You've been listening to me talk about it for literal months now: our family's big summer of camping, taking place across four weekends through July and August this year. Now that our tents and tarps are packed away for good, I wanted to take a little time to expound upon those reads I dragged through the dirt and mud with me.
(Well, maybe not that. I do take care of my books, after all. Any damage they may have accrued in this time is more likely in the vein of residual love from the Reese's Peanut Butter cups we use when we make s'mores.)
From Camano Island to Deception Pass, to Kanaskat-Palmer to the Dungeness Spit, here are all of the books I read while camping this summer!
Weekend #1: Camano Island State Park
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (Flavia de Luce #1), Alan Bradley
This book is a little perplexing to consider, especially when attempting to gauge whether I really liked it or not. On one hand, the first 50 pages required three separate attempts to get interested; on the other, I finished the remaining 320 in almost one sitting.
I found the exploits of the young Flavia - brash and brilliant - to be a lot of fun; on the flip side, the story was unmistakably constructed by an older man, one who rejoiced in obscure references, far beyond even what the most precocious of 11-year-olds could have declared. It really did remind me a lot of a classic Agatha Christie novel, in its lovingly-crafted perspective of small, rural British country villages, and the various people that inhabit them.
It also had, like Agatha, some stunningly racist depictions that really didn't need to be there. The difference is that Christie wrote back in previous century: while this novel is set in the summer of 1950, it was published in 2009, at a time when such things as a blatantly racist "Chinese" magic trick should be recognized for what they are.
That being said, the rest of the story - other than that glaring blemish, one that turned this title from a "must recommend" to a "hmm, maybe not" - was pretty fun. At a certain point, the outcome gets a little obvious, but it's still enjoyable to follow along with Flavia's various hijinks. At some other point, I might consider picking up another in the series, but honestly, I'd rather do a Christie sometime soon instead.
Dangerous Tides (Drake Sisters #4), Christine Feehan
You don't get to hear about this one just yet... wait until my next batch of Paranormal Romance reviews! (You can read the last batch here!)
Weekend #2: Deception Pass State Park, on Whidbey Island
Here for It: Or, How to Save Your Soul in America, R. Eric Thomas
I can already tell you right now, that this is going to be one of my favorite books of the year. Not only did its words mean so much to me - especially in my current season of life - but they've lead me to others, too (poems, song lyrics), that honestly meant a lot to read, as well.
I appreciated R. Eric Thomas' perspectives on a myriad of topics - Blackness, especially in white spaces; gayness, especially in religious spaces - and I really credit his humorous, honest voice and style for serving as such a positive, engaging communicative tool. Even when discussing points of difficulty or vulnerability, he was sharp and conversational; even when detailing times of extreme sadness, he was clear and earnest. Memoirs are really at their best when they bring the reader into arenas of life they would never otherwise be able to experience, and Thomas was generous and welcoming when sharing his past.
In the end, it was actually the points in his life that connected us - generating an intense, close friendship at 17, and losing that person to suicide; recognizing that college carries with it opportunities that seem overwhelming, in part due to an unwillingness to give up the safely guarded labels that keep you protected - that really hit me at my core. He writes in such a way that feels personal and intimately friendly, and hearing similar circumstances I recognized communicated so frankly felt like talking with a friend.
What an absolutely enjoyable experience.
Disability Visibility: First Person Stories from the 21st Century, ed. Alice Wong
To be completely honest, I finished this book several days before I could even begin to consider how I felt about it. I think I avoided writing down my own personal thoughts on what was an engrossing, enthralling collection of first-person writing and anecdotes, because of how overwhelmingly difficult its subject matter is, and how much personal reflection was necessary in processing it completely.
Granted, this book knows what its about. It doesn't mess around with palatizing difficult subject matter, and lists various topics such as eugenics, racism, bullying, suicide, and more in a rolling line of ticker tape that serves as a banner at the top of each story, as a kind of introduction. The discomfort is the point: a minority group of people used to binding themselves up, making themselves small, tucking the uncomfortable parts of themselves away as both a personal means of survival, as well as - at various points throughout history - a legal and public image legislative action, finally given the chance to voice their pain in a publicly consumed message, directed at both their fellow lonely, silenced group, as well as the public at large who has rendered them invisible. Its powerful, difficult stuff, and incredibly intersectional, as well.
When I first decided to pick up this book, it had been at the recommendation of a handful of people who had called it "empowering" and "uplifting"; after reading it, I am forced to reconsider some of my perspectives of those people. It HURTS. It is draining, and upsetting, and overwhelmingly hard to process, especially for someone who doesn't have a large extent of experience in disability activist circles. It highlights problems and pain for which there is no current solution or means of rectification, and that absolutely sucks. But hopefully with the accessibility afforded through these pages, bringing firsthand perspectives to people who would otherwise never have seen the struggles, one can be generated. Maybe with more stories like this, some justice can be found.
Weekend #3: Kanaskat-Palmer State Park, near the Green River
The Water Knife, Paolo Bacigalupi
You don't get to hear about this one just yet, either... after a pretty difficult reading experience that already yielded quite a bit of conversation with various family members, I decided to give this one a little more space and give myself a little more room to breathe. A longer review will be coming soon!
I Miss You When I Blink: Essays, Mary Laura Philpott
I am experiencing conflicting emotions about this book, and unfortunately I feel like it also has to do with conflicting emotions about my taste levels as a person.
I was drawn to this book, originally, because of the premise: a nonfiction account of a woman who, upon achieving the suburbanite dream list of husband, kids, house, etc, finds herself wanting to burn it all down and strike off fresh. THAT sounds appealing to me. The experiences she describes - depression, anxiety, hopelessness, resentment - are highly familiar, and I figured that her unspoken achievement in having been deemed important enough to write a memoir might give me some insight, in terms of potential solutions.
Here's how she fixes it: she goes to a therapist, and is prescribed Zoloft. She leans on an understanding and kind husband for support. She stops signing up for the volunteering jobs she dislikes that keep her so busy, and instead, starts writing newsletters for a famous bookstore as a part of her freelancing career. She uses the three weeks her kids are at sleepaway camp to house-sit for a friend of a friend, and enjoys the quiet, as well as a ton of books, but realizes that she still misses her children and husband. Her family moves from Atlanta to Nashville, where she feels less encumbered by ambient stress, and the traffic is not so crippling.
It all seems so... mundane. Expected. In a lot of ways, not exactly accessible. These modern problems she's describing feel so extreme, but the answers are also so completely upper-middle-class suburban.
And it kind of felt like the book was just... a lot of those feelings. Mary Laura Philpott - who at other times in the memoir-slash-essays, is also deeply resonant and relatable - just struck me as a little bit out-of-touch, or basic. For instance, at a dinner with friends, she gets angry when small talk turns to preferred methods of making chicken salad, and name checks Bill Gates, Beyonce, and J. K. Rowling as being people she'd rather talk to, instead. Could there be a more generic answer to a question that could have pushed a lot deeper? But also, some people enjoy talking about chicken salad, so why can't you let them (/me) live?
In total, there WERE passages in the book that did speak to me, but it also kind of felt like if one of the most surface-level people in your sorority grew up and started a well-written, occasionally-deep mommy blog.
Weekend #4: Dungeness Spit Recreation Area
Professional Troublemaker: the Fear-Fighter's Manual, Luvvie Ajayi-Jones
This book is about how sometimes, humans let fear get in the way of enjoying the surplus of LIFE that is available to us every single day. Kind of like how sometimes a Savannah might let the required return date of a library book get in the way of enjoying what might otherwise have been an easy, reflective funny memoir-slash-self-help guide, instead of leaving it for the last twelve hours of its check-out period.
(It's fine. Based on the advice of a friend, I switched my Kindle to airplane mode, and sped-read my way through the remaining 60% of the book. Is it a perfect system? Hell no. But what else is a woman supposed to do when she's still got a lot of Seattle Public LIbrary boxes to check off, and it's AUGUST?)This book was funny, and inspirational. It was also chock full of references to Ajayi-Jones' other work, which occasionally felt like I was missing pieces of valuable context, and that I needed to go look elsewhere: her numerous chart-topping TED talks, her blog and Twitter account, her previous book, etc. Like, we get it, you're prolific! But after a while, it kind of does feel like it's simply a networking/marketing tool for your previous material.
Other quick notes:
- This is the second book this year I've read that was written during Covid, and has felt the need to discuss it, which I am both for and against as a general practice.
- Ajayi-Jones turns Blackness - especially Nigerian-ness, which I would say gets its own chapter, if it didn't already have prominent placement throughout the entire book - into a total superpower, and I was fully here for it
- Out of everything else in this book, what I really, really loved, and what felt the most inspiring, was how she makes professional success sound inevitable. Like, if you're working, and working hard and fearlessly and especially working to lift other people up along with you, great things will happen for you. And I love that.
What have been your favorite vacation reads so far this summer? How many books are still left on your Summer TBR for August? Let me know, in the comments below!
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