March Wrap-Up: My Favorite Reads of the Month
- The Bossy Bookworm
- 2 days ago
- 7 min read
Bossy Favorites of the Month
Please enjoy this roundup of my six favorite reads of March. I hope you've read some great books during this "in like a lion, out like a lamb" month.
Have you read any of these titles? What were some of your favorite reads this month?
01 Kin by Tayari Jones
Jones throws every issue imaginable at her two main protagonists, best friends living in the Deep South, both without their mothers. The young women cope with their pain in divergent ways, and while I was interested in the story, I wanted to feel a deeper emotional connection to the characters and the increasingly dramatic layers of the novel's events.
Young Annie and Vernice were best friends in small-town Louisiana. Both grew up without mothers, but then their paths diverged.
For me, a main strength of Kin is Jones's ability to build a rich Southern setting and to layer issues of race, class, wealth, and power atop it.
Annie's almost-constant focus on her mother's abandonment began to feel overpowering; she is unable to live day-to-day life because of her obsession with her mother's absence.
Jones throws all manner of major issues at her characters: body autonomy; wealth and privilege; the paralysis of poverty; issues of race, civil rights, education, and women's rights; loyalty and friendship; relationship power mismatches; and more. A lot occurs within the story, yet I found myself wanting to feel more around the dramatic scenarios within which Jones places her characters. I felt more curious than invested, and I wished for more of an emotional anchor with the protagonists.
For my full review, please see Kin.
Tayari Jones is also the author of An American Marriage. You might want to check out these books that center around race, the South, and friendship.
02 Saoirse by Charleen Hurtubise
Count me in for Irish-set novels--and for suspenseful, mysterious-past stories that hint at darkness, dangerous secrets, and the destructive power of the truth. But Hurtubise builds the true heart of this story around the development of its characters and relationships. This is a fast, intriguing read that I loved.
When she was old enough, Sarah ran from an emotionally cold childhood in Michigan and mysterious circumstances to the rugged coast of Donegal, Ireland, where she now lives as an artist and goes by the name Saoirse (pronounced SUR-shuh).
She and her beloved partner and two daughters live peacefully, and Saoirse often paints the members of her beloved family.
But if the truth of Saoirse's secrets came out, it would upend her existence, and she is terrified that her past will somehow be uncovered and destroy her family. When a piece of her art wins a competition, it garners unwelcome attention and publicity that might reveal all Saoirse has done and the lengths she has gone to to escape her origins.
I love a story set in Ireland, and Hurtubise doesn't skimp on building an evocative setting on blustery cliffs and in lush green countryside. I also love a story involving a character's mysterious past, and I love a suspenseful story that I'm eager to piece together. Saoirse provides all three of these elements, plus a bad guy who's easy to detest, the overcoming of trauma, a deep love story, a passion for art, and more.
I blew through this novel, and the whole time I was reading Saoirse, I held my breath that it would hold up because I couldn't wait to start recommending it!
I received a prepublication edition of Saoirse courtesy of NetGalley and Celadon Books.
For my full review of this book please see Saoirse.
03 Cleopatra by Saara El-Arifi
Saara El-Arifi's Cleopatra offers a picture of a feminist, cutthroat, passionate, dedicated woman who is a mother as well as a ruler; she is a lover and a deadly enemy; and her singular focus on Egypt and its future leads her in all ways.
This is not the story of how I died. But how I lived.
In Saara El-Arifi's Cleopatra, the author tells from Cleopatra's point of view the story of the infamous, fabled, often maligned figure who ruled Egypt as Pharoah from 51 to 30 BC--and whose relationships with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony have added to the reductive caricature of Cleopatra as a seductress.
Cleopatra often addresses the reader directly, hinting at future events, reviewing past occurrences, adding behind-the-scenes context that those around her are not privy to, and allowing emotions to creep out with us as though we are in her trusted inner circle. Like many of us who question historical accounts that feel whitewashed or wiped of women due to sexism, Cleopatra recognizes that those who come after her may seek to erase her influence and importance.
I most loved the details of life in Egypt and the ferocity with which this version of Cleopatra ruled her kingdom, loved her lovers, protected her children, and worked to establish as much strength and protection as possible for her country and people.
I was all in for her passionate whirlwind of a romance and relationship with Caesar (and the partnership's political implications in the world), but by the time Mark Anthony came around, I felt like the romantic ground had been covered.
I received an electronic prepublication edition of this title courtesy of NetGalley and Ballantine Books; and I received an audiobook version of Cleopatra thanks to Libro.fm and Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group.
For my full review, please check out Cleopatra. For more retellings you might like, please check out these Bossy reviews.
04 Half His Age by Jennette McCurdy
McCurdy translates the singular voice she displayed in her candid, darkly funny memoir into fiction with a story about a taboo relationship that serves as a catalyst for an increasingly strong young protagonist to reject what doesn't work for her and move forward with her life.
McCurdy's unique voice came through loud and clear in her personal, unflinching memoir I'm Glad My Mom Died.
The premise of her debut novel Half His Age made me cringe, and I wasn't sure I was going to ultimately be able to read it, but I wanted to find out how McCurdy's significant command of narrative nonfiction storytelling would translate into fiction.
Waldo is a seventeen-year-old senior working at Victoria's Secret after school, binge-buying cheap clothing online to fill the emotional void she often feels, and often sleeping alone in the trailer where she lives with her often-absent, man-crazy mother.
She becomes wildly, lustily fixated on Mr. Korgy, her fortysomething, married creative writing teacher who shows her hints of encouragement in her work.
In Half His Age McCurdy offers a complicated story about an illegal, inappropriate, mystifying, all-encompassing obsession. But the book is primarily about Waldo and her path forward. I had the feeling that if it hadn't been Mr. Korgy, Waldo would have wrestled with some other testing force, and it felt clear that she was always destined to emerge from a messy scenario as more fully herself, stronger, and increasingly determined.
McCurdy offers powerful, darkly funny, and suprisingly poignant moments with an edge. In Half His Age, she builds outstanding storytelling around a taboo, discomfiting situation.
I listened to a prepublication version of Half His Age, which is wonderfully narrated by Jennette McCurdy, courtesy of Libro.fm and Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group.
You can read my full review here: Half His Age.
05 When the Cranes Fly South by Lisa Ridzén
Ridzén's beautiful, poignant novel centers around Bo, an elderly Swedish man living out his last days in his woodland cabin as the past becomes more vivid to him than his present. This is lovely, heartbreaking, and practical while offering hope.
Bo is an elderly Swedish man living in the woodland cabin where he grew up.
He exists in somewhat of a haze between naps, frequent carer visits, calls and check-ins from his son Hans, short walks with his beloved elkhound Sixten, and vivid memories of his life--which sometimes feel more real than his reality.
His wife, who suffers from dementia, is in a care center, and his memories of her pop up in painful, poignant vibrancy.
When the Cranes Fly South is a beautiful, tragic, hopeful examination of end-of-life issues for an aging person as well as the loved ones who are trying their best to support their elderly person, keep them safe, and promote autonomy within a framework of care. In Ridzén's novel, while the past and Bo's many memories begin to become more vivid and realistic to Bo than the present-day or near-past, we watch Bo letting go, and from a distance we witness his son, grandson, best friend, dog, and carers as they see him slipping away.
I loved this lovely novel and the hope and practicality that overcomes heartbreak. Ridzén places us deeply in Bo's point of view, which was valuable to understanding his perspective on matters related to his own body and his pending death.
Click here for my full review of When the Cranes Fly South.
06 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
This classic memoir is told through letters between Hanff, living a passionate reader and writer's life in New York City, and a group of booksellers across the ocean who are struggling in postwar Great Britain. The structure allows for poignancy and wonderfully frank self-reflection.
In interviews about her wonderful book The Correspondent, Virginia Evans mentioned another epistolary book, the 1970 classic memoir 84, Charing Cross Road, and I hadn't ever read it so I decided to dive in.
This slim book consists of the charming twenty-year correspondence between a hotheaded, opinionated New York writer (Hanff) and an antiquarian bookseller in London, Frank Doel. Deep friendships build across the ocean through Hanff's particular book requests and life commentary, Frank's steady, warm replies, Hanff's postwar parcels of food and treats for the staff, and the grateful reactions sent her way.
The correspondence is only half Hanff's, but this epistolary memoir structure and its rich content allow for poignant self-reflection, honest observations, deep connections, and a rich portrait of the author.
For my full review, please check out 84, Charing Cross Road. For more Bossy reviews of epistolary novels, please click this link.
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