January reads

Photo by Claudia Wolff on Unsplash

On my last post I talked about one of my goals for 2022: read more books! I am writing this mid-April so it would be easy to think I didn’t read much and have nothing to share, but I have actually been doing very good (with at least this goal :p). Maybe I should have added to blog more… Anyway, back to the books, I do use my Audible subscription, but I did sign up for Libro too. When you open your account, you choose a local bookstore you want to support and the profits will be share with them.
Then I found out about Libby! This one is free because you borrow books from your actual local library!
With all those apps, I am set up for plenty of reading options of all genres.

Here is what I read (or listen to) in January (I decided catching up with 3 months would be too much for one post so I make separate ones):

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

The title is pretty clear about the book’s subject. I read this book as a part of the Campaign for Justice Bookclub by the ACLU of Florida. I was excited about finally reading this book but even more about the opportunity to discuss it with like-minded or at the very least open-minded people. Each time there was a meeting, I felt (re)motivated by the other members acknowledging the issues of  both the justice system and the corrections system, neither of which does what their title implies.

Michelle Alexander gives us the history of slavery evolving to incarceration for people of color, and expose with numbers, experiments and experiences how our system is still racially motivated and enforced, whether we are actively conscious of it or not.
If you are already well-informed about the American criminal justice system, it will not make your brain explode, if you are not, it might open your mind to questions you had not consider before – or I should that “you never had to consider before” because you are privileged. I think this is maybe where this book is the most powerful: when it acts as an eye-opener to the people who are on the other side of the gate and have the power to embrace change.

 

American Girl by Wendy Walker

This book was all over Audible when I started my subscription. It is about a small-town murder witnessed by the narrator of the book, an autistic 17-year-old girl. I was like, sign me up! Charlie wants out (of the town, her blended family and sometimes her mind), works at a sandwich shop to save money, when her boss is killed. For the rest of the book she is trying to remember what exactly happened while trying to protect others and navigate her feelings towards a childhood friend now police officer (of course).

It wasn’t as dark, serious, or even believable as I expected and I was a bit disappointed. I kept having issues with the story development and some parts were too predictable, but it was a fun quick listen (it’s an Audible exclusivity so only available as an audiobook, and some scene are recreated instead of read).

 

Somebody’s Daughter by Ashley C. Ford

Somebody’s Daughter is a Memoir. Ashley C. Ford tells her story of growing up a Black and poor girl with the heavy absence of her incarcerated father. Because I constantly worry about my son, all I wanted to get out of this book was that Ashley was okay, she was strong, and she had a close relationship with her father despite them being separated by prison most of her life. I was expecting to read more about this relationship but luckily for Ashley, there is more to her story. As complex as it is, because someone did something wrong doesn’t mean you stop loving them (it’s not black and white like people like to think), and also because someone raised you alone doesn’t mean you owe them unconditional love – yes, this book is more about Ashley’s complicated relationship with her mother. It is hard and honest, and beautifully written.
It is even better if you go with the audiobook because it is read by the author herself 🙂