Books I Read, March 2024

I didn’t mean for this to be the case but the theme of March’s reads turned out to be loss and grief. Instead of feeling sad though, I often end up feeling inspired by how resilient the human spirit can be, and that’s certainly how I felt after reading these 4 books this month. As usual, they’re listed based on my enjoyment of them. 

Come read along with me on Goodreads!

The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton

This was a moving and haunting read, a disturbing fictional tale that could become our reality as we edge closer to the irrevocable dangers of climate change. Our main character is a girl named Wanda who is the namesake of the deadly hurricane she was born during. We watch Wanda grow and adapt to an environment that continues to collapse around her due to increasingly severe hurricanes. There is so much loss, yet Wanda never stops trying to live. This story will stay with me for a long time; as I listened to it, I kept wondering about my own physical capability to survive a climate disaster, how I would hold onto hope in an abandoned world, if there was a bit of Wanda in me. I wouldn’t be surprised if this ends up in my top 10 list of the year. 

Strength in What Remains by Tracy Kidder

This is my second Tracy Kidder biography – the first was Rough Sleepers where he follows Dr. Jim O’Connell, a heroic doctor who treats the homeless in Boston. In this book our hero is Deo Niyizonkiza, an immigrant from Burundi. Even though I took several African history courses, Burundi is a country I know nothing about; through Deo’s story I learned that it suffered a similar genocide as its neighbor Rwanda, with somewhere between 150K to 300K Tutsis murdered in late 1993. Deo was a medical student then and spent 6 months on the run, trying to escape the violent end that befell so many of his fellow Tutsis. Though he survived and managed to escape to the US, the savage brutality he witnessed can never be shaken off, yet through many guardian angels he finds not only ways to rebuild his own life but also to help heal the deep wounds in his home country. If you love inspiring biographies, give this book a try.

My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She’s Sorry by Fredrik Backman

This is my 6th Fredrik Backman book, and while I would rank it #6 of his books that I’ve read, I still really enjoyed it. It’s just that it’s competing against all of the other Backman books I’ve read, which were JUST. SO. UNPUTDOWNABLE. Our protagonist is a very precocious seven year old girl named Elsa who has a fiercely protective but also very eccentric grandmother. After her grandmother dies, Elsa is sent on a scavenger hunt by way of delivering apology letters her grandmother wrote before she died. Even though her grandmother was her best friend, these letters uncover the deeply-lived life her grandmother had before she came along and how important she was to those around her. Backman is a master of the slow reveal, and this story completely pays off in the end. I think the only reason I enjoyed it a bit less than his others was because the story includes a lot of its own mythology – a made up world between Elsa and her grandmother – and I found it distracting to the main story. If you’ve never read Backman before, I recommend first starting with A Man Called Ove or Anxious People. The ending of A Man Called Ove just broke me – I have a picture of my tear-stained face when I finished it. And Anxious People is one of my favorite books of all time.

The Guncle by Steven Rowley

This is not my usual type of book – though it deals with death and grief, it does so with more levity and humor than I usually enjoy in my novels but after 3 heavier reads, I thought it would be a good change of mood. Guncle or GUP (Gay Uncle Patrick) ends up as the temporary guardian of his niece and nephew when their mother dies of cancer and their father checks into rehab. The story is a bit formulaic – though Patrick is the one that’s supposed to be caring for his grieving niece and nephew, they are the ones who end up saving him. If you love heartwarming stories, with a splash of colorful Palm Springs characters, then this book is for you.

I did abandon one book this month. I got about an hour and a half into Glossy: Ambition, Beauty, and the Inside Story of Emily Weiss's Glossier by Marisa Metzer before deciding it was not for me. I used to have a hard time abandoning books but the sooner you bail, the sooner you can find something you actually want to spend time on.

I’m so excited to have this space to share more of my reading life with you! Are you a reader? I’d love to know some of your recent (or past) favorites. Email me or drop me a comment.

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