As the one year mark of the COVID-19 pandemic draws near, we all need something to soothe our mental health. For us, that something is reading. We read a collective 35 books in February, and we are excited to share with you 13 of our absolute favorite books from the month. Affiliates links are dropped in, in case you’d like to purchase a copy of any of the recommendations. We also have our Bookshop list here for easy access. Happy reading!
Fiction
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
Helen: This book was such a fun read to start the month with! It was a packed month of 5-star reads, but this one especially stood out. This entire book reads like a long Firefly episode but without Joss Whedon’s gross antics. Chambers builds an inclusive universe that showcases the best of sci-fi in one amazing tale. Probably what shocked me the most about this book was the extremely expansive universe that was created just within a short space. So many different species, worlds and languages all discovered in one book. Although it was 500 pages, this book reads much faster than that. I had a hard time putting it down and I’m really looking forward to delving more into the world Chambers has created with the next one!
Fat Chance, Charlie Vega by Crystal Maldonado
Lamia: I fell in love with this book the moment I saw the cover, and the content did not disappoint! Few characters have I adored as much as I adore Charlie Vega – she is kind, funny, thoughtful and learns to be unapologetic in her own beautiful body. There are so many beautiful moving pieces to this novel: Charlie’s fraught relationship with her mother who is obsessed with being skinny, the jealousy she feels toward her seemingly perfect best friend, the grief she works through after the loss of her dad, and her struggle being biracial but not fully “fitting in” with her Latinx side. Of course, one of the best parts of this book is Charlie’s relationship with her new boyfriend. Any YA romance lover will fall in love with this feel-good book!
The Bad Muslim Discount by Syed M. Masood
Lamia: I enjoyed this book so much that I’m making my mom read it. The Bad Muslim Discount follows a family from Karachi and a family from Iraq who have made their way to the Bay Area. Both are Muslim, but their experiences are worlds apart. Their stories come crashing together in an apartment complex in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district. It’s hard to write a book that tells a completely original and important story today, but I would say Masood touches on an issue many may not think about. Muslims exist on a spectrum and their backgrounds can completely change the way that they are treated. I highly recommend this book to everyone, but especially other Muslim-Americans.
The Brown Sisters Series by Talia Hibbert
Lamia: Did I read this series back-to-back-to-back in the span of four days? Why, yes I did! Do I regret it? Not a single bit. Hibbert has created three very different Black sisters who are intelligent, independent and badass. From Chloe who has fibromyalgia and advocates for herself everyday to Dani who is getting her Ph.D. in feminist literature and is fiercely intelligent to Eve who has so many talents and doesn’t let what others think get her down. These books are extremely steamy and might be a bit difficult to read when you’re around other people for that reason, but if you’re comfortable with some graphic sex, then these romance books will be devoured by you too! I was very lucky to get an ARC of the third and final novel in this series, so feel free to wait until March 9 and read them one after another like I did!
A Girl is a Body of Water by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
Lamia: Long-listed for the Aspen Words Literary Prize, it took me a little bit to get engrossed in this book. But once I did… you couldn’t tear me away from it! Kirabo is a Ugandan girl who wants nothing more than to find and know her real mother. Raised by her grandparents in a village while her father works in Kampala, she visits the local witch, Nsuuta (her grandmother’s sworn enemy!), to find answers. She embarks on a journey to discover her origins with the backdrop of Idi Amin’s reign hanging over her story. The book explores what it means to be a woman in a world that silences women every day.
We Run the Tides by Vendela Vida
Lamia: The anticipation for this book was well worth it. In a year of seriously amazing books being released, Vendela Vida has proven why she is a veteran author who deserves a ton of respect. We Run the Tides is set in San Francisco in the 1980’s and follows two best friends who remember very different accounts of an event they witness. When one friend disappears, the other is left to pick up the pieces. As we mentioned before, We Run the Tides focuses on female friendships, especially the imbalanced ones.
Milk Fed by Melissa Broder
Lamia: We weren’t lying when we said we were highly anticipating these books. Milk Fed follows Rachel, a Reform Jew, who has a toxic relationship with her mother and struggles with disordered eating. At the same time that her therapist recommends she take a detox cleanse from her mother, she meets Miriam, a fat Orthodox Jew who works at her parents’ frozen yogurt shop. Miriam helps Rachel let go of her problematic thoughts around food and they begin a relationship in secret from Miriam’s family. Highly sexual and full of longing, Milk Fed is a quintessential contemporary adult LGBTQ read.
Nonfiction
Four Hundred Souls: A Community of African America, 1619 – 2019 by Ibram X. Kendi
Helen: This incredibly expansive history of the Black experience in America is almost hard to comprehend. Over 400 years of history are covered by unique authors, historians, artists and more. I listened to the audiobook for this book and I would highly recommend it. Each chapter was read by a different person and you can only imagine the work that must have gone into a production like that. This highly anticipated release should be read by all.
Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All by Martha S. Jones
Helen: Much like Four Hundred Souls, this is another expansive history of the fight for Black women to get the right to vote. Jones shows how the original movement for women’s rights to vote was dominated by white voices that did not look kindly upon Black women’s fight for the right to vote. It weaves the importance of religious institutions in the fight and upholds the voices of Black women who put their lives on the line.
Work Won’t Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone by Sarah Jaffe
Helen: This was an important book to read as I shifted jobs and began to work remotely. Jaffe looks at the way that the workplace exploits the labor of employees to encourage them to give more of themselves to capitalism. She goes through a variety of workers’ lived experiences to highlight the issues of our working culture. Truly, the title of the book does a great job of describing the message of the book and easily pulls you in to learn more.
Graphic Novels and Manga
Parenthesis by Élodie Durand
Helen: This is one of the graphic novels that I was looking forward to in 2021 and I was lucky enough to get an ARC from NetGalley and Top Shelf Productions. This graphic memoir shows the author’s struggle with a brain tumor that causes her to become epileptic. As she goes through this health issue, she tries to figure out who she is while sick and learns about the effect that this all has on her family. This is a beautiful, raw graphic memoir from the French indie comic scene that you should definitely check out.
Feelings: A Story of Seasons by Manjit Thapp
Helen: Unlike the last one, I didn’t hear a lot of buzz about this one, but I really wish that I had added it to my list of Graphic Novels to Look Forward to in 2021! I would also like to say thank you to NetGalley and Random House for giving me an ARC of this graphic novel. You may recognize the author from their amazing cover of The Subtweet by Vivek Shraya. The story of this graphic novel deals with the change of emotions that we have as the seasons come and go. The colors used are absolutely beautiful and the short square panels make it look like a 90’s art book.
Grass by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim
Lamia: I’m slightly behind on the graphic novel uptake and Grass has continued to motivate me to read more. This biography follows Granny Ok-Seon Lee who was taken from her home and forced to be a comfort woman for Japanese soldiers during the colonization of Korea. Extremely dark and upsetting, the novel will break your heart but teach you an important history lesson that you might not learn otherwise. It is beautiful and quickly read. I look forward to reading more by Gendry-Kim, including The Waiting, which we all know Helen is impatiently awaiting!
