September Reads

While I started several books in September, I only finished three. Three books in a month is a solid number for me with two young kids who are mostly home everyday; the only way I’m reading that much is with help from Scribd audiobooks. I have been doing much more nonfiction reading which naturally goes a lot slower for me, even when the topic is interesting. I hope this means October will bring lots of finished books or else my library might get annoyed with my constant renewing of books. I’m already a day overdue on one book. Shame!

Overall, I really enjoyed the three books I finished this month. Here’s an overview:

Ten Steps to Nanette by Hannah Gadsby

I first watched Hannah Gadsby’s Netflix special Douglas without any introduction to Nanette or Hannah herself, but I was an instant fan. I binged Nanette (I’m not sure you can binge one comedy special, but considering I watched Douglas and Nanette back to back, I’m counting it as binging) and any podcast I could find her on. When I saw her name on this book while walking out of the library, I didn’t even question that I was checking out five other books. This book went straight to the top of the TBR pile.

I would highly suggest watching Nanette before reading, but the majority of the memoir needs no explanation. Hannah’s story is heart-wrenching; it’s a story of abuse, of undiagnosed mental health issues, of growing up same sex attracted in country that considered SSA individuals were deplorable, of learning to talk about your abuse and yourself in a healthy way without self-hatred.

…and do not wish to prioritize my abuse in the telling of my story, is because it was not a luxury I could afford at the time that it was happening. You see, when you are forced to keep a trauma secret in order to survive, you need to actively avoid incorporating the traumatic event into your official version of self. You don’t forget it, you just don’t put words around it. And when there are no words, there is no sharing. And when there is no sharing, you can’t find your way back to safety. And with all that comes a deep and dark dose of shame.

Nanette does not shy away from hard and uncomfortable topics; this is one reason I love Hannah Gadsby. Her discussion around the language we use and the way we treat the outsider is important. The language and topics are mature, but if you want to get into the mind of someone who is vulnerable and insightful with her story, I could not recommend Ten Steps to Nanette more.

One of the saddest things I know is that just about everyone who changes upon an image of their younger self will experience the same grief I felt looking at myself in that photo. We don’t grieve for what we’ve lost but for what we never knew. We grieve because none of us can reconcile the beauty we can see in our past with the ugliness we were told to remember.

Billy Summers by Stephen King

My first King novel! I read his memoir years ago, but I had the impression that all his novels were horror books. This couldn’t be further from the truth (though I had multiple friends tell me to stop being dumb when I suggested I should read It next. Just because I enjoyed THIS novel doesn’t mean I’d enjoy every King novel). I don’t know why I was expecting King to not be a good story teller. As if you are a popular author, you could not possibly have any substance. I’m glad to be over that thought process.

Billy Summers is a sniper turned hitman who justifies his jobs with a promise to himself to kill only truly evil men. Now, after many kills, he is ready to get out of the game, but he accepts one last job. However, in the waiting to complete the job, Summers finds his humanity as he connects to those around him for the first time in a long time. It’s a story of revenge and redemption.

Once again, there are mature themes, scenes, and language in this book. For that reason, I don’t full heartedly recommend it for everyone (because unlike Gadsby’s memoir, this book in my opinion is less important and more for fun reading). However, if you want a fast, easy but well-written novel that includes mild violence, mobsters, and revenge, this book might be for you. It was a fantastic Scribd audiobook.

For what it’s worth, I did not enjoy the ending and the seemingly random supernatural element to it. If someone could explain why the writing room was possibly haunted, I’d appreciate it.

I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy

Tough title but for good reason. I had zero idea who Jennette was, and only picked this up because Jamie B. Golden of The Pop-Cast fame recommended it. At a young age, Jennette’s mother Debra began auditioning Jennette with talent agencies in hopes that Jenny would become a star. Jennette’s life soon becomes auditions, call backs, days on set, and schooling during breaks. None of this was what she wanted, but she desperately wanted to please her mother.

Jeannette details her first memories of her obsessive compulsive disorder, her mother’s refusal to seek treatment for it despite other adults seeing there was a clear problem. She discusses her mother’s absolute control over her life, her verbal and physical abuse, and the toll that took on her life.

Do I recommend this book? I’m not sure. There are parts of it that I found fascinating. Her endless need to please her mother despite the harm her mother caused her. Her grief coinciding with her coming to terms with her abuse. Her acceptance that her obsessions and compulsions were not promptings from the Holy Spirit but an actual mental health related issue that needed to be addressed. And her writing from a place that perhaps is not completely healed, because maybe we never can be completely healed of deep wounds like this. But there’s something missing at the end of this book; Jenny delves more into celeb gossip and acting roles gone wrong when I wanted her to discuss more of her mental health journey. The first half of the book is so well done, but the second half made me think that this book would have been better had she waited another 5-10 years to get more perspective on the adult years of coming to terms with her lost childhood, her mothers’ death, and other horrific details of her life.