June & July Reads
“M.J. Stark’s life is picture-perfect—she has her dream job as a magazine editor, a sexy doctor boyfriend, and a glamorous life in New York City. But behind her success, there is a debilitating sense of loneliness. So when her boss betrays her and her boyfriend offers her a completely new life in California, she trades her cashmere for caftans and gives it a try. Once there, M.J. is left to fend for herself in a small beach town, with only the company of her elderly neighbor Gloria and an ocean that won’t shut up.
One afternoon, M.J. discovers that Gloria has suddenly moved to Paris with her friends to honor a fifty-year-old pact. And in lieu of a goodbye, she’s left a mysterious invitation to a secret club—one that only reads erotic books. Curious, M.J. accepts and meets the three other hand-selected club members. As they bond over naughty bestsellers and the shocking letters they inherited from the original club members, the four strangers start to divulge the intimate details of their own lives…and as they open up, they learn that friendship might just be the key to rewriting their own stories: all they needed was to find each other first.”
This was one of those lighthearted reads that we all need every once in a while. But while the humor was there, the book also touched on so many topics of what it’s like being a woman and the issues we deal with. I loved how this story shows that sometimes you don’t end up with what or who you were looking for, but you do end up with what you needed. Also, sometimes the best thing to do is just read a trashy romance novel.
The Handsome Girl & Her Beautiful Boy
“Everyone assumes that Zee is a lesbian. Her classmates, her gym buddies, even her so-called best friend. Even Zee is starting to wonder. Could they be onto something?
Everyone assumes that Art is gay. They take one look at his nice clothes and his pretty face and think: well, obviously.
But there’s more to Zee and Art than anyone realizes. What develops is a powerful connection between two people who are beautiful in all the ways they’ve been told are strange. As they explore their own complex relationships to gender, sexuality, and identity, they fall for the complexities they find in each other.”
I have no idea how well this book holds up for a queer or nonbinary person, and I assume that just like real life it’s different for everyone, but I loved seeing different representations in a coming of age book. It really speaks to the idea that there is someone for everybody, but you have to embrace yourself to find them.
“Stella Lane thinks math is the only thing that unites the universe. She comes up with algorithms to predict customer purchases–a job that has given her more money than she knows what to do with, and way less experience in the dating department than the average thirty-year-old.
It doesn’t help that Stella has Asperger’s and French kissing reminds her of a shark getting its teeth cleaned by pilot fish. Her conclusion: she needs lots of practice–with a professional. Which is why she hires escort Michael Phan. The Vietnamese and Swedish stunner can’t afford to turn down Stella’s offer, and agrees to help her check off all the boxes on her lesson plan–from foreplay to more-than-missionary position…
Before long, Stella not only learns to appreciate his kisses, but crave all of the other things he’s making her feel. Their no-nonsense partnership starts making a strange kind of sense. And the pattern that emerges will convince Stella that love is the best kind of logic…”
This one really spoke to me because although I am not autistic, I am hopelessly awkward. I also loved when the delved into her job because I majored in Econ and loved how she was utilizing the data.
When Affirmative Action Was White
“Ira Katznelson fundamentally recasts our understanding of twentieth-century American history and demonstrates that all the key programs passed during the New Deal and Fair Deal era of the 1930s and 1940s were created in a deeply discriminatory manner. Through mechanisms designed by Southern Democrats that specifically excluded maids and farm workers, the gap between blacks and whites actually widened despite postwar prosperity.”
I knew a lot about housing discrimination before going into this, but the other areas I had very little knowledge of. I feel like so many conversations about affirmative action talk about minorities as if they just fell behind when, in reality, privileged groups were given better access to move forward. This book really hits home how it’s not about taking from one group as if this is a zero-sum game. It’s about giving to groups who weren’t allowed to take advantage of previous opportunities.
