May 2022 Books Read

 

May was filled with great books, HUGE challenges in my life and a much needed vacation where I did whatever the hell I wanted.  With the spring weather I was able to travel all over Montana for my job and that meant some solid windshield time for audiobooks.  May's Audiobook Challenge was an incredible treat as well.  So....let's get to the good stuff, shall we?

*Audiobook 2022 Challenge : "The Atlas of Love" by Laurie Frankel: I originally found this book at a Dollar Store in Utah and was PLEASANTLY surprised by how much I enjoyed the story.  I wasn't sure I'd be able to include it in the audiobook challenge, but was pleasantly proven wrong and found it for purchase on Amazon.  I felt like I had a happy reunion with a group of characters who captured my attention while listening as much as when I read it.  The story line is centered around 3 women who decide they are going to raise the baby birthed by one of them.  The communal parenting goes well and this little boy Atlas is the lucky winner of being loved by 3 mother figures.  It is raw and real mixed with very sweet moments that I just love.  This book is definitely worth your time and a solid PG/maybe PG13 for adult themes and the realities of unexpected pregnancy.  

From the Heart of Crow Country by Joseph Medicine Crow: I'm working on learning about the Native American tribes around me here in Montana and right now I'm studying the Crow people.  This was such a wonderful collection of stories and gave me great insight on their culture and people.  

The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels by India Holton: Next I needed some sassy hilarious regent mystery and this gem did not disappoint.  What happens when a bunch of female pirates decide to solve a murder?  Chaos, but with class....obviously.  This was a light read and I enjoyed it very much.  Rated PG/PG 13 for some mild gore because people get murdered.  

Atlas of the Heart by Brene Brown: I rarely read or listen to more than one non-fiction book per month, but Brene Brown's latest book came up on my Libby queue much earlier than expected so I snatched it up while on a trip for work.  She gives definitions of emotions and how they play in to our every day world.  This is a book I may have to buy because it was one that could be underlined and studied over and over.  Brene Brown is genius like that.  I highly recommend this book if you're trying to work through challenging times and struggling to process because you can't label the emotions and how they're connected to events.  

The Yellow Bird Sings by Jennifer Rosner: This was a VERY heavy WWII Jewish refugee story.  A Jewish mother and daughter hide out in a family's barn for almost 2 years until the daughter can be smuggled to safety in a convent.  The story is gripping and very sad.  It also includes accounts of sex for survival (aka rape) which was very hard for me to listen to.  The daughter is a musical prodigy and she creates a song in a story in her head about the yellow bird that sings and this is how she survives the torture of being in hiding.  The themes in this book are difficult to fathom, but they really happened to many people in Europe.  This book is Rated R for violence, sexual assault and heavy themes due to the Holocaust and Nazis.  

Beautiful World, Where are You by Sally Rooney:  I found out about this book on TikTok and the synopsis sounded intriguing so I went for it.  It turned out to be a weird montage of storylines with intertwining singles that ended up in rompy sex often.  I felt like every time I started it up again I'd listen for 5 minutes and they were at it again.  It felt way too Harlequin and I kept hoping there was a point to it all but it was mostly "life is hard, have lots of sex and move on." While that may be the reality for some people, I like a little more plot in my books so I didn't enjoy it at all.  Rated R for all the sex and very little substantive plot.  

A Memory of Violets by Hazel Gaynor: I absolutely LOVED this book and read it in a couple days while I was on my Q2 recharge vacay from work.  Hazel Gaynor is an incredible author and I've yet to read a book of hers that I didn't like.  This story is centered around the flower girls of London and a family who makes it their mission to bring the women off the streets and give them safety, shelter and the skills to have another trade that doesn't involve dangerous conditions on the street.  It was so well-written and reminded me of "My Fair Lady." Hazey Gaynor always does copious amounts of research for her books and you can tell by the details shared throughout the book.  Rated PG13 for some difficult themes related to poverty.  

The Woman at the Light by Joanna Brady: I was on a roll after finishing Hazel Gaynor and jumped head first into this book and finished it within a couple days.  This is a FASCINATING historical fiction about a lighthouse keeper and her family on a secluded island of the Florida Keys in the late 19th century.  This book was spellbinding and I couldn't stop reading it.  There is a big curveball in this one related to race that I'm not going to give away and it gave me a lot to think about.  It was great writing and each of the characters were well developed.  This was another historical fiction piece that was thoroughly researched and it showed in the story line.  Definitely PG13 for the adult themes.  

So, there you go, book friends! I hope you can make time to read and get lost in between the pages of your favorite book!

Until next time, my lovelies!

-R

Check out April's Books Here!!

Therapy Book Club is Totally a Thing: "Furiously Happy" by Jenny Lawson

Not long ago, my friend/professional colleague and I went to dinner and the topic of mental health came up over chips, salsa, too much Diet Coke and one beautiful margarita.  We shared our stories with each other and found that, while we had a lot of different events, our similar events were much too similar and no coincidence that we related well to each other in the professional world. Her professional realm is on the therapy side of things and I shared how challenging it has been to find a new therapist who even begins to compare to my amazing therapist in Utah.  I also shared that sometimes I just need to have a solid night of laughs, snacks and girl talk then I'm fine. Generally, that is cheaper than therapy, but just as hard to come by in the sticks of eastern Montana. And then my friend had a brilliant idea......we should start a book club.....and not just any book club, but it should be THERAPY book club.  The announcement I made on Facebook said, "As it is with therapy chips and salsa, the universe has called for a therapy book club as well. The requirements are simple: nonfiction that inspires and makes us laugh and is likely off-color." And that, my friends, is what we did and it is a gift from the laughter gods on high. Each month I will add a review on le blog to share what book we are reading so you can follow along as well....if you need some therapy book club in your life.....ha, ha Raylynn....who said anything about "if".....how about WHEN.

The inaugural book for our club is "Furiously Happy" by Jenny Lawson.  For those of you who may not be familiar with Jenny, she is hysterical! She is also certifiably crazy and has embraced it while she sits comfortably on the New York Times bestseller VIP list.  "Furiously Happy"  is her second book and is a collection of short stories about her life in the fast lane of mental health battles.  The sub-title of the book is "A funny book about horrible things." She presents a wide-range of experiences from her life about the roller coaster that is living with serious mental health conditions.

Even before I got to the actual meat of the book, I had already worn down my coloring pencil from highlighting.  The author's notes were absolutely fabulous and hooked me because I knew I'd be reading a book written by someone who actually gets it.  Here is an example that really resonated with me. "When you come out of the grips of depression there is an incredible relief, but not one you feel allowed to celebrate. Instead, the feeling of victory is replace with anxiety that it will happen again, and with shame and vulnerability when you see how your illness affected your family, your work, everything left untouched while you struggled to survive. We come back to life thinner, paler, weaker....but as survivors. Survivors who don't get pats on the back from coworkers who congratulate them on making it.  Survivors who wake up to more work than before because their friends and family are exhausted from helping them fight a battle they may not even understand."

One of my greatest challenges from living with my bestie named depression is finding people who get it. There is nothing WORSE than some insensitive dip shit who says to me (in late January or in month 4 of yet another bout of unnecessary unemployment) "oh you can just get over it."  Mmmmmm hmmmmm, here's your sign and get the hell out of my life.  It's incredibly hard to function at times and this book is a cool glass of lemonade on a hot summer's day because it helps me feel like I'm not alone in my adventure.  A few pages after the quote above the author concluded her notes with this, "I celebrate every one of you reading this. I celebrate the fact that you've fought your battle and continue to win. I celebrate the fact that you may not understand the battle, but you pick up the baton dropped by someone you love until they can carry it again. I survived and I remind myself that each time we go through this, we get a little stronger. We don't struggle in vain. We win. We are alive."

The level of gratitude I have for this newfound group of women in my life is infinite. We have laughed like the crazies that we are sharing our stories and finding joy in our mental health battles.  I've made new friends that I never imagined which I've been praying for since I move back to my Podunk home town.  No matter what, having a group of people in you life who GET IT is the best type of self care a person could ever give themselves.  I'm so blessed to have weekly chips and salsa, girl talk and unfiltered therapy on my own red couch every week.

My recommended reading group would be age 18 and above.  It's straight-up Rated R and talks about a lot of life experiences, sprinkled with the F-bomb, that accompany mental health roller coaster rides.

The moral of the story: We are all crazy....some of us just embrace it better than others. Find your group of crazies and start a therapy book club. You'll thank the laughter gods too.  I promise.

Happy reading, my amazing, geeky lovelies!
-R

Missed last week's book review? Click here to read it!

More Books by Jenny Lawson

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Learning to Love: "The Mastery of Love" by Don Miguel Ruiz

Last year I had the opportunity to travel to Denver, Colorado for a week-long business trip.  It's a fairly short flight from the sticks of Montana to the city. I didn't really plan to do much except close my eyes for a bonus nap and open them for snack time.  When I found my seat, I was assigned next to a lovely lady who was reading "The Mastery of Love" by Don Miguel Ruiz. We sat in silence as the airplane took off and finally I couldn't stay silent anymore because I really wanted to know about this book! So, I was brave and asked her what it was about. The result of that question? I did not get my usual in-flight nap because we ended up talking about the book for over an hour.  As we were making our final descent into Denver, I asked if I could see the cover again so I could write down the title and author. As soon as I could, I purchased a used copy on Amazon.

In spite of my prompt purchase, it still sat in the cozy book nook gathering dust because I wasn't ready to analyze my patterns of love in my life at the time. Life was very painful and full of sadness for a love lost and I just couldn't face it.  When the time finally came to read this book, it was at the perfect moment and I was so grateful I had followed through on the prompting to buy it as soon as I was home from my business trip many months prior.  As a rule for this blog, I try to stick with books that have legitimately been purchased at the thrift store, but this book was SO pivotal for me that it gets a spot during my month of books about love....because it's probably the most important book I've ever read about love.

Books like this can either be extremely beneficial and moving or they can create a cyclone of bewilderment on what we need to improve.  I totally get it.  Self-help books are generally a lengthy read for me because I like to digest the words and it takes time.  Although this book isn't very long, the content is amazing and it made me think....a lot. In an effort to summarize, but also leave enough to your own discovery, I will share a few points that really hit home for me.  No matter what, I think every human should read this book.  I know that's a really big, generalized statement, but I mean it.  The author shares tips about self-love and love of humanity that are so important.

1. When a human is born, the emotional mind, the emotional body, is completely healthy. Maybe around three or four years old, the first wounds in the emotional body start to appear and get infected with emotional poison. But, if you observe children who are two or three years old, if you see how they behave, they are playing all the time. You see them laughing all the time.  Their imagination is so powerful, and the way they dream is an adventure of exploration.  When something is wrong they react and defend themselves, but then they just let go and turn their attention to the moment again, to explore and have fun again.  They are not ashamed of their past; they are not worried about the future.  Little children express what they feel, and they are not afraid to love.  The happiest moments in our lives are when we are playing just like children, when we are singing and dancing, when we are exploring and creating just for fun.  

I love this concept. I'm blessed to be an aunt to four spectacular little humans and when I read this I thought about all of the glorious moments I've spent with them in their world of love and imagination.  Children are so literal, but they also move on so quickly. As adults, our emotional poison stops us from loving freely and moving on when we have been hurt.  That's ok because we are human, but we don't have to be stuck in a rut of bitterness and sadness forever.  Dig deep, grab some fruit snacks, your favorite coloring book, some crayons and head to the blanket fort to practice some solid, child-like self-love.

2. Life brings to you exactly what you need. There is perfect justice in hell. There is nothing to blame. We can even say that our suffering is a gift. If you just open your eyes and see what is around you, it's exactly what you need to clean your poison, to heal your wounds, to accept yourself, and to get out of hell.

This paragraph is underlined in orange marker in my book.  I needed this reminder when I read the book. I need it every, damn day.  What we need in our life is in our life right this second.  The hard part is understanding the why when our days feel like a living hell. I know! I've lived it many times.  I'd be full of shit if I told you that my days blink back to perfect when I put on a happy face and think happy thoughts.  The sadness is still there and it hurts BAD, but when I turn my focus to the good and the blessed, it makes it more bearable.  It makes it easier to tell myself, "you can do this, Raylynn. You're very blessed. There's a plan. God loves you. Don't give up." In my bathroom I have a note card that says, "You have worth." Every time I'm in there I read it to myself.  I have to remind myself. The critic in my brain is quick to convince me otherwise and love conquers the crazy, but not until I look in the mirror and say it out loud.

3. If we are in a war of control, it is because we have no respect. The truth is that we don't love. It is selfishness, not love. When we have no respect there is a war of control because each person feels responsible for the other. I have to control you because I don't respect you. I have to be responsible for you, because whatever happens to you is going to hurt me, and I want to avoid pain. This is what happens when we come from the track of fear. Because there is no respect, I act as though you are not good enough or intelligent enough to see what is good or not good for you.

This statement strikes some really raw nerves for me.  It's pretty self-explanatory, but I can share that this has affected me deeply both in my personal and professional life.  Most recently I've had some experiences that I'd love to say I got over quickly and moved on, but I didn't. It's taken some time, a lot of prayer and an ongoing effort to forgive.  The bitchy redhead in me would love to send a candy-gram on Valentine's Day to a few people with this quote written on it, but I know that's spiteful and pointless.  If reading this paragraph caused a twinge of guilt in your heart, step back and think about why. Are you controlling a situation or two in fear? Are you afraid that someone else's imperfection may result in your pain? Please be brave and face it.  It's a two-way street and I've had to work really, really hard to let up on the need to control in my life. Little by little I have been able to live with more love and less selfishness in my heart.

4. You can have a relationship that fulfills your dream of heaven; you can create a paradise, but you have to begin with you. Begin with complete acceptance of your body. Hunt the parasite, and make it surrender. Then the mind will love your body and will no longer sabotage your love. It's up to you; it's not up to anyone else. But first, you are going to learn how to heal your emotional body. 

Where do I begin? It's been a real struggle for me to accept my physical and emotional body in the last couple years.  The numbers on the scale have increased and my wardrobe has changed because of it.  Fashion has always mattered to me because it's fun, but, in spite of having some seriously cute outfits, I didn't have a lot of self-love to go with it.  So it was kind of a train wreck when I didn't have those cute clothes to hide behind and lacked self-love.  It is an absolute work in progress for me all day, every day to love the fluffier Raylynn.  Some days I'm ok with the curves, other days I curse them and grimace at photos.  However, I have made a conscious effort to have self-love as my priority so that I can heal my emotional body. My emotional body was really, really broken when I took that trip to Denver last January and I only knew about part of it at the time.  Since then, I've had to dig deep and camp in my figurative blanket tent to figure out what needed to be fixed aka hunting the parasite.

I hope these passages have given you some insight on learning to love as well as enlighten on ways you might improve.  The internal battle of self-love is 100% real for all of us because we are human.  I know that learning to wash out the poison and hunting the parasite makes a difference, but it is not easy or an overnight occurrence.  It takes time and patience.

My recommended reading group would be anyone who can read an amazing chapter book about how to show more love in life. You be the judge of what age that means.

The moral of the story: Learning to love is an eternal life lesson.  That means the lesson plan can change at any time as well as the people involved. Live life with love, not fear. You can do it and so can I.

Happy reading, my amazing, geeky lovelies!
-R



Other Books by Don Miguel Ruiz

Missed last week's book review? Click here to read it!