general direction of the White House, 3000 miles away*

Have you read any of these books? If not, have I piqued your interest in them? Do tell!