Staff Picks: If You Liked This Year's Washtenaw Read, You Might Also Like...
by eapearce
The 2023 Washtenaw Read is Such a Fun Age, by Kiley Reid. Reid will give a talk, answer questions and do a book signing at the Downtown Library on Sunday, February 5 at 4pm. If you enjoyed Such a Fun Age, you might also enjoy some of these other titles!
That Kind of Mother, by Rumaan Alam | Request Now
First-time mother Rebecca is experiencing many of the common feelings of new mothers: she loves her son, but is also overwhelmed caring for him and mourns her life pre-child. Feeling desperate, she hires a Black woman named Priscilla to be her son’s nanny. As Priscilla becomes a large part of Rebecca’s life, Rebecca is forced to confront her long-held blind spots about her privilege, and ultimately begins to feel that Priscilla teaches her more about motherhood and herself than anyone else. When Priscilla tragically dies in childbirth, Rebecca steps up to adopt the baby, though she’s deeply unaware of what it means to be a white mother with a Black baby. Now, she must learn to raise two children whom she both loves fiercely, but who will have different experiences of the world simply because of their skin colors.
Queenie, by Candace Carty Williams | Request Now
If Emira was your favorite character in Such a Fun Age, you’ll also love 25-year-old Jamaican Brit Queenie. After a tough and unexpected breakup, Queenie is trying to find her way in her world again. Frustrated with her job and often comparing herself to her middle-class, white colleagues, Queenie makes a variety of questionable decisions with men, sometimes alienating herself from friends and family in the process. As she struggles to find her way in the world, she constantly asks herself, “what am I doing?” and “what do I want?”-- questions that are deeply relatable at any age. You’ll find yourself rooting for Queenie to find her way, even if the road is a bumpy one.
Girl, Woman, Other, by Bernardine Evaristo | Request Now
Told from the perspectives of twelve different Black British women, Girl, Woman, Other presents a variety of diverse experiences with race, class and femininity. With characters ranging from Amma, a playwright who uses her work to describe her Black lesbian identity, to a mother who works as a cleaning woman and worries constantly about her over-achieving daughter, to a nonbinary social media influencer, to a 93-year-old woman living on a farm, the voices in this book come together to create a chorus of unexpected connections. It’s particularly refreshing to hear stories told from perspectives that are so often othered.
Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations, by Mira Jacob | Request Now
In this graphic novel memoir, Mira Jacob shares her experiences with the questions her six-year-old curious half-Jewish, half-Indian son asks of her. At first, his questions seem pretty typical of any child, but in the wake of the 2016 election, when tensions spread into his own family, he begins to pose more difficult inquiries of his parents. In an attempt to answer him as best she can, Mira looks back at her own formative conversations about race, color and sexuality and forces readers to think about their own. Described as “a love letter to the art of conversation,” this memoir is vulnerable, funny, and relatable, and will leave readers wondering how to answer the difficult questions in life, too.
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