Starting this collection and realizing that a vast majority of its essays focused on pretty sad topics wasn't exactly encouraging. There's a sacred place to hold sadness in writing, though. This truth helped me realize that I could address this collection of great works with a certain kind of respect and appropriate attitude to enjoy them for what they brought to the literary table. Several essays earned 5 stars on my personal rating scale for a variety of reasons. Vauhini Vara's "Ghosts" stands as one of the first essays to experiment with how emerging AI technology can influence as well as be incorporated in the process of human storytelling. Its structure is fascinating, and the use of subtext is admirable. Alex Marzano-Lesnevich's "Futurity" offered me glimpses into the reality of someone grappling with the process of transitioning and identity. Naomi Jackson's "Her Kind" is raw in its descriptions of the ups and downs of a woman trying to figure out why she's behaving in ways that hurt herself as well as others, getting at the heart of how mental health issues rarely make perfect sense. And the ending sentence is so cool. Calvin Gimpelevich's "Among Men" offers yet another testament to the unique experience of transition, focusing on gender roles, the social implications that can follow not acting the way one's gendered appearance is "supposed to," and reconnection to Jewish identity on an ancestral level. Andrea Long Chu's "China Brain" gives the human brain a voice and perspective as narrator in an essay that really threw me through a loop. Kaitlyn Greenidge's "What She Would Always and Should Always Be Doing" made me think about how important bodies are as well as how easy it can be to feel out of place in a female body. Aube Rey Lescure's "At the Bend Of the Road" (possibly my favorite of the 5 stars) masterfully set me up as a reader to expect the worst and still managed to surprise me when the worst happened. How the narrative grapples with what a woman is supposed to do after the worst is what I think sets this essay above others. So, there you have it. These are just my personal 5 stars, despite the others in the collection being superstars in their own rights. I recommend this collection while also returning to my earlier statement about the sacredness (and heaviness) of sadness in writing. 


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Some of my favorite quotes from my 5 star picks:

"I turn my bedside lamp on and open the novel on my nightstand. I will be in its world. Not this one." (from "Futurity")

"I wanted to know that I was deeply loved." (from "Her Kind")

"There is dignity in allowing ourselves to be more than the clinical language that describes how our minds work." (from "Her Kind")

"... the body I inhabited suddenly seemed to draw commentary from anyone and everyone around me." (from "What She Would...")

"We are two anonymous girls with heavy backpacks on a train, and what happened to us is a pebble thrown into an ocean, quickly engulfed and irrelevant." (from "At the Bend of the Road")

"... we take our bodies to markets and restaurants." (from "At the Bend of the Road")

"An exhausting message: a woman walking is always in danger." (from "At the Bend of the Road")

Orchids be crazy. Susan Orlean discovered this strange truth and deemed it worthy of The New Yorker article she ended up writing to shed some light on what's going on in the unexpectedly vast orchid world. This article, called "Orchid Fever," led to the eventual creation of this entire book, which I read alongside my classmates and enjoyed discussing. Because, seriously, as random as some of the information thrown into this book is, it's interesting and made even more intriguing because it's nonfiction. Orlean's writing style really grew on me, specifically how masterful she is in keeping herself as the author out of the narrative except for when it makes stylistic sense to make her presence known. Orlean physically followed a unique individual, John Laroche, around Florida to understand to the best of her knowledge what all the hype about orchids is. I got to the end of this book and found that, while I could see some of the motivations for orchid collecting and general obsession, reading about people spending copious amounts of money, emotional energy, and time on the fostering of this plant was fascinating. I also just learned an absurd amount of cool stuff about orchids I wouldn't have otherwise known that I do now. It's a whole world I'm not a part of (most people aren't), but deserves the recognition Orlean gives it. So much of the research she did to understand the history of "orchid fever" was fascinating too: early explorers, Floridian history, the Fakahatchee Strand, and key people on the current orchid scene (current to the late 90s, at least), just to name a few. Nonfiction isn't my preferred genre, but nonfiction books like this one with characters that seem more like caricatures and carefully constructed narratives grounded in thorough research are so so cool and writing I aspire to become better at in the future. I'll say it again: orchids be crazy.



One of my favorite quotes from The Orchid Thief:

"... most people in some way or another do strive for something exceptional, something to pursue, even at their peril, rather than abide an ordinary life." 

Grad school's really proven to be a great place to come in contact with some amazing authors and amazing works I may have not otherwise read. Davon Loeb, author of The In-Betweens, came to my university as a visiting author this week and truly made the experience of reading his lyrical memoir all the more meaningful. We read his book in one of my classes to prepare for his visit, and the conversation we had concerning his craft moves, approach to childhood, adolescence, and race, and tone were so fulfilling. Interacting with Davon was even more fulfilling; he is a teacher as well as writer, and an individual who made his gratitude to be with and offer us wisdom clear. I'm not primarily a writer of nonfiction, but I've developed an interest and fond for the genre over the past four years or so and begun to more seriously approach writing my own creative nonfiction essays. Getting to hear about how Davon went about capturing his coming of age story through his biracial perspective was inspiring in every sense of the word. He advocates for finding the universality in even the most individualistic of experiences, empowering writers to tell their variety of stories. I'm incredibly grateful for the feedback Davon was able to give me on one of my own nonfiction pieces near and dear to my heart. As I talked with him, he gave me the fantastic advice to try rewriting the piece as a fictional story to remove myself from the vulnerable narrative I've been struggling to tell in the essay as it currently is. That advice just settled on me immediately and made so much sense, so that whenever I'm able to devote time to editing the piece, I feel like I have a sense of direction I haven't been able to find before. From reading Davon's memoir, it's clear he is a writer who cares about giving language to his stark childhood experiences that, even as a white woman, instigated memories of both joyful and painful moments in my own upbringing that looked very different. It's a brilliantly well written, immersive, and powerful book I'm so glad to have read and discussed with its creator. Getting ice cream and chatting further with Davon as a group was a cherry on top. :) 


Some of my favorite quotes from The In-Betweens:

"I could say it was kids being kids, but it wasn't."

"I was the constant reminder that between the Black and white is where I planted, and I stayed." 

"Give Dad a pencil, paper, and a ruler, and he could design a house, cubit by cubit. Give me a pencil, paper, and a ruler, and I could draw our family and write our story."

"Our learning was always an experience."

"But I was seventeen, and I knew everything."