The Best Books I Read In March 2023
I’m going back to slowing down
I’ll be honest. Between play rehearsals, getting Grad School set up, working, and finding a teaching placement, I’m surprised I found time to read. I spent most of the month feeling too exhausted to try.
But you know what? I found time to read. Somehow, I found time to read 6 books, saving about $175 from using the library. Thankfully, they were good reads, or I would’ve burned out.
Let’s start talking about these books!
100 Years of Lenni And Margo By Marianne Cronin
If you made a friend, and the two of you wanted to find a way to tell the story of your lives, how would you do it? Would you tell it through photography, painting, or music? Or would you find something different?
100 Years Of Lenni And Margot tells the story of Lenni, a 17-year-old terminally ill patient in a hospital. When she gets special permission to join the art class for the elderly, she meets 83-year-old Margot. The two realize their ages equal 100, and they decide to paint 100 pictures telling the stories of their lives.
This book was my library’s book club pick for March. I didn’t get to go to it because of rehearsals, but I still plan on writing a review about it; so I’m not spending too much time on it here.
It’s a beautiful story of love and female friendships, something we don’t celebrate enough in our world.
Nickel And Dimed: On Not Getting By In America By Barbara Ehrenreich
Lately, I’m finding more books relevant to what’s going on today. Sometimes, they’re fiction like Marie Benedict’s The Mitford Affair. Other times, they’re twenty-year-old books that predicted the future.
Nickel and Dimed was Barbara Ehrenreich’s experiment. She left her cushy, journalist job to move across the country to work minimum wage jobs.
Ehrenreich learned quickly that she wouldn’t survive on one job. In every city she visited, she had to get two jobs to pay her bills. The only way she could survive on one job was by living with someone else.
Housing was why she ended her experiment early. When she visited Minneapolis, she couldn’t find affordable housing on her Wal-Mart income.
One of the things Ehrenreich mentioned was that after Key West, she moved to only white-dominated cities. In Key West, she had to fight for a housekeeping job. Otherwise, she would get waitressing jobs only. People of color and immigrants went to housekeeping, kitchen work, and cleaning. I don’t know if it was her intention, but she was pointing out the privilege behind it.
At the end of her experiment, she predicted that one day we’d see a work-based revolution. The Great Resignation proved her right.
The Girl With The Louding Voice By Abi Dare
Imagine the death of a parent is what forces you from your dream of an education and into an arranged marriage. That’s Adunni’s reality in The Girl With The Louding Voice.
When Adunni’s mom dies, her father sells her to a cab driver in the village. Adunni learns she’s the third wife of the old driver. When she escapes the village, she goes to work for a rich woman in Lagos where she’s told she’s nothing every day.
When the house cook discovers an opportunity for Adunni to complete her education, she risks her job to take it.
It took a while for me to get used to the writing style, but I kept looking for time to read more. I finished the story within a few days. I needed to know how it ended and if Adunni would achieve her dreams.
It’s a beautifully written story about finding your voice no matter the situation. It’s also a creative way to learn about Nigeria, a country I know nothing about. It was interesting reading the facts about Nigeria at the beginning of every chapter. I wouldn’t mind seeing more facts when reading about countries I’d never visited.
It’s a book everyone needs to read once, even if you don’t think you’re the target audience. Read it.
My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She’s Sorry By Fredrik Backman
Do you know what Fredrik Backman and Marie Benedict have in common? If I see a book by them that I haven’t read, I stop what I’m doing and read the book. I don’t care if I’m in the middle of another story; I’m getting that damn book and reading!
I’m glad I found My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She’s Sorry. It sounded odd when I read the synopsis, but I’m glad I tried it.
Elsa is a seven-year-old girl who spends most of her time with her grandmother. Her grandmother is an adventurous woman, taking Elsa to places she shouldn’t be. In the first chapter, Elsa is sitting in a jail cell with her grandma because her grandma started throwing turds at the monkeys.
When Elsa’s grandmother dies, she leaves behind notes for Elsa to send on her apology tour. Elsa gets to know her neighbors better and learns more about her grandmother than she realized.
I was on the verge of ugly crying by the time I closed the book. It was a beautiful read. That’s all I can say about it without giving it away.
We Should All Be Feminists By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
This book is the size of a children’s book, but it doesn’t need to say much to get its point across. It makes me want to find the author’s Ted Talk about feminism and watch it.
Adichie talks about the first time someone called her a feminist, and the disdain in the person’s voice when they called her that. As she speaks, she wonders why people treat the word like a dirty one. She told stories of her childhood to prove the need for feminism in the world despite the response to the word.
I get it. I’ve seen people react poorly when I mention being a feminist. I’ve heard people call people like me “Femi-nazis” when we want a say in how we want our lives to be.
I’ve heard some ass-backward reasons for things like why women deserve less pay and why they belong in the home. They’re ass-backward and nothing more. I agree with what Adichie says. If we stopped thinking about sex and gender, we’d be a happier society.
Maybe You Should Talk To Someone By Lori Gottlieb
If you’re considering therapy, this book is worth reading. You learn how therapy works and Gottlieb’s theory on why so many people are against it. It’s also my Book Club’s pick for April.
When Gottiieb goes through a bad breakup, she realizes she can’t do her job without going to therapy herself. A therapist seeing a therapist sounds odd, but it’s normal when one’s going through training. When she meets Wendell, her therapist, she grows in a way she never expected.
You meet Gottlieb’s clients and watch them morph through the book. Through these patients, there’s a pattern. Many start with a wall around them when they come to Gottlieb’s office. But by the end of the book, you see the wall falling, and their progress accelerates. It fascinates me watching these people do the work to better themselves.
I’m not spending too much time on this book, for it’s April’s pick of the month. But it’s worth a read if you or someone you know is thinking about therapy.
No Honorable Mentions This Month
Yep, you read it right. All of these books left an impression on me, so I couldn’t bring myself to reduce any to honorable mentions. I thought about making the two Book Club picks honorable mentions, but I decided against it.
March was a good month when it comes to books. And April is already looking like another fantastic book month. I already read two great books and can’t wait to read the next ones!
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