December Reads 2022

 My Evil Mother by Margaret Atwood is an easy to read short story that examines the relationship of mothers and daughters from the daughter's point of view. The daughter feels alienated from the mother because of the mother's dabbling with what appears to be wicca. As the daughter matures and finds out some of the things the mother told her were untrue, she begins to doubt the power she believed her mother held. Anyone with a complicated relationship with their mother might find something to enjoy in this story. Overall, My Evil Mother is a quick and rather fun read.

 Writing as a Way of Healing: How Telling Our Stories Transforms Our Lives by Louise DeSalvo is a very interesting book on multiple levels. DeSalvo delves into going deep into our life experiences, reactions to them, thoughts about them, and the emotions they bring up for us through writing. She demonstrates how this writing can be healing. As someone who has long written to heal or to make sense of the wrongs in the world or to better understand hurts inflicted, much of what she said resonated with me. Her "What You Can Do Now" segments in the chapters offer very good prompts that I would highly recommend for someone wanting to start writing to heal or healing through writing. I've been doing this work my whole life, so I tackled these segments a little differently trying to fit the book around where I currently am in my writing and in my life. I will say, though, that the book inspired me to at least think about eventually writing my memoir... 

 The Grieving Brain: The Surprising Science of How We Learn from Love and Loss by Mary-Francis O'Connor, PhD offers an interesting perspective on the grieving process. The research O'Connor has done as well as other research she cites offers a glimpse into the functioning of the grieving brain as we move through the process of grief. The idea of the brain needing to relearn habits as part of the grieving process struck me as particularly important and interesting. While much of the research O'Connor discusses is still influx and therefore perhaps not as definitive as some would like, it is still very interesting. She gave me some things to think about. The Grieving Brain is both very easy to read in that it is well written and easy to understand and very hard to read in that it triggers moments of grief that can distract one (or at least it did for me). 

 Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters by Peter Vronsky is an interesting book that delves into the mindset of serial killers, or at least attempts to, the investigations of serial killers, and the psychological research into serial killings. Vronsky explores the history and phenomenon of serial killing without glamorizing the serial killer. He shows just how disturbing the actions taken by serial killers truly is as well as pointing out some misconceptions society has of serial killers. Overall, I found the book very well researched but found myself wondering how much things have changed since it was published several years ago.

 Sentimental Journey: The Cabin of Love & Magic: Book 3 by Joanne Pence is the third book in her Cabin of Love & Magic trilogy. The book was an interesting and fun read offering me a break from some of my more serious reading this month.  Julia, the oldest of the three sisters, comes to the cabin after suffering some professional setbacks. She finds more history about the cabin and its ghosts as well as learning about her own history and gaining insights into her guarded nature. In the process, she begins to believe she can love someone and trust herself in a relationship.

 Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman offers an interesting collection of Gorman's poetry. For the most part I really enjoyed Call Us What We Carry. I winced when I got to the erasure poem section because I'm generally not a fan of erasure poetry, reading it or writing it, but when I let go of my aversion, it was better than I expected. Overall, Gorman offered a book of thoughtful, emotional, thought-provoking poetry that addresses the world in which we live with realism mixed with hope.

  Light the Dark: Writers on Creativity, Inspiration, and the Artistic Process by Joe Fassler is a compilation of essays by a diverse group of authors. I bought it because I've been feeling a bit unfocused and somewhat inspired lately. I found most of these essays interesting and at least somewhat inspiring. Authors discussing other authors and how certain writing has inspired them felt both intellectual and intimate. The different writing styles and the different things different writers find inspiring made me think about writing that has inspired me in both my writing and in my life. As in all cases of compilations, certain of these essays spoke to me on a deeper level than others. Overall, I found the book a worthwhile read. I think anyone interested in what makes writers write and share their work with the world would find this book interesting. 

 52 Lists for Calm by Moorea Seal is a list journal with prompts that one fills out weekly rather than daily. Some prompts are better than others. Honestly, I didn't enjoy this list journal as much as I've enjoyed others in past years. I never could quite figure out why. All I know is that instead of making me feel calm, somewhere around the middle of the year it began to feel like a chore. I've really enjoyed list journals in the past, so I'm not so sure if the problem was with the journal or with where I'm at in my life.

 52 Lists for Bravery by Moorea Seal - This is another list journal I started at the beginning of the year. Like the one for Calm, it is a weekly list journal with prompts. The lists in this journal often felt like I was just going through the motions, and I didn't feel like I gained any real insight. Often, I felt like I'd already done this work elsewhere and was wasting my time. So, all in all, this journal might be really insightful for some people. 

I'm still wondering if choosing to do both 52 Lists for Calm and 52 Lists for Bravery in the same year was a bad idea. I couldn't decide which one I wanted to do at the beginning of the year, so I did both. They were different enough I thought it would be okay since I was doing one on Saturday and one on Sunday.  They follow the same format as Seal's other list journals, which I enjoyed. So, I would encourage people to judge for themselves, and maybe recommend not doing two of them at the same time...

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