Small Great Things

Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult
Published by Ballantine on Oct. 11, 2016
Genre(s): Fiction, Social Issues, Contemporary, Adult, Drama, Race
Format: Audiobook
Pages: 470

Goodreads synopsis: Ruth Jefferson is a labor and delivery nurse at a Connecticut hospital with more than twenty years' experience. During her shift, Ruth begins a routine checkup on a newborn, only to be told a few minutes later that she's been reassigned to another patient. The parents are white supremacists and don't want Ruth, who is African American, to touch their child. The hospital complies with their request, but the next day, the baby goes into cardiac distress while Ruth is alone in the nursery. Does she obey orders or does she intervene?

Ruth hesitates before performing CPR and, as a result, is charged with a serious crime. Kennedy McQuarrie, a white public defender, takes her case but gives unexpected advice: Kennedy insists that mentioning race in the courtroom is not a winning strategy. Conflicted by Kennedy's counsel, Ruth tries to keep life as normal as possible for her family—especially her teenage son—as the case becomes a media sensation. As the trial moves forward, Ruth and Kennedy must gain each other's trust, and come to see that what they've been taught their whole lives about others—and themselves—might be wrong.

With incredible empathy, intelligence, and candor, Jodi Picoult tackles race, privilege, prejudice, justice, and compassion—and doesn't offer easy answers. Small Great Things is a remarkable achievement from a writer at the top of her game.

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Hillbilly Elegy

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance
Published by Harper on Jun. 28, 2016
Genre(s): , Nonfiction, Memoir, Politics, Social Issues, Poverty,
Format: Kindle/Audiobook
Pages: 272
Goodreads synopsis: 

From a former Marine and Yale Law School Graduate, a poignant account of growing up in a poor Appalachian town, that offers a broader, probing look at the struggles of America’s white working class. Part memoir, part historical and social analysis, J. D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy is a fascinating consideration of class, culture, and the American dream.

Vance’s grandparents were “dirt poor and in love.” They got married and moved north from Kentucky to Ohio in the hopes of escaping the dreadful poverty around them. Their grandchild (the author) graduated from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of their success in achieving upward mobility for their family. But Vance cautions that is only the short version. The slightly longer version is that his grandparents, aunt, uncle, and mother struggled to varying degrees with the demands of their new middle class life and they, and Vance himself, still carry around the demons of their chaotic family history. 

Delving into his own personal story and drawing on a wide array of sociological studies, Vance takes us deep into working class life in the Appalachian region. This demographic of our country has been slowly disintegrating over forty years, and Vance provides a searching and clear-eyed attempt to understand when and how “hillbillies” lost faith in any hope of upward mobility, and in opportunities to come.

At times funny, disturbing, and deeply moving, this is a family history that is also a troubling meditation on the loss of the American dream for a large portion of this country.

A friend recommended this to me after I told him how much I enjoy reading memoirs, and I was so glad that he did. I went to Miami University, so I was more than familiar with the area in which much of the story takes place. This gave me a little perspective and a way to visualize and understand the scenes JD Vance was painting; however, even if I had never even heard of the small Ohio town, his descriptive writing made it easy to feel as if I had known it all my life.

The unique thing about the way that Vance writes is that in describing the hardships of his life and town, I could see my own town, family, and friends in the same way. While his story is unique, it is not the only one of it's kind. I don't think that Vance was trying to insinuate this, but instead the exact opposite- that so many American families experience life in poverty with varying hardships and if other Americans can take time to see and understand this, it will add value to how we connect and form relationships with those that are different from us.

This book was enlightening to read post-election, as well, after so many differences were brought up from each opposing party. I would recommend this memoir to everyone as a way to take a step back and appreciate another culture. I'm a sucker for memoirs, but this was without a doubt one of my favorites I've read, and I believe it will remain in my top 5 for years to come.

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Between the World and Me

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Published by Spiegel & Grau in Jun. 2015
Genre(s): Nonfiction, Race, Memoir, Social Issues, Social Justice,
Format: Kindle
Pages: 152
Goodreads

In a series of essays, written as a letter to his son, Coates confronts the notion of race in America and how it has shaped American history, many times at the cost of black bodies and lives. Thoughtfully exploring personal and historical events, from his time at Howard University to the Civil War, the author poignantly asks and attempts to answer difficult questions that plague modern society. In this short memoir, the "Atlantic" writer explains that the tragic examples of Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, and those killed in South Carolina are the results of a systematically constructed and maintained assault to black people--a structure that includes slavery, mass incarceration, and police brutality as part of its foundation. From his passionate and deliberate breakdown of the concept of race itself to the importance of the Black Lives Matter movement, Coates powerfully sums up the terrible history of the subjugation of black people in the United States. A timely work, this title will resonate with all teens--those who have experienced racism as well as those who have followed the recent news coverage on violence against people of color.

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The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeanette Walls
Published by Scribner in Mar. 2005
Genre(s): Nonfiction, Adult, Memoir, Social Issues, Poverty
Format: Paperback
Pages: 288
Goodreads

The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience and redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and uniquely vibrant. When sober, Jeannette's brilliant and charismatic father captured his children's imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and how to embrace life fearlessly. But when he drank, he was dishonest and destructive. Her mother was a free spirit who abhorred the idea of domesticity and didn't want the responsibility of raising a family.

The Walls children learned to take care of themselves. They fed, clothed, and protected one another, and eventually found their way to New York. Their parents followed them, choosing to be homeless even as their children prospered.

The Glass Castle is truly astonishing--a memoir permeated by the intense love of a peculiar but loyal family.

I'm not at all sure what compelled me to pick up this book, but I am so glad that I did. Jeanette Walls weaves a tale of her childhood life growing up in poverty with magical thinking parents....... I think I have found a new genre to love.

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