My Top 13 Books of 2018

I didn't read all that much this year, but here are my top if you are looking for titles to add to your to-read list:

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

Ng creates worlds and characters so beautifully, and the plot of this one left me in awe. This book had me reading to find out why Izzy, really, the least developed of the characters, burns the family house down. Ng handles issues like abortion and transracial adoption so deftly and makes photography and the art of creation a beautiful commitment. The themes of carefully curated lives and communities held up against nomadic, untethered living caused me to reflect on the life I’ve created for myself and my family.

The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui

This beautiful illustrated memoir begins in the raw space of the birth of the author’s daughter. In these early moments of parenthood, the author poses new questions and seeks understandings of her parents who came of age during the Vietnam conflict. It spans decades and renders beautifully historical times and places and portrays characters complete with flaws and tenderness.

When They Call You a Terrorist by Patrice Khan Cullors and Asha Bandele

This memoir about the politicization of a young Black woman growing up in the San Fernando Valley in the middle of the war on drugs left me breathless. The accounts of police brutality and targeting of her family showed the absolute privilege my family has had as we have grappled with mental illness. Her refuge in a public school, however, did give me hope and reinforced the role that educators can play in providing spaces where young people can learn about their oppression and how they might begin to fight back. In order to survive and fight for her family, Patrice had no other choice than to fight back.

Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo

 

This novel in verse captures a high school sophomore finding her voice in a city and family that feel they own her. Through close relationships with friends, her brother, and a first love, Xiomara learns about the power of speaking her truth. That is what helps her discover her place and access her agency. This book won the National Book Award for YA lit. 

Simon and the Homosapien Agenda by Becky Albertolli

Loved this YA high school love-story/mystery which explores coming out and falling in love from the pov of Simon, a young, mostly closeted drama kid. The use of tech and how social media storms rage in these social settings makes me so glad I’m not growing up today. A wonderful read for kids of any sexual orientation to make some sense of the unique scenarios LGTBQ kids experience and must navigate.

Mean by Myriam Gurba

I first encountered Myriam as a poet, and this memoir captures her same sensibility: beauty and tragedy accompanied by unapologetic humor. She will look you right in the eye and say something because it is exactly what she thinks. Her accounts of abuse and rape haunt and explore survival and guilt and make sense of the messed up ways people treat one another. Her multiracial perspective and queer identity illuminate a perspective uniquely her own. 

When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka

This little book tells the familiar tale of Japanese American removal and internment with haunting and intimate detail. The unnamed family and main characters navigate a strange world without their father. There are so many lovely moves and small moments that bring this historic period to life.

Hunger by Roxane Gay

The vignettes and fragments that make up Gay’s memoir of her body reveal just how profoundly sexual violence can impact a survivor. Gay’s use of repetition effectively captures how little time we really spend reflecting on our bodies and the prejudice and abuse the morbidly obese face. I thought a great deal about my mom and her battles with her body and all she hungered for while reading these essays.

Dear Martin by Nic Stone

Nic Stone's story shows a young Black high school boy navigating a world where even his best intentions can be misread by police. It explores police brutality, class, and race through Justyce’s school year with a little speech and debate thrown in. Complex relationships with his best friend, his mother, his speech and debate partner/love interest, and the white boys at school weave a compelling story and his letters to Dr. King give voice to Justyce’s view of the world in all of its injustice.

A Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds

This novel in verse explores violence and grief through a single elevator ride. The voices and choices that this young man faces after the murder of his brother confront him at every stop from the top to the bottom floor. The ending is masterful.

The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater

This nonfiction work reads like a novel and tells the story of Sasha and Richard, two Oakland teenagers who are brought together by a high-profile hate crime. The story reveals how both Richard, the perpetrator, and Sasha, the victim, are recover from a devastating incident on the bus. Explorations of gender fluidity and the criminal justice system show how changes in the way we handle crime and punishment can serve our communities.

To All the Boys I Ever Loved Before by Jenny Han

This fun YA book explores the teenage love and innocence of a young half-Korean girl. Being raised by her white father after her mother passes, Lara Jean and her two sisters navigate growing up and falling in love.

#ReadDiverseLit Post: Ta-Nehisi Coates' Between the World and Me

I took my time reading Ta-Nehisi Coates' book, Between the World and Me. From the opening pages, it reminded me of James Baldwin. Both writers challenge me to think through their pages, to consider their arguments, and see how their view of the world connects with my own. But the part of his book I couldn't stop thinking about, was the protection of the black body, of the value of the black body to our nation, and in particular how he describes his walk to school as a young man.  

"When I was your age, each day, fully one-third of my brain was concerned with who I was walking to school with, our precise number, the manner of our walk, the number of times I smiled, who or what I smiled at, who offered a pound and who did not—all of which to say, I practiced the culture of the streets. [...] I do not long for those days. I think I somehow knew that that third of my brain should have been concerned with more beautiful things. I think I felt that something out there [...] had robbed me of... what?"


The other evening, I rode my bike home from work. It was a little later than usual, so I was paying close attention to cars and bumps in the road that might sneak up on me in the darkness. The sun was setting and the cold, winter, LA sky, glowed brilliant shades of red and orange against bright and blue darkening to navy. Every time I looked up, I was met with a different version of this beauty and tried to smile in appreciation. I also couldn't help but think about Coates and the protection of the body. I relate to this as a woman, a small woman, and a small woman riding through LA traffic. Yet I still do not know what it is to hold the fear of violence as a black man in America like Coates describes. When I was young I walked home from school musing red cinder on asphalt or juniper pollen or ice under mostly blue skies. I recognize this privilege and hope more of America will pick up this important and timely book to explore how our experiences connect and differ. 

As part of the #ReadDiversLit challenge, this counts as a memoir or biography by a diverse author. This category has so many titles I love to read (and write) so here are a few books I recommend if you're looking to fulfill this part of the challenge:

Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje: A nontraditional, beautifully rendered memoir of the author's family in Sri Lanka.

Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward: The unique structure of this memoir beautifully and brutally sheds light on the violence of growing up poor, black, and male in the American South.

Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay: Essays on pop culture and feminism from an intelligent Black voice.

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin: Coates' letter to his son brought me right to Baldwin's letter to his nephew from this work.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X: Alex Haley and Malcolm X: This book was my introduction to the Civil Rights movement beyond Martin Luther King Jr.




Through Eyes Like Mine and Overdue Apologies by Noriko Nakada: The story my early childhood and middle school years from a multi-racial perspective.

Oh, and on my list to read in this category: Fire Shut Up In My Bones by Charles M. Blow. 

The Only Three Books I Loved This Year

So, I only read/finished 10 books this year. I guess I was a little hungover from last year's 50 book challenge. I don't think 50 will ever be possible for me, but who knows. Maybe I'll go on another reading tear in 2016. These are the three books I loved this year:

The Crossover by Kwame Alexander  

This novel in verse kept me turning the pages like novels-in-verse should. A story of basketball and family, love and loss, I was invested in the characters that weren’t stereotypes even though they were basketball-playing twin boys.

Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay 

This collection of essays was a great way to restart my brain after it was taken over by sleep deprivation and all things maternal. Gay's conversational style makes every essay approachable and she writes about many things that I think about and write about: cultural appropriation in The Help, white privilege, feminism, sexual violence, and the internet. Mostly, her essays made me want to write essays about my multicultural feminist experience and how motherhood sharpened my perspectives on gender inequity and violence.

I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson  

I devoured this novel in about a week. It took me a minute to get into the hyperbole and magical realism that the narrators play with, but ended up really loving the story and the way time and one event were the hinge on which the story folded.