Month: February 2025

What I’m Reading: Beautiful World, Where Are You?

My Amazon and Goodreads review of Beautiful World, Where Are You? by Sally Rooney (Rated 5) – Ruminative People. In Beautiful World, Where Are You? Sally Rooney introduces readers to four flawed but engaging characters: Eileen, Alice, Simon, and Felix. At times they connect; at others, they glance off one another. Their behavior is kind, but sporadically cruel. They are competent, even talented and successful people, who are nevertheless self-doubting and dissatisfied. Hence the title. Rooney captures the emotions we unleash on ourselves and others, whether calculated or beyond our control. As a novelist myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I’m a big fan of Rooney’s signature style, that is, ruminative characters. Here she portrays them through obsessive interior monologues and most notably in the correspondence between the two women. Beautiful World is a deep study of love and friendship. How we depend on them, how we question their sincerity. The answer to the title’s question isn’t belabored but quietly emerges in the pages of Rooney’s honest and thoughtful book.

Interior monologues and epistolary dialogues answer the book’s title question

Why writers read: “Think before you speak. Read before you think.” – Fran Lebowitz

Famous Friends: Audre Lorde and Pat Parker

Lorde and Parker were both Black lesbian poets, mothers, activists, and cancer patients. Beginning in the 1970s, they wrote each other regularly, grappling with the issues we confront fifty years later: social justice, women’s rights, and critical race theory. Read The Sister Knot about two resilient women, orphaned in WW2, who defy fate to sustain a lifelong friendship. A compelling novel about the power of sisterhood. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.

Poets Lorde and Parker were decades ahead of their time

Two resilient women, two separate journeys, one lasting friendship

Famous Friends: George and Lennie

In the friendship between George and Lennie in John Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men, the former is the latter’s master and intellectual superior. Yet the imbalanced pair share mutual affection and responsibility, leaving an indelible impression on readers. Read The Sister Knot about two resilient women, orphaned in WW2, who defy fate to sustain a lifelong friendship. A compelling novel about the power of sisterhood. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.

An unequal but moving friendship between George and Lennie in Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men

Two resilient women, two separate journeys, one lasting friendship

Famous Friends: Pauli Murray and Eleanor Roosevelt

The friendship began as confrontation when Murray, a Black woman, wrote a letter to the President and Mrs. Roosevelt protesting racial segregation in Southern schools. The First Lady wrote back, and the two women became personal friends and allies in the fight for racial justice. Read The Sister Knot about two resilient women, orphaned in WW2, who defy fate to sustain a lifelong friendship. A compelling novel about the power of sisterhood. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.

Murray and Roosevelt joined forces in the fight for racial justice

Two resilient women, two separate journeys, one lasting friendship

What I’m Reading: Disconnected

My Goodreads and Amazon reviews of Disconnected: Portrait of a Neurodiverse Marriage by Eleanor Vincent (Rated 5) – Ticket for One. Disconnected: Portrait of a Neurodiverse Marriage, Eleanor Vincent’s memoir of her late-in-life marriage to an autistic spouse, is a roller coaster ride of emotions. From a fairytale beginning that literally and figuratively dances on the page, Vincent plummets back to earth when the relationship abruptly ends, soars when it’s reignited, and then settles into the hard work of navigating a trip for two when only one person holds a ticket. With honesty, she recounts her excitement and frustration, hope and anger, and eventual acceptance that the gaps in wiring between her neurotypical brain and his neurodivergent one cannot be bridged. Although she writes from her perspective, Vincent is as fair-minded and nonjudgmental as she can be toward her ex-spouse. As a fiction writer who aims to elicit empathy for even the most challenging characters (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I admire Vincent’s ability to enhance the reader’s understanding of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The final emotion as the roller coaster comes to a stop is regret for the inevitable. Her husband is who he was born to be as surely as she must be true to her own nature. And after she unstraps and exits the carnival car, hope returns that the next ticket Vincent buys will take her on a rewarding journey, whether or not she’s with a fellow traveler.

Differently wired brains cannot run on the same circuit

Why writers read: “Read to make yourself smarter! Less judgmental. More apt to understand your friends’ insane behavior, or better yet, your own.” – John Waters