A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

A Man Called Ove is the heartwarming and heartbreaking story of Ove, a man so grumpy that it takes a village to wake him up and remind him who he is. Ove is a man who was set in his ways as a child; he's a man of a certain generation, a man who can learn everything about someone by what car they drive. When Ove has given up, a new family moves into his neighborhood and shows him that there's still love and laughter in the world and more importantly, there's always someone to fight for.

Fredrik Backman reaches out to all of us with this story. I laughed just as often as I cried, and sometimes the tears were brought on by laughter and joy. Parvaneh, Ove's newest (and very pregnant) neighbor, irritates him so much that he feels he needs to help her. Then he helps someone else, and then a cat. Everyone knows and Ove; I jokingly told my husband I was reading his best friend's biography! This book is filled with so many wonderful and colorful characters, not just Ove and Parvaneh. Ove has just as many rough edges as soft spots, and this isn't a story to miss.

 

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Between the World and Me is a letter from Ta-Nehisi Coates to his 15-year-old son. It's part autobiography, part philosophy of what it's like to be black in America. It's a heartbreaking story of love and loss.

Coates' main theme is the loss of the black body. He reaches back into history to slavery, his family's history, like most black Americans, to explore the obvious exploitation of black lives from the beginning of our country. The right over one's own body seems obvious to most white people, especially men. While most of us white women can partly understand the concept of having our body broken and taken away from us, no one can understand what the black population in the Americas has been through. Coates talks about himself and what he wants for his son, only briefly talking about his wife's experiences as a black woman, the culmination of being black in America and being a woman in America.

 This book affected me on too many levels. I cried for my sister-in-law, who has most likely dealt with more discrimination than I could imagine. I cried for my nephew, who I hope won't be discriminated against for being biracial. I cried for my son, because he has no idea the privilege he's been born into because of the color of his skin. All I can do is teach him to be a human being, not a white person. I hope I succeed.  

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

Min Jin Lee's Pachinko is the story of one Korean family in 20^th Century Japan. Sunja is brought to Japan from Korea in 1933 as the wife of a Korean Christian minister. Her story, along with her children's and grandchildren's, are shown through hardship, war, and racism. The 2^nd class status Koreans held in Japan is explored alongside the 2^nd class status of women in both Korean and Japanese cultures. The tragedies that befall this family over four generations are the same as many, if not all, people who have been relegated as 2^nd class citizens throughout history, stretching even to today.

This is a story about suffering. Many of the characters we meet have secrets that would not only destroy them, but their entire family. One of the main themes in this book is the belief that women must suffer. They must suffer more than men and they must suffer in silence. This is not a new concept, it's been repeated and reinforced in cultures all over the world. It's a belief that has been so ingrained in women that many of them still believe it to this day. But the larger story in Pachinko is the suffering this Korean family faces while living in Japan. At this point in history, Japan was an occupying force in Korea and Koreans in Japan were Korean citizens, not Japanese citizens. We recognize the prejudices faced because many of us have faced them too, here, in America. 

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

This multi-generational family saga begins in Ghana in the mid-18^th Century and ends at the beginning of the 21^st. Effia and Esi are half sisters who have never met and don't know the other exists. Effia is married to Ghana's British Governor while Esi is kidnapped and sold into slavery, bound for America. Following seven generations, Homegoing tells the untold story of Africa and America through slavery and war. The similarities and differences between Africans and African-Americans are explored through each generation.

Homegoing is the story we didn't realize we needed. Too many African-Americans don't know their heritage and too many white Americans don't care. We don't want to be reminded of what our ancestors did to their ancestors. The beauty of this novel is it's simplicity. Each chapter follows a different character, starting with Effia and then Esi. We follow their children through life in Ghana and life in America. We see how they struggle with trying to fit in; because Effia's husband was white her family was marked as different and Esi's descendants were slaves, then free, then slaves again. Each chapter is only about 20 pages but Gyasi packs so much depth and history into each character that you feel like you know them. 

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

It's 1962 in Jackson, Mississippi. The white folks want nothing to do with Civil Rights and some of the black population are too scared to fight for them. When Skeeter, a white woman who recently graduated from Ole Miss, asks Aibileen, her best friend's black maid, if she wants to change how things are in Jackson, she's immediately shut down. It's not only dangerous, but illegal, to talk about integration, and Aibileen knows her life would be at risk if she tried to change anything. But Skeeter just wants to tell stories about what it's like for black women working as maids and nannies in white families, and she eventually convinces Aibileen to write with her. Aibileen convinces her best friend Minny and ten other maids to share their stories with Skeeter in the hopes that the country will know what life is really like in the segregated South. Skeeter is ostracized by her friends, the same women who appear in the maids' stories, as Aibileen and Minny fear for their jobs and their lives.

The lives of southern white women and their “separate but equal” black maids are laid bare in this novel about Civil Rights in the 1960s. The author weaves actual historic events, like the murder of Medgar Evers by the KKK, Martin Luther King Jr.'s March on Washington D.C., and the assassination of JFK, into the fictional people of the real Jackson, Mississippi. Aibileen, Minny, and Skeeter are brilliant narrators, each with her own unique voice. Aibileen and Minny show us the love-hate relationship between white families and the black women they let raise their children, even if they aren't allowed to use the same bathroom or eat at the same table. Skeeter shows us that sometimes it just takes one privileged person who's willing and able to say, “This is wrong; we shouldn't be doing this; it needs to stop.” Lives are destroyed and redeemed many times over in this instant classic.

Panic by Lauren Oliver

The day after high school graduation, the graduates in a small town in New York gather to participate in Panic, a high-stakes game intended to force the players to overcome their fears. Panic is voluntary and illegal, so secrecy is of the utmost importance. And the winner receives over $50,000 in cash. Two best friends compete in Panic, each for her own reasons. During Panic they befriend another participant whose motives for competing are heartbreaking and sinister. As the summer progresses the challenges become more intense and the police will do anything to stop Panic after someone dies. But the game's not over until only one person is left standing.

In typical Lauren Oliver style, Panic starts in the middle of the action. We learn who the characters are by watching them play the game. Their dreams and fears are revealed in what they would risk to win Panic. The book is fast-paced and nail-bitingly addictive. One question resonates throughout the book: What would you do for $50,000? 

Beartown by Fredrik Backman

Fredrik Backman's Beartown focuses on a small hockey town in the middle of a Swedish forest. Outsiders believe the town is finished, but the town believes in the promise of their young hockey stars. These stars are children, teenagers still in high school. As the team gets closer to the national finals, they begin to unravel. They seem to believe they are gods and they love the adulation of the town, especially the teenage girls. When the team captain makes a mistake that can't be undone, the town begins to unravel. Violence and accusations rage across the small town in the middle of a forest until someone finally snaps and someone else does the right thing.

 This novel hooks you from the first sentence and does not disappoint in keeping you on the edge, always uncertain what's going to happen next. Backman's style is short, concise scenes that fit together in a way that each chapter seems to have its own theme. I felt the whole range of emotions while reading this, from sadness, anger, and rage to happiness and incredulity. All of the characters were fully formed, even those who didn't warrant actual names (Kira's colleague, Kevin's father and mother). Both the best and the worst aspects of human nature are explored in a way that shows communities can come together with a common goal, but that goal might be misguided and downright harmful.