Book Review: This is How it Always Is and We Should All Be Feminists

January 11, 2018 by theseordinarygraces In Book Reviews, Books, Rest 1 Comment

Hey guys! This week’s book review is a tad late for two reasons. The first is that one of these books took my breath away and I had to take some time to think about it. The second is that I maybe got caught up in reading another book. No surprises there! I set a goal to read 100 books this year and I’m currently on my 7th and 8th, so things are trucking along nicely!

If you want to follow along with all the books I read (because I won’t be reviewing all of them here) you can find me on Goodreads.com here as SarahSch .

So here we go!

We Should All be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Adichie is from Nigeria, a place where she isn’t allowed to sit in during meetings because she is a woman, where it’s assumed that any money she uses to pay for something came from whatever man she is with at the time, and where women aren’t allowed into certain places without a male escort. Beyond that, though, Nigeria still practices female genital mutilation and child marriages. As an American woman, I had to keep all that in mind while I read this because it is very simple. I guess I would call it Feminism 101. It’s the heart of it all. She explains in startlingly simple terms why everyone should be a feminist.

This “book” is actually adapted from a TEDx talk Adichie gave, so it’s only 48 small pages long. I definitely think it’s worth the hour it might take you to read. There is nothing overtly controversial in this book, no man-hating or bra-burning going on, if that worries you. You can find it here.

 

 

This is How it Always Is by Laurie Frankel

THIS is the one that took my breath away. I honestly didn’t even know what this book was about when I started reading. It came highly recommended from a friend and it was on sale on Kindle, so it was obviously my next read, right?

I instantly fell in love with Rosie and Penn and their four rambunctious boys with one more on the way. They’re funny and adorable and so full of love. And then baby number 5 comes along and they name him Claude. And then, at 5 years old, Claude decides he’s happier wearing dresses and barrettes instead of jeans and t-shirts and the entire family is thrown into a journey they never saw coming.

I loved this book for so many reasons. First of all, the writing is beautiful and compelling. But, most of all, I loved this book because it’s the beautiful, brutal story of parents, of a family, finding their way together.

You can find this one here.

That’s it for this week!

Happy reading!!!