Sometimes a book will burrow into your brain, into your bones. As I read CANTORAS, I had to remind myself to slow down at times, to take in the beautiful prose, to not shorten my time with these well-drawn characters. I would start reading faster because the tension between these characters, or the tensions with the cogs of the Uruguayan dictator-state in the 70s and 80s, would be too much not to KNOW and I wanted everyone to be happy, to be safe. But that was difficult to do at that time in history for queer women, and too much to ask of these pages.

This book is about five women who find a home in a remote seaside hamlet, away from Montevideo and the city streets that make it difficult to be their true selves. The history of Uruguay is examined through their eyes. And the ways even their families cannot be trusted to see them for who they really are, lest they all get imprisoned. Or disappeared. So they make their own family. The bonds of these five over the years and decades of the book spoke to the strength of supportive communities even in times of peril. The way that human connection can sometimes be the only thing that saves a person; and the ways even that can fall short.

CANTORAS shook me both in sadness and in laughter. I'm so, so grateful for having read it. My lovely giveaway copy from @idleutopia_reads is full of dog-ears and underlined passages, as well as her lovely, sincere note—perfectly echoing those themes of community and connection—tucked in the pages. Thank you, Karen.

By the way, I'm ready for someone to make a
Paz &
Flaca &
Romina &
Malena &
La Venus
t-shirt because I would love to run into people who know these characters; I would feel a kinship with that reader the way I do with people wearing those A Little Life character shirts. Who's sending Antoni this shirt??

The thing is, what de Robertis has written transcends place with its universal feelings; CANTORAS allows the reader to join these women on a rich, emotional journey into the human experience.

I saw Williams last month in a panel of graphic novelists, and her humble demeanor and feminist talking points piqued by interest in her graphic memoir. When she explained that it was a memoir about what it's like to commute as a woman on public transit—welp, I knew I had to buy it.

Having commuted for several years (literally until this week) on NYC subways and commuter trains, I have a handful of stories and lessons learned. My friends and I exchanged reports of our butts being groped by strangers on the train, of men on the subway platform pulling down their pants, a stranger air-dropping penis photos. We passed along practical advice too: if a train pulls up during rush hour but the car that stops in front of you is conspicuously empty despite the others being full—go to another car! There is something bad on that car. Williams shares her own personal experiences, her prerogative as a memoir, so there's a lot here that navigates her particular self, which is to say she's white, straight, cis, a mother, and an alcoholic.

There are some pertinent explorations of life as a woman on a necessary function of working life in New York, but Williams explains a lot of specific stories about ex-boyfriends, sexual encounters, and her relationship with her own body. More than anything, Williams is getting at society's way of making women feel shame for the things that make us human. The drawings can be very graphic, so I avoided reading this on my actual commute. A calculated social move itself: lest I draw unwanted attention from strangers.

I find women's perspectives fascinating, and I always think there are always more stories to be heard. I don't have a whole ton in common with Williams, but I appreciate her willingness to share some of her deepest thoughts and experiences.

"We act mean to defend ourselves from boredom and from those who would chop off our breasts. We act mean to defend our clubs and institutions. We act mean because we like to laugh. Being mean to boys is fun and a second-wave feminist duty. Being rude to men who deserve it is a holy mission. Sisterhood is powerful, but being a bitch is more exhilarating. Being a bitch is spectacular."

Myriam Gurba is a queer, mixed-race Chicana who considers being mean an art form. Her memoir is marked by tragedy from the onset, dealing in sexual violence, racism, misogyny, homophobia—but she's funny, too. Her words are poetic in their reflection; a rhythm ekes out as her history unfolds. She explains matter-of-factly, with a strength that wouldn't necessarily call to mind 'vulnerability,' but there's a staggering intimacy here within Gurba's world and how she grew from a child into a young adult. The journey of her quintessential formative years are entrusted to the reader; it's a generous offering—not at all mean, you might say.

I am so sad that I let this languish on my to-read shelf for so long. If you have this lying around, I urge you to pick it up now. (Hey! It's Non-Fiction November soon, too!). I've been reading a whole lot of memoirs in the back half of this year, and I love all the shapes of how they're told and the women who offer up their voices and stories. I wouldn't miss this one!!

I picked this book up a few times in the bookstore, reading the first line, like I do. It goes: "Toby Fleishman awoke one morning inside the city he'd lived in all his adult life and which was suddenly somehow now crawling with women who wanted him." Sure, it made me chuckle slightly, but I always put it down: middle aged white divorcée protagonist? Just not for me.

However, I still had some curiosity. After some good reviews, mentions of the swerve the latter half of the book takes, and the National Book Award longlist, I put the audiobook on hold. Then, I began again. And was immediately surprised when the narrator turned out to be a woman. I wondered then if it was really in the omniscient third person. It kind of sounds like it when you first start reading, but then—then!—you hear things like, "Normally, Toby would have called me," and you straighten up while you're pulling clean laundry out of the dryer and go, 'wait a minute!' to exactly nobody in the room.

That's how this clever book sneaks up on you: oh here's something you've read a few times, here's that guy, you know—elbow nudge—that guy you see in so many books. But what if you saw him through not that Important White Male Writer's eyes, but instead, well, I won't ruin it for you. Suffice to say, I loved this book. It's about being an adult, marriage, divorce, navigating the world we live in today, and its a commentary on the expectations people set for each other. I've never paused and rewound an audiobook to write down a line, but I did for this one because it seemed to reach out and speak to my experience as a working parent.

This book has RANGE—at one point I was cackling, the next moment red with rage. Brodesser-Akner wields her tremendous profile-writing skills here in fiction; the characters are deeply explored and while its potently entertaining reading, it also left me with a lot to process. I can't wait for more fiction from Brodesser-Akner.

I'm a sucker for investigative journalism stories, so I was prepared to like this book. However, I didn't realize how much it would hit me emotionally. I mean, I knew the outcome of the New York Times reporters' diligent research and subsequent charges against Weinstein, I had read every article and followed the story and movement (partaking in the hashtag like many women did)—but it's still a book full of tension that had me turning its pages rapidly. This is the craft of true journalism and the power it can wield! It's about getting the facts right, approaching a subject from every angle, understanding the boundaries of their sources, collaborating with editors and colleagues closely, and proceeding with integrity. Just a phenomenal demonstration of how arduous and rewarding investigative journalism can be.

And there were surprises in the book: the way the journalists shared their own visceral emotions during their journey (when one of them gets a call from a high-profile source that she will go on record, I, too, cried when the journalist cries), more respect for some of the women involved who didn't want the story to devolve into tabloid fodder and who were crucial to connecting the journalists to other sources, the arc demonstrated of what began with their initial article in 2017 to what transpired with Christine Blasey Ford and the Supreme Court nomination in 2018—there were a lot of details that I hadn't understood fully. I thought the culminating chapter which brought a lot of their sources together to speak to each other, to speak of their experiences, and to simply share was quite powerful. My eyes were welled with tears for most of the book, whether it was due to admiration or anger or sadness or victory—the words strung together for the emotional gamut.

I'm not sure what I was expecting, cracking open this graphic memoir, but I know I fell deeply in love with this book, to the point that I've already lent it out to two people. Forced it in their hands, nearly.