Books I finished -- July 2024

 

 

The Sound of Gravel by Ruth Wariner

I picked this one up because a friend had read it and it piqued my interest given its topic. I have to say this one was hard. Probably the hardest book I've read in a long time. It is a memoir of a girl growing up in a polygamist family/colony in Mexico.

p. 121: "In my church, polygamy is a commandment from God," Mom said defensively. "I was married in that church, so I'm Lane's wife whether you like it or not."

p. 258: I knew that my life would never be happy if all it amounted to was having several children by a shared husband. I couldn't understand how love or adoration could be possible in that kind of arrangement, and I desperately wanted those things. But I also knew that it wasn't enough to want them. You had to know how to get them. Mom couldn't teach me that because she didn't know herself. She couldn't show me how to be happy, only how to barely survive.

The Collected Regrets of Clover by Mikki Brammer

I read this one as part of a book club. I really enjoyed it. I had never heard of a "death doula" (someone who helps guide/transition a person and their family in their last days) before, but it's a concept that totally makes sense. Reading this book really helped me look at death in a different way.

P. 301 It's so easy to see your parental figure through that lens alone, to think that their existence has always revolved around yours. But before they were parents, they were simply human beings trying to navigate life as best they could, dealing with their own disappointments, chasing after their own dreams. And yet we often expect them to be infallible.

p. 305 -- The secret to a beautiful death is living a beautiful life.

p. 310 -- People who were complete strangers to me less than a year ago had forever shifted the trajectory of my life. The fact that all of us were entangled--that everyone on  the planet somehow shaped the course of one another's lives, often without realizing it--felt like almost too much for me to comprehend.