3/27/2022

This post is ALL ABOUT BOOKS.

This year, 2022, I set out to do more reading for pleasure. I treated myself to an iPad mini and have been looooving reading Kindle ebooks on it (I also keep my planner/calendar on there now!).

During 1L and 2L of law school, essentially zero reading for pleasure was to be had. There was always too much going on, too many other obligations, and my brain was always fried from doing required readings. The thought of doing additional reading, even if for pleasure, was just not as compelling.

Now, however, I am in my last semester and things have been really chill. I am finishing up a part-time internship as a law clerk for the Humane Society of the United States (Animal Protection Litigation) which has been amazing and fulfilling. I am only in a couple of classes, so there isn't too much of a burden there. And I have my job set up already, giving me time that I otherwise would be spending job-hunting and submitting applications. It is an absolute privilege and relief to feel more at ease, finally, and to have this time for myself.

I decided to keep track of my reading progress on my Instagram. After I finish a book, I post a story with the book cover, my rating out of 10, and a couple thoughts. I think people (some people, at least) have enjoyed seeing my book recommendations. I want to make a post on here of all the books I've finished this year so far. I just finished one today, and will be starting on book # 16 later today. I've read roughly a book per week.

Btw, before I begin the list, I want to say that I have had good experiences purchasing used books from https://www.thriftbooks.com/ and I now mostly am reading library ebooks using the Overdrive app.

• Loving Before Loving - Joan Steinau Lester

This book was a Christmas gift from my father. As such, it was my first book of the new year. I did not rate it, as I had not yet decided to rate the books I read over the course of the year. That said, I would now say that it was just alright. It is hard, as a woman, to read about a woman who claims to be a strong feminist and yet is so clearly entrenched in patriarchal values and situations. She was a victim to her situation at times. I wished the author would have practiced what she preached more often. For example, her husband (pictured on the cover) essentially abandons her and her child at times, treats her quite poorly, cheats on her multiple times, etc. But she stays with him for a long, long time. It is hard to know what I would have done in the situation, but I felt honestly embarrassed for the woman. I wish she would have stuck up for herself and left him, not enabled his behaviors, etc. Such things are of course very complicated, but it just didn't vibe with me that the author let this man do all of this to her, all the while professing to be such a strong feminist. Like....hold your ground, girl.

• Know my Name - Chanel Miller

This book was absolutely incredible. I rated it 10/10. This is the memoir of Chanel Miller, who was sexually assaulted by Brock Turner. Many, many women go through what Chanel went through, but far fewer are able to bring it as far in the legal system as Chanel did. She had to relive her trauma repeatedly, and was belittled and shamed constantly. I can't fathom the emotional exhaustion Chanel must have felt after not only having been assaulted in the first place, but also then going back through the experience in her mind to write this book. It took unbelievable strength and courage. This book was very compelling, emotionally deep, drew me in, and painted the scenes so clearly in my mind. An incredible piece of authorship.

• Let the Lord Sort Them - Maurice Chammah

I rated this book 8/10 after I read it, although I would now perhaps up that to 8.5 because I can't really articulate exactly what more I wanted out of it. This book detailed the history of capital punishment in the United States. The author included personal stories from some victims of capital punishment, including describing their last moments and words before being executed.

• Eating Animals - Jonathan Safran Foer

I am a vegetarian, an animal activist and advocate, a law clerk for the Humane Society of the United States (for another week, anyways), and consider animal rights essentially my religion. Needless to say, I'm always extremely interested in books involving animal welfare, animal rights, animal ethics generally, animal product production, slaughter methods, etc. This book was too moderate for me. Reached too moderate of conclusions. I did learn things, and I appreciated that this book covered aquaculture, which is commonly left out of this discussion. That said, it took me a long time to finish this book. I read multiple other books on my iPad while attempting to finish this one because it just didn't draw me in, didn't make me want to keep reading. I gave it a 6/10.

• Tough Cases: Judges Tell the Stories of Some of the Hardest Decisions They’ve Ever Made

This book likely wouldn't be interesting to a non law-student/lawyer/judge. It is a compilation of chapter-length stories from different judges, discussing their most difficult decisions. One of the more noteworthy ones was the story of the judge who decided the Terry Schiavo case, which was a right-to-die case. Terry Schiavo had gone into a vegetative state after suffering critical complications from intense dieting, if I recall correctly. Her husband and her parents subsequently battled in the courts over whether or not to continue her artificial life. Her husband wished to take Terri off life support, which was what he believed she would have wanted. Meanwhile, her parents fervently wanted to keep Terri on life support. The judge who presided over Terri's case was thrust into a very difficult position. I rated this book 7/10.

• Less - Andrew Sean Greer

I gave this book 7.5/10. It was pretty alright--a bit of comedy, fairly lighthearted, but with some emotion, too. Honestly, not much more comes to me to say about it. It had a nice ending.

• Of Women and Salt - Gabriela Garcia

This was a beautiful book. I gave it 9.5/10. It involved the lives of several women and children with roots in Mexico and central America. It was really interesting, too, because by the end you discover that what had appeared to be separate threads are actually woven together in ways that did not become clear until the end. Great piece of writing.

• Small Things Like These - Claire Keegan

This was a very quick read. I think I read it within a couple of hours. It had a nice nostalgic and simple feeling to it. I gave it 8/10 because I thought the writing was very beautiful. At times the writing and description of the setting made you think this book was set much farther back in the past than it really was--then little hints of modern things would remind you "oh right, this isn't set 100 years ago." The setting is Ireland, and perhaps living there really does feel a bit more simple and nostalgic than what I am accustomed to.

• Animal Liberation - Peter Singer

After I read this book, I decided that it was essentially "my manifesto." So frequently Peter Singer would reach conclusions based on his research and his morals and I would think "that's exactly what I concluded about that issue!" It was so awesome to have so many of my beliefs affirmed like that. For example, Peter Singer wrote that he sees no moral issue with eating free range/ pasture raised eggs, and that is a conclusion that I had also reached before ever reading this book. There was a ton of space in this book committed to experimentation on animals, which isn't a subject I was super familiar with. It was absolutely horrifying to read about some of the utterly pointless and ridiculous "experiments" people have come up with and subjected animals to. Some of them are honestly atrocities, having zero relation to anything meaningful or worthwhile or applicable to humans. One experiment involved subjecting chimps, I think it was, to increasingly high levels of radiation and then seeing how it affected their ability to "fly" on like flight simulators. The chimps obviously got extremely ill, vomiting and eventually dying from the exposure. Almost always the experiment write-ups ended with something like "It is unclear how this will apply to humans, further research is needed." 

Only downside to the book is its age--originally written in the 70s. That said, the book has been revised and updated several times since then, and I still think it is extremely relevant and timely. I rated it 9.5/10.

• Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law - Mary Roach

This book did not do it for me. I honestly barely finished it, I think I contemplated giving up on it at times. It wasn't poorly written, I just didn't personally like the writing style. There were so many attempts at humor that just fell absolutely flat for me. I just wasn't buying it. It was a really interesting concept and idea for a book, but it didn't execute for me. I gave it a 5.5/10.

• Beautiful World, Where are You - Sally Rooney

Sally Rooney is most known for writing the novel Normal People, which I read after reading this one. I quite liked Sally Rooney's writing. Her books just seem more realistic to me. I guess they could be generally characterized as romances, but they aren't like fake, overdone rom-coms. The characters are flawed and human--messing things up, miscommunicating, misinterpreting things with their partners. They do not go on extraordinary adventures or have unbelievable experiences. They are just ordinary, regular people who have boring, regular days. I gave this book 9/10.

• Normal People - Sally Rooney

I had already watched the Hulu miniseries based on this novel by the time I read the book (which I loved and separately recommend, by the way). I discovered that the Hulu series was remarkably true to the plot of the book. That being the case, I pretty much knew what was going to happen throughout the book, but I don't think that like worsened my reading experience or anything. I really, really enjoyed reading this. Just such a real, genuine story. Just like her above novel, Beautiful World, Where are You, the characters are real--very human, flawed, just doing their best to get through their lives. I gave this book 10/10.

• Americana - Hampton Sides

This was a pretty long read. It was worth it, though. It was an anthology of articles written by this author which he compiled into this book. They were super interesting and I learned a lot about random people and events in American history. One chapter centered around Tony Hawk, another around first-person accounts of being in the Twin Towers on 9/11. That latter subject was something that I had only very tangentially learned about. It was very eye opening to read first-person accounts of the event for the first time. I hadn't fully understood the situation--people forced to jump out of the Towers from many floors up to their deaths, simply because they couldn't remain inside among the flames and the fatal heat any longer. Another chapter described this like ultra-marathon type race in the Middle East. You literally just have to get through hundreds of miles in the desert. Many participants are done in by the heat, the dehydration, or little injuries like losing a toenail. Some of the chapters of the book were more interesting than others, but all in all a good read. I gave this book a 9/10.

• Beach Read - Emily Henry

I gave this rom-com an 8/10. It was a good read, but didn't really draw out any particular thoughts for me (and for its genre, it isn't really meant to be super thought-provoking). In comparison to Sally Rooney's novels, the characters in Beach Read didn't feel quite as real to me. But I think that's the point of the book. Sally Rooney's books are a bit more serious, a bit more melancholic. This, of course, was a rom-com, meant to be lighthearted and to end happily. It was, and it did. I enjoyed it for what it was.

• The Family Roe - Joshua Prager

This was the most recent book I finished. It was a very long read, but very well done. I gave this book 10/10 for its extraordinary detail and storytelling. I learned so much. I learned about the Roe plaintiff, Norma, for basically the first time. Before reading this, all I really knew (or more accurately, had heard) was that Norma had switched to being pro-life some time after her landmark case secured the right to abortion. But as this book showed, it was so, so much more complicated than that. 

Norma was very troubled. She had a tenth grade education, was mentally ill, and was a victim to her upbringing and family history to some extent. She had two other children before her third became the Roe baby, all to different fathers. Norma was motivated by attention and prestige and money. While she was still a support of the pro-choice movement, she went so far as to work in abortion clinics (just on administrative stuff). But the pro-choice movement and the preeminent feminists of the time did not really take her seriously. And for good reason--Norma didn't really understand the issues and constantly went back and forth on her views. She was a pathological liar and made up lots of things about her past. Because the movement didn't accept her, and because she had eventually squeezed every last bit of money out of it (speaking engagements and such), she found herself drawn to religious folks, who cared (or at least purported to) for her. She became a born again evangelist, and then eventually a Catholic. These religions (or rather, the authority figures in them that Norma interacted with) essentially forced her to renounce her homosexuality.

I learned a lot from this book. Two female lawyers were behind Roe, one 26 when she presented the case to the Supreme Court, the other 27. The 27-year old had filed the case, been the backbone of it, done the real heavy lifting and actually wrote the constitutional arguments. What is so interesting is that this landmark female attorney who essentially secured the right to abortion for women in America fell deeper and deeper into poverty in the decades after Roe. She practiced bankruptcy, sometimes without a law license as she failed to pay her required dues. 

These lawyers secured a right for so many women, and yet they let Norma down. She wanted an abortion. They knew perfectly well that making her their plaintiff would NOT help her get an abortion. It is not clear that Norma understood this. Her lawyers could have made efforts to help Norma get an abortion out of state. They did not do so. 

I attempted to read one other book this year, which I put a few hours into but ultimately couldn't continue because it just wasn't good. It was called the Sanatorium. I didn't include it in this list because I didn't want to count it as one of my books of 2022 (obviously, because I never finished it). It was selected for Reese's Book Club and was a NYT best seller, so I was surprised and confused when I found that I truly just couldn't get through it. So many cliche cliff hangers and cringey attempts at suspense. I felt that the attempts at giving the characters traumatic backgrounds and that kind of development came off fake, I just didn't buy it. Maybe mysteries are just like that, it's not a genre that I read much of, but I would certainly hope that there are mysteries out there that don't feel so cliche. I literally didn't think it was worth my time to continue reading it, and I'm glad I just moved on to another book.

So those are the books I've read so far in 2022! I will make another post after another 15 or so books. Hope you enjoyed!