Grown Women by Sarai Johnson
I read this intergenerational family story earlier this year and it’s stayed with me ever since. This is a touching if at times difficult but important story about family, trauma, forgiveness, what is passed down, womanhood, motherhood, love, and ultimately trying to become ones own person—or in this case a Grown Woman.
These Heathens by Mia McKenzie
Imagine you’re a seventeen year old girl from a small town in rural Georgia in 1960 who wants an abortion? That decision, wanting an abortion and going to get one introduces you to a whole new world full of queer people, the Civil Rights Movement, different ideas of or relationships to God/religion, and maybe most importantly for Doris, the idea that as a poor Black girl, she could want things for herself, could choose to belong and be obligated to no one but herself—that she could be self-possessed and obligated first and foremost. Equal parts hilarious and moving, this is a coming of age story that pulls you in from the first page and keeps you engaged until it ends. I loved the other perspective it offered on the CRM and Roe v. Wade, as well again, its most important idea that Black girls and women are allowed to want, to be themselves, and ultimately, to choose the life they lead. If that makes Doris and the woman who helped her so-called heathens, then so be it. Self-possession and determination are worth it. The prose is reminiscent of Their Eyes Were Watching in God, in that its written in or as a dialect, which makes the book feel like a story an elder family member is telling you as she looks back over her life. Each character shines on the page. Doris, our narrator is hilarious. There’s also a lot of history here, but it’s not shoved down ones throat by any means. I loved this read. It will stay with me for a while.
The Anthropologists by Aysegül Savaş
Honey by Imani Thompson
