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Jan Believed in Herself and Worked to Empower Women

Read: March 2023

O Beautiful: A Novel

by Jung Yun

O Beautiful: A Novel by Jung Yun, the critically acclaimed author of Shelter, has written an unflinching portrayal of a woman trying to come to terms with the ghosts of her past and the tortured realities of a deeply divided America. With spare and graceful prose, O Beautiful presents an immersive portrait of a community rife with tensions, competing interests, and one woman’s attempts to reconcile her anger with her love of beautiful but troubled land. I highly recommend O Beautiful!

I finished reading O Beautiful on International Women’s Day. It might have been coincidental, but in my humble opinion, it was the perfect book to read on this important day. Ms. Yun has written a novel that touches on the intersectionality of the core issues of our divided land. The misogyny, the racism, and the impact of capitalism out of control are all related and are affecting the quality of life in the early twenty-first century.

Elinor Hanson, the protagonist, is so vividly written that she jumps off the page and becomes someone we know as a family member. When she returned home to write about the Bakken oil boom in North Dakota, I felt I had known her all my life. Unfortunately, the novel ended when she finally understood the issues and was in touch with her anger. I wish it would have continued so that the problems might have been addressed. Despite this, I highly recommend this novel.

O Beautiful is the twenty-first book I have read this year! My goal was twenty-three.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview,

Elinor Hanson, a forty-something former model, struggles to reinvent herself as a freelance writer when she receives an unexpected assignment. Her mentor from grad school offers her a chance to write for a prestigious magazine about the Bakken oil boom in North Dakota.

Elinor grew up near the Bakken, raised by an overbearing father and a distant Korean mother who met and married when he was stationed overseas. After decades from home, Elinor returns to a landscape she hardly recognizes, overrun by tens of thousands of newcomers.

Surrounded by roughnecks seeking their fortunes in oil and long-time residents worried about their changing community, Elinor experiences a profound sense of alienation and grief. She rages at the unrelenting male gaze, the locals who still see her as a foreigner, and the memories of her family’s estrangement after her mother decided to escape her unhappy marriage, leaving Elinor and her sister behind.

The longer she pursues this potentially career-altering assignment, the more her past intertwines with the story she’s trying to tell, revealing disturbing new realities that will forever change her and how she looks at the world.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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Read: February 2023

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Mercy Street: A Novel

by Jennifer Haigh

Mercy Street: A Novel by Jennifer Haigh is a tense, riveting story about the disparate lives intersecting at a Boston women’s clinic. The novel was named Best Book of the Year by the Washington Post, the New Yorker, and the Boston Globe. Mercy Street is a novel for right now, a story of the polarized American present. Ms. Haigh is a gifted storyteller who has written a very readable book that I highly recommend.

I truly enjoyed Mercy Street. I had read her short story Zenith Man, and I enjoyed her storytelling skill and wanted to read her most recent novel. Until the last few pages, I was unsure how Ms. Haigh‘s intricate storylines could conclude the story. Usually, I can predict how a story will unfold well before I finish reading it. Mercy Street was a rare exception to that rule.

I have never had to run the gauntlet in front of a women’s clinic, but Ms. Haigh has made that experience so real that I could taste it. The day-to-day work of the staff and the clients was detailed and believable. The male characters, Timmy, the affable pot dealer; Anthony, a lost soul; and Excelsior11-the screenname of Victor Prine, were drafted n a credible way.

As stated earlier, I highly recommend this book.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview,

Claudia has counseled patients for almost a decade at Mercy Street, a clinic in the city’s heart. The work is consuming the unending dramas of women in crisis. For its patients, Mercy Street offers more than health care; for many, it is a second chance.

But outside the clinic, the reality is different. Anonymous threats are frequent. A small, determined group of anti-abortion demonstrators appears each morning at its door. As the protests intensify, fear creeps into Claudia’s days, a humming anxiety she manages with frequent visits to Timmy, an affable pot dealer amid his existential crisis. At Timmy’s, she encounters a random assortment of customers, including Anthony, a lost soul who spends most of his life online, chatting with the mysterious Excelsior11–the screenname of Victor Prine. This anti-abortion crusader has set his sights on Mercy Street and is ready to risk it all for his beliefs.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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Read: June 2023

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Berlin: A Novel by Bea Setton

by Bea Setton

I’ve begun reading Berlin: A Novel by Bea Setton. After finishing Kairos, a book set in a divided Berlin, Setton’s debut novel is witty and insightful, with a young woman battling a sense of emptiness who moves to Berlin for a fresh start. However, things go differently than planned.

Daphne, the protagonist, moves to Berlin hoping for a new beginning but deals with more drama than she left behind. She knows she needs to make friends, learn German, and navigate a new way of life. She even expects to spend long nights alone with Nutella and experience the difficulties of online dating in another language. But one night, something unexpected and unnerving happens in her apartment, and Daphne’s life suddenly turns dangerous.

Setton captures the modern female experience with sharp observations and wit, making Berlin a must-read for her generation.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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Read: January 2023

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Flight: A Novel

by Lynn Steger Strong

Flight: A Novel by Lynn Steger Strong is a novel about family, ambition, precarity, art, and desire, forming a decisive next step from a brilliant chronicler of our time. The book has been on my to-read list for a few months. A New Yorker Best Books of 2022, it seemed like a good start on my 2023 Goodreads Reading challenge. Flight is the first book I read in 2023. Last year I read seventy-four books, and each helped me with my grief journey.

I recommend this novel as it is a page-turner highlighting the difficulty families experience after a loss. As a culture, we are experiencing declining social connections, including within families. Flight is an excellent effort to define the crisis.

Although several possible resolutions to the conflict became clear by the middle of the novel, Ms. Strong told the story so that until the end, it was unclear how or if it would be resolved. In addition, enough unresolved issues remained so that.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview,

It’s December twenty-second and siblings Henry, Kate, and Martin have converged with their spouses on Henry’s house in upstate New York. This is the first Christmas the siblings are without their mother, the first not at their mother’s Florida house. Over the course of the next three days, old resentments and instabilities arise as the siblings, with a gaggle of children afoot, attempt to perform familiar rituals, while also trying to decide what to do with their mother’s house, their sole inheritance. As tensions rise, the whole group is forced to come together unexpectedly when a local mother and daughter need help.

With the urgency and artfulness that cemented her previous novel Want as “a defining novel of our age” (Vulture), Strong once again turns her attention to the structural and systemic failings that are haunting Americans, but also to the ways in which family, friends, and strangers can support each other through the gaps

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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Read: October 2024

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Martyr! A Novel

by Kaveh Akbar

Today, I started reading “Martyr! A Novel” by Kaveh Akbar, the last of one of the five finalists for the 2024 National Book Award for Fiction I have read. This is also the 79th book I have read this year, surpassing my record from last year. Kaveh Akbar‘s “Martyr!” is a tribute to our pursuit of meaning in faith, art, ourselves, and others. The story follows Cyrus Shams, the newly sober, orphaned son of Iranian immigrants.

He is guided by the voices of artists, poets, and kings as he embarks on a search for a family secret, which leads him to a terminally ill painter living out her final days in the Brooklyn Museum.

Cyrus Shams, our protagonist, grapples with an inheritance of violence and loss. His mother’s tragic death and his father’s limited life in America have left him with scars. He’s a drunk, a person with a substance use disorder, and a poet, but above all, he’s a human being on a journey of self-discovery. His fascination with martyrs leads him to explore the mysteries of his past, including his uncle’s inspiring yet haunting role on Iranian battlefields and a painting that suggests his mother may not have been who or what she seemed.

“Martyr!” is a novel that’s not just electrifying and funny but also wholly original. It’s a testament to Kaveh Akbar‘s unique storytelling and heralds the arrival of an essential new voice in contemporary fiction. Get ready to be captivated by his narrative prowess.

Read: July 2023

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Ripe: A Novel by Sarah Rose Etter

by Sarah Rose Etter

I started reading “Ripe: A Novel” by Sarah Rose Etter today. This book has won awards and is highly praised by Roxane Gay for its uniqueness and brilliance. It tells the story of a woman in Silicon Valley who must choose how much she will sacrifice for success. Fans of “My Year of Rest and Relaxation” and “Her Body and Other Parties” will enjoy this surreal tale.

Cassie has worked at a Silicon Valley start-up for a year but feels stuck in a corporate nightmare. The long hours, toxic bosses, and unethical projects are taking a toll on her. She has a hard time reconciling the stark contrast between the abundance of wealth and the poverty and suffering that exist side by side in the city. Cassie observes Ivy League graduates complaining about snack options in a conference room overlooking unhoused people bathing in the bay. She’s witnessed start-up burnouts who throw themselves in front of commuter trains and men who light themselves on fire in the streets.

Even though Cassie is often by herself, she never feels entirely alone. Since she can remember, she has had a tiny black hole that is always with her. This black hole feeds off her feelings of sadness and worry, getting bigger or smaller depending on how much she struggles. While it watches her, it also waits patiently. Its powerful force keeps pulling Cassie closer as everything in her life seems to fall apart.

Cassie finds herself pregnant unexpectedly while dealing with her CEO’s illegal demands. She must weigh the benefits of Silicon Valley against the risks. Ripe follows the journey of one millennial woman through the absurdities of modern life, offering a sharp yet vulnerable, unsettling yet darkly comic commentary on our late-capitalist hellscape.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.

Jan Believed in Herself and Worked to Empower Women

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