Three Women | revealing, fragile, yearning

Review: 3 stars

‘Three Women’ was featured as one of Indigo’s top 10 books of the year, and I picked it up, intrigued by Taddeo’s journalistic angle on female sexuality. This bestselling non-fiction book follows three women - Maggie, Sloan and Lina - and their complicated relationship with intimacy and physicality through nearly a decade.

We meet Maggie at the tender age of 17, who is rapidly exploring her sexuality. After a prior relationship with an older man while vacationing in Hawaii, she begins falling into a tangled romantic relationship with Aaron Knodel, her high school English teacher. This marks the beginning of Maggie’s unravelling - of her future, her reputation, and her confidence in love. Knodel is portrayed as a charismatic trapper of Maggie’s heart, initiating texts, hours-long midnight conversations and a transgressive encounter at his family’s home. Taddeo deftly surfaces Maggie’s anguish when Knodel abruptly ends the relationship. Maggie is devastated to her core that her lover has spurned her, an emotion that overwhelms a more rational epiphany that her youth and caprice has been marred by an older, more powerful, advantaged man.

Lina and Sloan similarly lead lives of deception, torment and ecstasy, bringing sex lives that are indecent in the eyes of society, into the bright of day for examination, but even more for empathy. A key message of Taddeo’s is that how we choose to experience sexuality is wholly our own. That when women feel heartbreak, lust and adoration, that we are making ourselves vulnerable to pain, and should not be judged, especially by other women, each living their own truth.

I did find myself fighting impulsive questions of ‘Is she at fault for this?’ and ‘How could she do this to another woman?’. Yet this is the deftness of Taddeo’s journalistic magic - she brings the full perspective of each protagonist, such that I was forced to delay reaction, and instead pursue contemplation. This is a highly readable and pulsating piece of journalism. I did however find that it was not as impactful to my outlook on life, despite its candour and unique subject matter. I was asked by my sister-in-law over the break whether I had read anything great lately, and this novel simply slipped by mind. However, this is a solid pick for any man or woman who is looking for an engaging non-fiction read.

Becoming | moral, candid, aware

Review: 4 stars

I can’t think of a more anticipated read for 2018 than ‘Becoming’ by former First Lady, Michelle Obama. From the vestiges of the Obama presidency came an insistent movement of believers who yearned for a presidential run from “the better half” of the former First Couple. Like many others, I thought that this tell-all would lay the foundation for Michelle’s campaign for 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. What I encountered instead was far more intimate and independent than I expected.

‘Becoming’ is told in three parts - each an integral piece of the composition that Michelle is today - her childhood, her relationship with Barack, and finally her experience as First Lady. Throughout she seeks to distinguish herself from Barack, signalling that the values she stands for were entrenched long before her charismatic, nation-leading husband sauntered into her life. As an adolescent she bore witness to white flight from her neighbourhood, which.shuttered businesses and unbalanced schools. Her innate drive for overachievement was instilled into her by her mother. Her belief in “showing up” was nurtured through osmotic observance of her father, who went to work everyday despite his MS. The early chapters firmly establish Michelle as independent woman with strong ethics and true fortitude, forged with the anvil of Black America.

She also pulls back the curtain on what it felt like to be in the maelstrom of Barack’s candidacy and presidency itself. Suddenly, her identity as a successful lawyer, talented health care professional, and empowered mother, became recast as singularly as patriotic wife and mother. Her voice, which she so valued, became muted in fear of passion being translated as anger onto national television screens. Her role as advocate and ambassador for her husband overrode her personal ambitions. It is this narrative that I found the most compelling. Michelle portrays herself as “Everywoman” - navigating through the same inequalities in marriage and motherhood doubts that many of us succumb to.

Michelle writes with the full awareness of a seasoned public figure. She is aware of the legacy this book will create for herself. She is aware of how her opinions may reinforce or counter Barack’s oft-articulated platform. She is aware of what this book means for the status of womanhood, motherhood, African Americans, democracy and the peaceful transition of power. Her biography is hopeful, urgent and a graceful commemoration of the first Black First Family. One of the most astounding revelations of the novel for me were when she describes paying for the initial White House redirection personally vs. using taxpayer money. She asserts that because of their blackness, she and her family have to do more and do better, just to be perceived as equal by society.

The parts of the book I appreciated the least were when she reinforced her own platform as a First Lady (Let’s Move, White House garden). Oddly, it felt inauthentic and forced, a tone very at odds with the rest of her intimate narrative. Despite this, I came away from ‘Becoming’ with an even greater appreciation for Michelle as a person. Her ability to connect through story is powerful and inclusive. This is not her launching point for political career (as she clearly affirms), but her ambition, empathy and talent are too great for her to fade into the annals of First Ladies past.

A Nurse's Story | eye-opening, empathetic, entertaining

Review: 4 stars

My lovely nanny is an avid reader, and she passed ‘A Nurse’s Story’ to me one day after seeing my stacks of books lying around the condo. Her rain-battered and tear-stained copy bore the scars of obsessive reading, so I was excited to dive into it.

‘A Nurse’s Story’ is Tilda Shalof’s partly-biographical retelling of her most salient encounters working as an ICU nurse in the Toronto hospital system. Throughout highly-entertaining, sometimes disgusting, and often touching patient narratives, she interweaves several key theses: (1) the role of a nurse is intricate and indispensable, and is being undermined by government budget cuts, (2) nurses need to first take care of themselves, before they can take care of others, and (3) the unecessary prolonging of “life” can be cruel and selfish.

My husband is a physician, so I’ve often heard him sing the praises of nurses, and at times, vent in frustration at oversights that a nurse made. But he has been unwavering in how important nurses are to his ability to perform his job efficiently and effectively. When I think back to major medical milestones of my life - giving birth, staying by my father-in-law’s side in the ICU, or receiving long-distance updates as my mother underwent heart surgery - I realize how much power nurses hold in their hands. Nurses administer the doses of medication that sustain patient comfort and survival; they make adjustments on the fly and decide when to escalate for help; they control the emotional well-bring of a patient and his/her family, acting as a twitter-feed for progress updates…and so much more. They have to be error-free, because of the mortal repercussions of their actions.

This book tremendously increased my awareness for what nurses are responsible for, and what they endure. I loved that Shalof reiterates through various anecdotes how the ICU’s emotional trauma osmoses to the mental health of nurses themselves. When I hear nurses laughing together now, catharsis instead of insensitivity comes to mind. There was also a quote (spoken by a doctor) that really crystallized for me what a nurse’s mission is: “We never withdraw care. In certain circumstances, we may withdraw treatment, but never care".

Finally. Shalof relates a number of incidents where patient families insisted on life support for their relatives, even when the body was necrotizing, or organs primed for transplant were wasted on a brain-dead patient. In these scenarios, Shalof and her fellow nurses on ‘Laura’s Line’ advocate for death with dignity, to release the body from painful interventions. I had always held the perspective that '“everything should be done” for my family members, and even for myself, but Shalof has encouraged me to rethink this blanket belief. It is often the desire to relieve personal guilt that drives families to prolong life past the last shred of realistic hope for recovery.

I highly recommend this book to those who want a very readable, thought-provoking look into patient care, narrated by a passionate insider. Shalof’s writing is convincing, well-balanced and unequivocal, and her stories are incredible.

Educated | inspirational, raw, courageous

Review: 4 stars

I have been following along PBS and NPR's 'Now Read This' bookclub throughout the summer, and have discovered quite a few wonderful reads through them. 'Educated' was the May pick, and after having seen it heavily merchandised in Indigo stores as well, I decided to give it a go.

'Educated' is an autobiographical memoir by Westover, taking us through her unbelievable and highly unorthodox upbringing in Idaho. She is one voice in a cacophony of Mormonism, survivalism, and sexism that defines her family. This voice is humble, hellbent on truth-telling, and pioneering. As someone who had a largely mainstream childhood with oddball moments (my father caught us a pet bird using a plastic bag), Westover's family seems to be the stuff of fiction. The memories she intimates are shocking in their violence, bitterness and detachment from our society's typical notions of reality. Her larger-than-life characters are complex and flawed, particularly those of her father, mother and brother Shawn. Perhaps the moments that were most outrageous for me were when her family outright rejected modern medicine in favour of prayer and homemade antidotes for life-threatening injuries. 

It was fascinating to follow Westover as she came into her own, and conquered her unintentional ignorance of the world as most of us know it. Sequestered away in Buck's Peak, she was able to forge a path to Harvard and Cambridge - the highest echelons of Western education. This is a radical transformation from a woman who was unaware of the Holocaust or the American Civil Rights movement until her first day of college.

This is a captivating, heartfelt read. Westover's writing deftly evokes her struggle between the steel toed, hell and fire narrative that wins her acceptance among her family, and the broader world and history that many of us take for granted. I appreciated how it made me question the balance of value I place on the classroom education I received from kindergarten to matriculation, versus the life lessons that have defined my character. 

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