Reader's Place: March 20, 2023
In honor of Women’s History Month, we’re looking at women from different walks of life with remarkable histories of their own.
Acceptance: a memoir, by Emi Nietfeld, 2022 (Library Catalog, eBCCLS)
As a child, Emi Nietfeld was caught between a hoarder mother who got her put on antipsychotic medication, but was also the only person to believe she was exceptional, and a state system exemplified by a foster mom who tried to ban her art history flash cards because they had naked pictures (of Michelangelo's David). Even after wresting free of grim inpatient mental health institutions and getting into a prestigious boarding school, Emi scrambled for places to sleep during breaks. Though Emi learns that entering the Ivy League, working in Big Tech, and living in a fancy apartment doesn't mean her life turns into gold, her reflections on her unlikely history, and her journey in confronting trauma and injustice, hold powerful lessons.
A Coastline is an Immeasurable Thing: a memoir across three continents, by Mary-Alice Daniel, 2022 (Library Catalog)
Against the backdrop of a migratory childhood and adolescence spent in Nigeria, Reading, England, and Connecticut, Daniel reckons with race, religious conflict, culture clash, and a multiplicity of possible identities. Daniel lays bare the lives and legends of her parents and past generations, unearthing the tribal mythologies that shaped her kin and her own way of being in the world. But her strongest emotional connection is to her adopted home: California, the final place she reveals to readers through its spellbinding history.
The Family Outing: a memoir, by Jessi Hempel, 2022 (Library Catalog, eBCCLS)
Growing up, Jessi and her two siblings struggled to make sense of their family, their world, their changing bodies, and the emotional turmoil each was experiencing. And each, in their own way, was hiding their true self from the world. By the time Jessi reached adulthood, everyone in her family had come out: Jessi as gay, her sister as bisexual, her father as gay, her brother as transgender, and her mother as a survivor of a traumatic experience with an alleged serial killer. Yet coming out was just the beginning, starting a chain reaction of other personal revelations and reckonings that caused each of them to question their place in the world in new and ultimately liberating ways.
Savor: a chef's hunger for more, by Fatima Ali, 2022 (Library Catalog, eBCCLS)
An aspiring young chef explores food and adventure, illness and mortality, coming of age and coming out in an inspiring memoir and family story that sweeps from Pakistan to New York City and beyond. Fatima Ali won the hearts of viewers as the season fifteen "Fan Favorite" of Bravo's Top Chef. After the taping wrapped and before the shows aired, Fati was diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer, which eventually became terminal. Not one to ever slow down or admit defeat, she vowed to spend her final year traveling the world, eating delicious food, and making memories with her loved ones. But when her condition abruptly worsened, her plans were sidelined. She pivoted, determined to make her final days count as she worked to tell the story of a queer brown girl chef who set out to make a name for herself, her food, and her culture.
Corrections in Ink: a memoir, by Keri Blakinger, 2022 (Library Catalog)
An elite, competitive figure skater growing up, Keri Blakinger poured herself into the sport, even competing at nationals. But when her skating partnership ended abruptly, her world shattered. With all the intensity she saved for the ice, she dove into self-destruction. From her first taste of heroin, the next nine years would be a blur-living on the streets, digging for a vein, selling drugs and sex, eventually plunging off a bridge when it all became too much, all while trying to hold herself together enough to finish her degree at Cornell. Caught with a Tupperware container full of heroin, she was arrested and ushered into a holding cell, a county jail, and finally into state prison. There, in the cruel "upside down," Keri witnessed callous conditions and encountered women from all walks of life-women who would change Keri forever.
Compiled by Ina Rimpau.