The School for Good Mothers (by Jessamine Chan)

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Publication date: 4 January 2022 

I'll be honest, this was not the book that I was expecting, but it was the one that I have been wanting for a long time.  I genuinely really loved this book. 

Chan has this really amazing way to tell Frida's story in a way that made me miss her after I had finished the book... and it's not super often that I miss characters after I'm done with their story.  Frida is a complex character with many layers, but she is very concrete in what she wants - her daughter.  As anyone would in her situation, Frida struggles.  She's angry, she's confused, and she's receiving a punishment that does not match her mistake - it's horrifying.  I felt Frida's sorrows and joy, her fear and her love, her anger and her loneliness.

Chan's voice, her world-building, and the way that we were able to enter Frida's world in such a deep and intense way is done so masterfully.  Frida's reality, memories, and thoughts are all written carefully and purposefully.

I was reminded of The Handmaid's Tale in so many ways while I read this book.  The calmness of Chan's writing was almost eerie - such a horrific thing to go through, yet the style of writing almost "normalized" this world, which makes it even more shocking.  The School was so similar to The Rachel and Leah Centre from The Handmaid's Tale, and the experiences there - the training, the degradation, the control, the watching - this is really an excellent dystopia novel.  There isn't a ton of action in this book, but there's so much character development.  You will experience Frida's new reality with her.

One of my favourite things about this book was that Chan wrote cultural and racial/ethnic identities into her characters so seamlessly and naturally.  She made it so that the entire character's identity and race are as important as any other detail about their physical appearance - this is so refreshing, appreciated, and it makes me want to tell the author how much she rocks for this.  She doesn't make any assumptions about her readers' racial identities and this is pretty powerful.

I loved this book so much that I bought a paperback copy so that I can have the physical book on my bookshelf.  I can't wait to read it again.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for providing me with a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

Faces to the Sun (edited by SJ Blasko)

Have you ever read something that really spoke to you?  You know those kinds of reads, you're enjoying the words that are strung together, you feel emotion towards them and you enjoy the way that those words you make you feel?  This book goes beyond that enjoyment feeling.  The feeling that I got from this book was the feeling of being heard. 

 A lot of people underestimate the importance of being heard, being seen, being represented.  When you're surrounded by characters in literature who are able to deal with what life throws at them, it starts to make you feel like you're the one who isn't strong enough and maybe you're missing something that even fictional characters have.  I mean, Katniss experienced some pretty severe PTSD from being in The Hunger Games, but she survived and was able to garner enough support to lead an entire rebellion that dismantled the entire power structures of Panem.  We're not all as strong as Katniss and we don't all have people to surround us and support us like she had.  Some of us are alone, and even if we aren't, many of us feel like we are alone.

This read left me feeling breathless. It's so achingly accurate. I needed several minutes after some of these entries before I was able to keep going. These poems are deeply powerful and I resonated with several of them. You know how it feels when you are reading something and you suddenly realize you're reading yourself on a page? This book is that.  My grief and my sadness have been this constant cloud that lingers over me and follows me throughout my day, like something that is confining me and no matter how hard I try, I can't break free of it - and believe me, I try.

The poems and a couple of short stories are all centred around adversity and resilience, and everything in between. They are about identity, acceptance, mental health, anxiety and depression, grief, loss, and individuality.  They made me feel less alone, something that is worth more than I can tell you.

I felt very touched by "Bouquet" by Beka Gremikova.  It made me tear up a little.  The first few lines really struck me:

 "The flowers from your mom's funeral still hang upside down from the basement ceiling, dangling over the sink.  You left them there to dry so you could press them between pages, create bookmarks out of the worst day of your life." 

I have included a photo that I took a week ago - the flowers that I hung to dry and what remains of those that dried and lost their petals from the bouquet that my best friends from work sent to me weeks ago after I lost my third pregnancy.  The dried petals on my iPad?  From the yellow lilies in that bouquet.  Same with those green leaves.

Sometimes when we find ourselves reflected in someone else's writing, it can help our own healing.  Thank you, Beka.

I will be buying a copy of this book to put in my classroom for my students. We will be reading some of these poems this year. I know they will relate to them. I'm also going to check out the first anthology, There Is Us. I liked this so much, I may even buy a copy of this book so I can enjoy it on paper.

Huge thanks to the author and Voracious Readers Only for gifting me with a free copy in exchange for an honest review

shy anger: a poetry collection in three parts (by Kelsey Ray Banerjee)

I am coming back from being AWOL.

Life gets in the way sometimes.  Sometimes life stomps on you.  Sometimes it kicks you when you are already down.

I used to say, "Third time's the charm."  I believed it.  Of course, little sayings are just that - sayings.  It is something that you say but that doesn't make it true.  

Three pregnancies.  Three losses.  There is no charm in this.  

Every journey towards healing is a personal one.  I am trying to find mine and I have decided to seek out reading and writing as one way to put the pieces of me back together.  I am trying to find my voice.  My first reviews were long and followed a "reader response" format that I teach to my students in English class.  Today I am keeping it short.  I am just playing with voice as I try to find mine again.

_____________________________________________________

This little collection of poems was a welcoming read when coming up for a breath of air.  I don't usually gravitate to poetry but I had been intrigued by its description.

Some of these poems made me feel like they were written just for me, tapping into my heart, my grief, my anger, my quest for meaning and peace.  

My favourites: "a decade of protests", "karen mindset", "the story", she dreams of mountains", "exhaustion", "shy anger", and "locked out."

These poems are about different aspects of life that we might not give much thought to, but Banerjee puts them under a microscope and infuses them with emotion.

I would like to thank the author and BookSirens for providing me with a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

 4/5 stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐

3/5 hearts 💚💚💚