A Week in the Life: May 2025

May 19, 2025

I'm not sure if it's because I'm 27 this year and thus beginning to enter my Saturn return or what, but lately I have been feeling extremely grounded & engaged and happy that I'm spending my time very intentionally. How joyous is that?!

Saturday, May 10
Cap2Cap 2025, baby! As soon as the snow melts in the spring, you can find me biking along the Virginia Capital Trail and grinning ear-to-ear. Saturday marked the 20th anniversary of the Cap2Cap ride, an annual community fundraiser. Last year, I couldn't participate because the ride fell on my graduation day, and I was thrilled to be back in it this time around! Luckily this ride was far less eventful than my first. In 2023, before I had even made it officially onto to the trail itself, I crashed and flipped over my bike, pinning myself underneath it. I then rode 50 miles actively bleeding on a bike stuck in top gear. Good times! 

I digress. A few weeks ago, my friend Alexis and I discovered over a catch-up dinner that we had both registered for the Cap2Cap Half Century and decided to do the ride together. Was I mildly bananas for agreeing to accompany a cycling instructor on an endurance bike ride? Yes. Would I do it again? Absolutely! 

Alexis and I decided to do an out-and-back 50 mile itinerary and we found ourselves pedaling alongside families, amateur cycling teams, and adorable duos on tandem bikes. The weather was absolutely perfect—a cloudless sky with very cool breezes, so we never worried about being overheated. We stopped at refueling stations for vital nutrient support; along the way, I tucked into fruit gummies, potato wedges, brownies (I've been dreaming about these since my last Cap2Cap, no lie), M&Ms, and pickle juice.

Some friends came to see Alexis and I off at the beginning of the trail & met us at the turnaround point, and still others were waiting for us at the finish line! It was so sweet to feel so surrounded by love. I spent the rest of the day soaking my sore quads in an epsom salt bath and eating pizza on my yoga mat. A 10/10 way to spend a Saturday, I think. 

Sunday, May 11
Sunday was Mother's Day! In the grand tradition of only daughters, I took no pictures with Mom on the day, but we had a lovely time. I baked us a pear and cardamom cake with fresh vanilla whipped cream that we tucked into after a lovely meal of shrimp paella and crusty French bread. 

Food is a love language for my mom & I. Some of our best memories revolve around food and it's usually at the dinner table that we have our Big Conversations™. I came out to my mother at an ice cream parlor in the Dominican Republic. Over the past few months, we've been talking through my breakup healing process over plates of pasta, homemade pizza, and salmon risotto. 

Though nowhere near as sore as I was in 2023, I was still definitely feeling the #effects of the Cap2Cap on Sunday, so it worked really well for me that Mom wanted to stay home. After destroying the kitchen as we baked and cooked, we watched the first couple episodes of Natasha Lyonne's Poker Face—so good!! 

Monday, May 12
The Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center is part of VCU, where I earned my Master's degree. Even though I am no longer a student there, I still teach weekly yoga classes on campus and the occasional private lesson for VCU-affiliated organizations. 

I was really honored to be able to teach a mindfulness seminar at Massey on Monday. We practiced a few rounds of guided meditation, discussed the latest research on mindfulness and the brain, and practiced strategies for integrating mindfulness & meditation into daily life.

Tuesday, May 13
Turns out, I have no photos related to my current yoga practice...

Throughout the various stages of my adult life, yoga has been a consistent way I find a great deal of purpose serving my community. I earned my 200RYT certification and began teaching while I was an undergraduate at William & Mary. Then, I taught free yoga classes with The Phoenix organization when I lived in New York, and I've been teaching at VCU since moving to Richmond! 

Thankfully the looming rain held off for my walk to the gym for my classes on Tuesday night. I'm enchanted by my twilight walks to and from the gym. I pass several churches on my way, and often I am walking past when the bells start tolling the hour. There's something about a tolling bell that resonates inside my bones...some ancestral Catholic DNA, maybe? I digress.

Wednesday, May 14
Thunderstorms are my favorite meteorological phenomenon. I remember waking up one hot summer night when I was very young to the sound of what I could only describe as the sky breaking open. My family was all together in our house at the beach and I woke up alone and frightened. The storm continued to pitch as I gathered my courage to venture into the hallway. To this day, I don't know why I didn't continue downstairs to my mother's room. Instead, I walked to the living room down the hallway on the second floor, where I found my grandfather sitting silently on the couch, enraptured by the storm. I joined him and together we watched the lightning flash against an angry purple sky, illuminating the churning ocean that had been calm enough to splash in just a few hours before. The thunder was no less booming here, but I felt safe sitting with Pop. Eventually, I fell asleep there, lightning, thunder, and all. 

Needless to say, I love thunderstorms. A low, crackling one set upon Richmond on Wednesday night, and I was all too happy to curl up with some takeout sushi and watch the lightning flash through my windows. 

Thursday, May 15
After work on Thursday, Gravy and I hopped in the car and headed for Williamsburg, where I grabbed a quick dinner with my friend, Caleb. Councilman Caleb and I have been friends since we served as Orientation Aides together our senior year (#longliveYates). He is funny, thoughtful, and practically 8 feet tall, which comes in handy a lot more often than I'd think. 

I'm consistently awed by Caleb. Elected to the Williamsburg City Council during our senior year, Caleb's commitment to making a tangible difference on the people and world around him is palpable in everything he does. I wrote frequently in my Master's thesis about my propensity for materiality—my need to research, discuss, and implement ideas that could bridge the gap between theory and reality, make a real impact—and I've come to realize that a great deal of that drive is nurtured by my friendship with Caleb. My current mission is convincing him to bike across the great state of Iowa with me (and Gravel) next summer. He's already biked across Virginia, so....?!

After dinner, I raced over to my friend Tessa's (with a quick stop at Target for the sleepover essentials: peach rings & sugar cookies). I was late for the season finale of the ABC show 911!! I have not watched a single other episode, but Tessa is part of an avid watch group and I was delighted to be invited to join them on this grand occasion. Sadly, the episode itself was pretty underwhelming...? I've heard recaps of several 911 plots over the years and they could've done better, IMO. 

Friday, May 16
Throwback to my own William & Mary graduation, where I was honored to serve as the student commencement speaker

On Friday, I got to do something incredibly special! I am a proud alumna of William & Mary and last year, I was thrilled to join the advisory board for our queer alumni group. Because my own commencement was marred by the outbreak of Covid-19 (#Classof2020), I never had the opportunity to experience the joy of lavender graduation as a student. I was not going to pass up this chance to attend as an alum, especially knowing some of the graduating students who would be in attendance! 

In a happy, full-circle moment, I was asked to address the graduating class at this year's lavender celebration and officially welcome them to the Crim Dell Association. It was pure magic to be in a space that was so joyfully, beautifully, purposefully queer; all-too-rarely do I feel the immediate synergy and relief of existing among a crowd of people that require no explanation from, or to, me. 

I teared up several times witnessing the ceremony, watching siblings, friends, partners, spouses, parents, and mentors 'don' their graduate with a special lavender stole. When I approached the podium, I couldn't help adlib the beginning of my short speech, bursting out with "isn't queer joy beautiful?!" It is.

That night, back in Richmond, my groovy friend Elizabeth celebrated her 27th birthday with a 1970s-themed party. I pulled on my favorite pair of retro, floral carpeted platform boots and boogied 'til the wee hours of....10:30 or so. I forgot to take my narcolepsy medicine on Friday, and lavender celebration started at 8am! Besides, I am always pro leaving a party when you are still having fun, so... Happy Birthday, Elizabeth! 

Saturday, May 17
While I was earning my MA at VCU, I was lucky enough to take classes alongside some of the talented poets and writers earning their MFAs. The MFA program is 3 years long, so my pals received their degrees this past week and they decided to celebrate with a grand American tradition—prom!

I donned one of my favorite wedding guest dresses, strapped myself into perilously high heels that rarely see the light of day, and—the pièce de résistance—slipped on a winged, pearl-dripping halo/headpiece/thing that I purchased as the cherry on top of a Renaissance fair ensemble. The piece is absurd and decadent and I knew the crowd of creatives at this fête would properly appreciate it. 

We danced, toasted the recent graduates, played games, talked endlessly about books, and tucked into piles of French fries and homemade cinnamon cake before—no prom would be complete without it!—crowning a King and Queen. The party broke up in the wee hours of the morning and we all trundled home with sopping wet hair after an impromptu group swim. I can think of no better ending to such a full & loving week! 

February and March 2025 Reads

April 23, 2025


An instruction manual for optimism

Hope for Cynics by Jamil Zaki
Picture credit

I often describe myself as a scholar of hope. My Master's thesis revolved entirely on the subject of hope, positing the emergence of what I termed "post-nostalgia" as the quintessential affect of contemporaneity which can stifle the experience of hope and optimism on a societal scale. I digress...Jamil Zaki's take on hope vs cynicism in contemporary society is a can't-miss read, in my opinion, and I learned a lot from him. I really love how he anchored his entire investigation into optimism with one very personal example what propels him towards hope time and time again. 

The main point of Jamil's book is that we cannot allow the call to arms against fascism and hatred turn us into haters or, even worse, into a cynical and defeated mass. His writing is both a comfort and a battle cry; there is still work to be done. My grandmother, an avid cross stitcher, had a tapestry hanging on the wall above the bed I slept in at her house that read "courage is fear that has said its prayers." And what is hope but courage that we can sustain for the long haul? 

A winter wonderland, but in hell

The Overnight Guest by Heather Gudenkauf

I have....varied feelings about The New York Times'  book review section, though I must admit one of my absolute favorite reads of last year came from one of their suggestions: Daniel Mason's North Woods, an unbelievably gorgeous read. I found Heather's novel off of a NYT list of books that evoke a sense of winter and the icy storm that descends over this entire story was definitely a character in its own right. 

Heather's book contains three narratives that tie together in a way that truly caught me off guard in the end. I am not a huge thriller reader, so the plot twists may have been more obvious to a more regular participant in the true crime-esque genre. Each narrative centers on one character: Wylie, a true crime author staying in a rented farmhouse that once was the setting to a brutal family murder and abduction; Josie, the sole surviving member of her brutally murdered family; and an unnamed little girl who lives confined to a basement with her captive mother. When Wylie discovers the frozen body of a child in the yard during a horrific snowstorm, shit really starts to go sideways.

I liked Heather's novel well enough! Jess was on a FaceTime call with me as I finished it and she can attest to the audible gasps the book provoked at the end. Overall, the tension wasn't as palpable as, say, Stephen King's Gerald's Game (a book that genuinely terrified me) or as heart-pounding as Adrian McKinty's The Island. I found Wylie's inner life a tad too simple, and the resolution was a bit Hallmark-y....y'know, if Hallmark dealt with murder, kidnapping, assault etc. But! It kept me company one chilly winter night and I wouldn't hesitate to pick up another o Heather's works the next time I'm in the mood for a little thrill.

A beautiful tapestry of otherness

Quicksand by Nella Larsen

Nella Larsen is such a quietly evocative writer. Her descriptions are slippery, like an oil painting not yet dry, and they smear across the pages of this story about lovely Helga Crane. 

Helga is a biracial woman that we accompany on a cyclical journey. We begin in the south, where Helga is a teacher at a highly pedigreed institution, which only highlights her orphaned status as a "nobody." From there, Helga flees north to New York, where she finds a great deal of meaning as part of the Black intelligentsia of thriving Harlem. She begins to chafe here, too, eventually, sick of the expectation that she feel ashamed of her lineage as half-white. So, Helga flees to her mother's family in Copenhagen, where she becomes a spectacle of performed Blackness for the upper-middle class community of white artists. Eventually, Helga makes her way back through the city and further south. Along the way, Helga is desperately searching for an understanding of herself that both she and the people around her can live with, a self definition that never truly comes to fruition. 

What Kenneth Burke meant by "equipment for living"

All About Love by bell hooks

It didn't take long for me to join the ardent camp of people who have read bell hooks' work and think "everyone should read this" as soon as I started All About Love. I wrote about the experience of reading this book in my journal: "I find that I am already familiar with (most of) the ideas & principles she's putting forth, but her language and the depth of her careful, studied, researched mastery of the topic have knocked me on my ass several times." 

Even things as (seemingly) simple as the meaning of the word "love" are rocked by hooks. I'd never encountered the definition of love that she uses; it comes from German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm, who defined love as "the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth." Mind = blown. The entire premise of hooks' work is that love should be understood as an action, a verb, a practice. And the more we practice, the better we become. 

Another deeply underlined quote in hooks' work that has become a mantra of mine lately: "When one knows a true love, the transformative force of that love lasts even when we no longer have the company of the person with whom we experienced profound mutual care and growth." A beautiful lifeline for the grieving, I think. 

A balm in book form

Peace Is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh

Thây ("teacher") Thich Nhat Hanh has become one of my treasured spiritual guides lately. I first encountered the legacy of his work through podcast interviews with two of Thây's students: former Buddhist nun Kaira Jewel Lingo, who took the leap to leave life as a nun and become a layperson, and Brother Chân Pháp Hũu, who still lives at Plum Village in southern France. (I'm currently reading Kaira's book We Were Made For These Times, and loving it!)

The beauty of Thây's teaching lies in its simplicity. His words and lessons are not only applicable to those living within the cloistered walls of the monastery but to everyone, everywhere, at any time. Thây teaches us how to cultivate a lasting sense of peace even while sitting in traffic, for instance, or amidst a particularly hectic season of life. Thây's personal experience with turmoil infuses his teachings with authenticity and his words are gentle reminders of how much power we have over how we move through the world. As Ram Dass once said, "You can do it like it's a great weight on you, or you can do it like it's part of the dance." Thây teaches us how to do it like it's part of the dance. 

A heart-cracking debut poetry collection

Make Believe by Victoria Hutchins

I first came across Victoria Hutchins on Instagram (@thedailyvictorian), where she shares her poetry, often while practicing on her yoga mat. In school, poetry was often my least favorite unit in English class—I was far more interested in the process of losing myself in a novel. But my burgeoning collection of poetry books over the past few years can attest to my growing interest in the genre. Contemporary poets like Sarah Kay (her 2014 collection No Matter the Wreckage is a regular companion of mine) and Victoria occupy a special place on my shelf.

Victoria's words contain such simple beauty that reflects the inner calm bolstered by her yoga practice. Her work is instantly soothing, like the first step into an inviting bathtub. I recently wrote Victoria's poem "the finer things" in a friend's birthday card and there's something that feels beautiful and lasting about doodling my loved ones' names throughout a volume of poetry that sits on my shelf and reveals fresh understandings to me, about the poetry and about my loved ones, every time I open it. 

Top image credit @judysmith549668

Note from Kate: Hi! If you buy something through a link on my page, I may earn an affiliate commission. I recommend only products I genuinely like & recommend, and my recommendation is not for sale. Thank you!

Kate's Perfect Day 2025

February 14, 2025


Another Kate's Perfect Day for the record books!

Last year, I was racking my brain trying to think of how to celebrate my birthday. I ended up planning a loose itinerary for my idea of the perfect day and invited my friends to join any part of it. That way, my loved ones can join for whatever activity floats their boat without obligation and, no matter what, I spend the day doing things that bring me joy. Thus, Kate's Perfect Day was born.

On Friday night, Tessa & Erin arrived for a gal's sleepover. We stayed up late gabbing and eating Cookout hushpuppies. The real excitement arrived early the next morning for the first item on KPD's itinerary: a Belle Isle walk.

A (mini) hike through the rain


Despite the weather, we discovered some telltale signs of spring along the walk. 

Hanging out with Chuck, the neighborhood cat



Unfortunately, the freezing rain that was half-droplets and half-fat snowflakes was hitting its stride just as we were heading out and our tiniest hiking club member was increasingly vocal about her meteorological displeasure. Erin, Tessa, Grace, and I made it as far as the Oregon Hill overlook and decided to turn around. Gravel was most grateful for the intervention. 

A coffee and a book shopping spree 

After we dropped Gravel back off at home to dry off (and secretly gnaw craters into my birthday cake, turns out!), we met my friend Allison at Blanchard's. Squeezed into a corner booth, we tucked into banoffee lattes and made like all former English majors do—caught up on all the hottest gossip about the department and raved about books we've been reading lately. (Tessa recently finished this book and I feel like I have to read it now so that we can talk about it....) 

Then, we came home for some valuable floor-sitting time before heading to Shelf Life. My friend Michael joined us, then, and we all spent at least an hour wandering through the packed stacks, petting the resident kitty cats, and talking me out of buying a patently absurd number of books. (I left with only 5! I think that's quite respectable. Allison picked up this one, which I have not been able to stop thinking about since.)

Nap time 

An incredibly vital moment in any version of Kate's Perfect Day. We ordered a giant cheese pizza and collapsed into a heap on the couch. 


The house wasn't still for very long, though! My friend Jess arrived—a wonderful surprise, considering she lives in Seattle—and more of my lovely friends continued to arrive, filling my house to bursting with love. 

Make-your-own-sushi adventure

As a sushi lover, I'm rather surprised I've never attempted to make it myself. I figured hosting a dinner party to make our own sushi was exactly the kind of messy chaos I was looking for on KPD. And honestly, for not having planned this part of the day out all that much, it went incredibly well! 

Everyone pitched in to help chop vegetables, prep sauces, and cook the rice. I set up an assembly line of ingredients, cracked open a bottle of prosecco, and played my best background CDs (a lot of Pavarotti and Carole King).




Cake and The Princess Bride

Riding high on the success of my make-your-own-sushi bar, we dug into my (homemade, tysm) two-layer sunset themed birthday cake and reorganized the living room so we could all snuggle in together to watch The Princess Bride. 

There are several movies I could probably quote front-to-back, but none as reliably as this one. My friend Jada had never seen The Princess Bride before and it was so. much. fun. to experience the movie through her fresh eyes—the gasps at the ROUSes! The cheering during the fights! The sighs during the kisses. A truly perfect movie. 

The criminal at the scene of her crime

And that was Kate's Perfect Day 2025! I went to sleep feeling swaddled in love and overfull of cake—what else could a girl want? I'm so grateful for everyone who could make it and for my friends who sent sweet messages. What a way to welcome year 27! 

A Chocolate Soufflé Kind of Weekend

February 5, 2025


Because sometimes you just have to stay up till midnight baking chocolate soufflé
(Scroll down for recipe)

Lately, my friends and family have been a balm for me; I've been feeling especially connected to them. A few weeks ago, one of my college BFFs, Tessa, came to stay for the long weekend. She's one of the smartest and most talented people I know, and she only lives 45 minutes down the road from me now! (A vast improvement from the multiple-states-away arrangement we had until the middle of last year.)

A real text I sent her before her arrival on Friday

We did all the usual best friend things—ran to Target for cookie dough and gummy bears, swore we were just looking when we popped into Barnes & Noble and somehow both ended up leaving with full bags, and spent a glorious two hours sipping tea at the Virginia Museum of Fine Art's gorgeous teahouse, Floris. We had also planned to pay a visit to Richmond's newest celebrity: Poppy, the zoo's newborn pygmy hippo. As it turns out, the Richmond Zoo follows in the grand Abrahamic tradition of observing the Sabbath. Alas, our date with Poppy will have to wait.


We also did a lot of cooking, which is not entirely typical for two girls who once lived on Fruity Pebbles, bread ends, and house dressing. A video of Lauren Sephton (@brightmomentco) making homemade fish and chips inspired me enough to try to overcome my longtime fear of deep frying, to success I'd say! Lauren's recipe is delicious and easy to follow—I highly recommend it for your next dinner night attempt. 

But we weren't done! For an extra-challenging encore, we picked up my copy of Claire Saffitz' sweet cookbook, What's for Dessert . Soufflé is notorious for being a difficult bake but even though we messed up some of the directions, our delicate chocolate confections turned out wonderfully! Claire's cookbook is perfect for baking novices—she makes everything, even the most difficult of recipes, digestible and provides important context about why things are done the way they are. 





Ingredients
  • 7 tbsp of sugar
  • 3 large egg yolks
  • 1/3 cup whole milk
  • 2 tbsp brewed coffee (I substituted espresso powder mixed in water)
  • 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
  • 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 4 oz bittersweet chocolate (70% cacao), coarsely chopped (I used a dark chocolate bar)
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 5 large egg whites at room temperature
  • 1 tsp kosher salt (Claire makes a difference between Diamond Crystal and Morton kosher salt, only 1/2 tsp of the latter)
Steps
  1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. 
  2. Brush the bottoms and sides of four 6 oz. ramekins with room temperature butter. Sprinkle the ramekins with sugar and shake to coat. 
  3. Prepare a pot with ~1 inch of water on the stove for a double boiler. In a medium heatproof bowl, whisk 3 tbsp of the sugar and 2 egg yolks together until combined. Slowly add the milk, whisking constantly, followed by the coffee. Add the flour and cocoa powder and whisk until smooth. 
  4. Put the bowl over the boiling water. Whisk constantly until it's thick like pancake batter and faintly holds the shape of the whisk, ~5-7 minutes. Remove from the heat at that point. 
  5. Add the chopped chocolate to the bowl and whisk to incorporate it, then set the bowl aside until the chocolate melts. Slowly whisk the mixture until smooth, then add the remaining egg yolk. (This is where Tessa and I messed up—we forgot to add the additional egg yolk until later! The mixture was incredibly dry and I thought all was lost, but adding the yolk fixed it entirely.) Pro tip: Don't let the chocolate cool to room temperature, or the chocolate will solidify. If that happens, rewarm the mixture over the double boiler until it's smooth.
  6. In a large, non-plastic bowl (another place I messed up—I used a plastic bowl!), combine the egg whites and salt and beat until the mixture is white and opaque. Then, slowly add the remaining 4 tbsp of sugar. Once all the sugar is added, beat until you have stiff peaks. 
  7. Scrape about one-third of the beaten egg whites into the bowl with the chocolate and whisk briskly to combine. Using a large, flexible spatula, fold int he remaining beaten egg whites in two additions until the mixture is almost entirely streak-free. 
  8. Scrape the batter into the prepared ramekins—they should be filled to the very top! 
  9. Lightly sprinkle the surfaces of the ramekins with sugar. Place the ramekins on a sheet pan and transfer to the oven, immediately reducing the oven temperature to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Bake until the soufflés are risen, firm and springy but still have a small wobble, ~15-20 minutes. 
  10. Enjoy immediately! Claire also includes a recipe for a crème anglaise, but I found Trader Joe's whipped cream was the perfect companion (and much easier). 
Top image credit @_chloechloee

January 2025 Reads

February 1, 2025

 

Vignettes about beginnings and endings


The second Han Kang book I've picked up in the past three months (the first was The Vegetarian), The White Book will definitely not be the last I will read of Kang. This collection of meditations on whiteness—from the purity of newly fallen snow to the ripe swell of a firm peach to the thick drops of breastmilk that emerge even after a newborn's untimely death—spans the entirety of life itself, beginning to end and back again. And, in classic Kang style, the path between these two points is nonlinear at best. A read that is somehow both jolting and soothing all at once. 

Hemingway's snow-crazed, outdoorsy uncle

Call of the Wild and White Fang  by Jack London

Another day, another missing piece of my American literary canon fit into place. As my 2024 obsession with Henry Hoke's Open Throat and Emily Habeck's Shark Heart: A Love Story will attest, stories from the POV of animals have really been my jam lately. The setting feels alive and throbbing in London's writing—I found myself shivering even though I was curled up on a cozy couch in Florida while reading! In Call of the Wild, a spoiled family pet finds himself trafficked to the wintery forests of Canada to labor for the first time in his life, discovering the unalienable-if-dormant ancestral instincts within him. In White Fang, a wild dog-wolf hardens himself to the world as he finds himself horrifically mistreated at the hands of his human masters, at least until he finds his forever home with a benevolent soul. 

Reading the novel literally—a relatively easy task when the prose is so straightforward and (I don't mean this as an insult) simple, rather like Hemingway, a noted London descendent—is the most enjoyable, IMO. The humans of Jack London's fiction are mostly half-baked caricatures and it is all too easy to see how schools of thought that promote any notion of "alpha male" masculinity ala the manosphere could find easy fodder in his pages (you know...if they ever actually read a book). And though these ideas are hardcoded into London's writerly DNA, his works are hardly agenda-pushing creations (a line Hemingway toed, crossed, and hammered multiple times over). Darwinism and white male supremacy aside, these stories are a great read. 

The pinnacle of absurd thought

Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

If Kurt Vonnegut published Cat's Cradle for the first time in 2025, the front jacket quote from N+1 editors would call it "blisteringly original" while the New York Times book review section would ignore it completely. Somehow, I think that would make Vonnegut smile.

I honestly don't know if I can describe the events of this book without spoiling the joy of reading it...In no particular order, Vonnegut's story weaves through the apocalypse, a cult island, a university science lab, an airplane tiki bar, and, of course, deep into the heart of the Hoosier diaspora. He explores meaning, life, love, God, humanity, and morality, though if you've read any Vonnegut before, you already knew that. Fair warning: If you're not a fan of toes and/or feet, certain passages of this book will be difficult for you. 

A tapestry of medieval women

Femina: A New History of the Middle Ages, Through the Women Written Out of It by Janina Ramirez

Over the course of the three-day weekend celebrating the legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., my friend Tessa and I made fish and chips from scratch, baked chocolate soufflé, and binged approximately 2 full seasons of Netflix's The Last Kingdom. (I refuse to watch the final few episodes + movie because I do not want the show to end.) This delightful anecdote is relevant because The Last Kingdom is set during the early Middle Ages in (soon-to-be) England when King Alfred the Great is battling Vikings in his attempt to unify the various British kingdoms. A key figure in the narrative of The Last Kingdom and of real life history is Æthelflæd, Alfred's daughter and the sole female ruler in the history of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.

Æthelflæd is one of the women Janina Ramirez highlights in her wonderful exploration of women's medieval history. Even if only in passing, I've heard of Alfred the Great before. Æthelflæd was a new name for me as I know it is for countless others and through her book, Ramirez is trying her damndest to fix that needless recognition gap! She not only examines the actual archeological clues and unfurls dense academic explorations of women's history in a manner that makes it digestible and fun for her audience, Ramirez's writing style is particularly well suited to her niche. She forges connections across various periods of history and genre (indeed, one of her chapters about a prominent Middle Age heroine begins with the story of a British suffragette in the early 1900s) without ever obscuring her true point. She does get a little into the weeds as the chapters go on, but it's a mark of her genuine passion that I find quite refreshing.

Sapphic cabin fever

The Safekeep by Yael Van Der Wouden

One of the testimonials on the back of this book calls Yael Van Der Wouden's work, "Portrait of a Lady on Fire if it were directed by Hitchcock" and it feels pretty fitting. (I will also say, in the vein of being an honest book reviewer, I do not believe I have ever seen a Hitchcock film, familiar as I am with the general aesthetic of his oeuvre.) I read this book entirely in one sitting and less than 100 pages into it, I was texting my fellow book nerds to rave about it. 

It's not that my excitement was premature, exactly, but I was less enamored with the resolution of this book than I was with the beginning and rising action of it all. (I am also not unconvinced that reading the entire novel in one sitting was detrimental to my opinion—like good bread, opinions usually need time to rise, stretch, and develop and reading an entire novel in less than 3 hours usually prevents that.) Set in the post-WWII Netherlands, an aloof sister is forced to share her house with her irresponsible younger brother's flighty girlfriend for a summer and the pages practically crackle like the air brewing one of those classic summer thunderstorms. The slow tension and moments of unexplained absurdity sprinkled throughout function as Easter eggs for those of us ~in the know~ (aka women who love women). 

The majority of this book is slow and delicious and makes me want to press my cheek against the page to be even that much closer to the words. And then...the resolution feels like it happens extremely quickly and is relatively drama-free? Maybe I am suffering from #queerreadertrauma in wanting us to have to suffer a little more by the end. I also didn't love Van Der Wouden's decision to give us a glimpse of an entirely new perspective (an entire narrative shift) exclusively through quick diary entries. It reminded me a bit of Lulu's chapter in Jennifer Egan's The Candy House, another decision that felt awkward to me. I rarely think books or movies should be longer than they are (RIP 90 minute films) but this story could've benefitted from being ~50 pages longer, IMO. I still purchased the paperback on preorder because I want it as a permanent part of my collection. 

Apocalyptic existentialism, but make it magical realism
How to Fall in Love in a Time of Unnamable Disaster by Muriel Leung

Brave of me to tackle a novel about living through the apocalypse at this particular moment in time, I think. Less brave than Muriel Leung for dedicating (I'm sure) years of her life to writing it, but I digress. This Only Murders in the Building-esque ensemble story takes place (mostly) within the walls of an apartment building as the world is literally crumbling around them. Acid rainstorms are showering New York City in a blistering hellfire every Tuesday. Supplies and morale are running questionably low, but paranormal activity has never been higher as ghosts begin to flood back to the building much as the tenants themselves seek shelter there. 

A semi-closeted queer woman named Mira, her mother, their neighbor Lucinda, a headless man called Sad, and Sin, the ghost of a gay cockroach, are only a few of the characters that populate the forged community that comes together in the wake of, well, unnameable disaster. As Leung herself phrases it, "A disaster oftentimes refers to a big momentous thing that happens once and then everyone suffers the repercussions of it...But what happens if disaster is an incessant event that happens every Tuesday?”

Top image credit @des.sidster

Note from Kate: Hi! If you buy something through a link on my page, I may earn an affiliate commission. I recommend only products I genuinely like & recommend, and my recommendation is not for sale. Thank you!

Subscribe to: Posts ( Atom )