My Favorite Book of the Year

So far

Recently, I tested positive for COVID.

Day two of isolation, I decided to make an ice cream cake.

The cake was “simple” according to the internet. It looked tasty. 

Listen, I had the time.

I started by making my own vanilla ice cream, complete with six egg yolks. This felt like a lot of eggs, but what do I know?

I spent way too long looking for Nabisco chocolate wafers before emotionally accepting that I would have to be Nabisco. That I would have to make the wafers.

(I botched the wafers.)

–

All told, it took nearly five days for me to ruin the simple ice cream cake.

I learned a lot in the process. About egg yolks. About life.

I realized, vaguely, that one day all I had had to eat was two boxes of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese. That I was putting far more care into a bad ice cream cake than I was my own self, my own body, my own life.

How has your summer been?

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

I read my favorite book of the year this summer.

That’s always such a fun feeling. The tingling in your soul you get when you just love a book and can't wait to tell everyone about it.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow I text out to people far and wide. My favorite book of the year. (So far.)

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is an achy sad-toothy rollercoaster book about love and art and how our relationships change over time. It is epic and sweeping in nature and John Green called it one of the best books he’s ever read.

I call it my favorite book of the year.

The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio: How My Mother Raised 10 Kids on 25 Words or Less by Terry Ryan

My sister told me her favorite book of the year was The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio.

I trust my sister, implicitly. When I go out of town I leave my baby with her without concern. When I have a meltdown over phantom lice, she checks my scalp.

But this book?

I wasn’t sure.

The cover isn’t great, for one. Also, how my mother raised us on 25 words or less? I just don’t know how much I can relate to a woman of few words.

I resisted the book and ignored the book and then, one day this summer, I was staying at my parents’ house and I saw the book on a shelf.

I picked it up.

I loved it.

The cover is bad and so is the title, but the reason this memoir is worth reading is that it tells the story of ordinary American history. Of a mother, of advertising (seriously, if you’ve ever worked in advertising READ THIS), of a big, messy, imperfect family. 

Read it if you loved Cheaper by the Dozen.

The Change by Kirsten Miller

In July, I took a girls trip to the mountains of Utah. We ate pizza and roasted s’mores and went to an antique shop looking for one-of-a-kind pie dishes for each other.

We read tarot and watched a terrible Christmas movie and talked about menopause.

Shortly after I returned I read The Change.

The Change is a book about middle-aged women stepping into their power. About how when menopause hits women become powerful. It is gripping and fantastical and whoa whoa whoa whoa READ IT PLEASE and let’s discuss.

Writers & Lovers by Lily King

I want to tell you to read Writers & Lovers, but I also want to warn you that I did not like the ending. 

I didn’t really see this reaction in the Goodreads reviews, so I don’t think mine was a popular opinion.

It wasn’t like there was a big twist or anything. It just more felt like…a different book because of it.

The book was all sorts of things I love. Melancholy aspiring writer. Kind of a Sylvia Plath tone? Biting and funny and dark. Love triangle-ish?

All I want to do, though, is talk about the ending with someone who has read it.

I loved it all, and then, what?

Lonely Castle in the Mirror by Mizuki Tsujimura

True Biz by Sara Nović

I miss my mom.

She and my father moved to Brazil this summer for a church service mission. They will be gone for three years.

Daisy will be a grown-up in three years.

I want to tell my mom about Lonely Castle in the Mirror, which is this strange, slow-burn, fairytale, coming-of-age story set in Japan. It felt like a modern Chronicles of Narnia. I didn’t see the twists coming. 

I want her to read True Biz, a powerful, intense young adult book set in the deaf community. It reminded me of Firekeeper’s Daughter, in the way it introduced me to a world I was unfamiliar with. In the propulsive, explosive writing.

Of course I’d have her read The Change. We’ve spent years talking about women as witches in history and literature and this text is ripe for that discussion. This text is explicit in that content.

My mom is an adjunct English professor. That is, she was one until she moved.  She is where my love of books and literature and discussing books and literature in an intense, rabid way comes from.

And I can still tell her about these books, of course. The internet exists. And WiFi and WhatsApp. But we won’t go on four hour walks trying to connect Harriett Osborne from The Change to General Leia Organa to the Salem Witch Trials.

Oh, I miss my mom.

–

This summer I finally, finally hung a clothesline in our backyard. I get intense pleasure from burying my face in sun-baked clothes.

I planted a pot of basil that isn’t doing all that well, thanks for asking.

I spearheaded a huge summer reading project for my middle school. Daisy and I attended a puppet show for 15 minutes. We made pizza on the grill. I watched Life & Beth and Schmigadoon, in the same week!

Yesterday, Rob and I pulled a hammock onto our driveway and looked at the stars. The Draco Constellation burned bright.

How has your summer been? Have you read anything great?

What’s your favorite book of the year so far?