This past year I decided to take a little bit of a break from parenting books and found a few moments here and there to read some really good fiction and memoirs by some amazingly talented women authors.

books

1) The first book I read in 2015 that really left a strong impression on me was Lynsey Addario’s memoir It’s What I do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War. The book garnered a lot of attention for its honest and compelling portrayal of a young American female photographer who traveled to the most dangerous areas in the world to document the suffering and tragedy of life in war zones and refugee camps.

Addario’s memoir is actually being made into a movie directed by Steven Spielberg starring Jennifer Lawrence. I’m not surprised, as her life story offers such a powerful inspiration to anyone who has a desire to make a meaningful impact in their professional lives, as well as simply find a broader perspective outside of one’s own individual comfortable existence.

The book delves into the details of her most unbelievable experiences, such as her kidnapping in Libya in 2011 and her continued commitment to her work, even while she was pregnant with her first child. There is a moment Addario describes when she is running into a crowd in Gaza to document a prisoner release and when she finds herself in physical danger, she points to her belly and begins shouting “Baby!” Miraculously, her quick thinking works and she is protected by the crowd when they realize she is pregnant.

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I loved her book so much that when I found out she was giving a talk in downtown Chicago one evening, I tried my best to get there to meet this incredible woman in person and hear more about her amazing life experiences. Unfortunately, lack of childcare and traffic prevented me from making it, and I remember laughing with a friend that while the author was able to travel all over the world as a wartime photojournalist, we suburban moms were unable to even make it down to the city on a weekday evening. At least we were able to live vicariously by reading her book.

2) The Girl Who Slept with God by first-time novelist Val Brelinski was another amazing and unexpected find from this past year. I had gotten out of the habit of reading fiction, but this novel really drew me in with its interesting premise and sympathetic characters.

It’s a coming-of-age story about a strong-willed fourteen year old girl growing up in a fundamentalist family in the 1970s, and her attempt to make sense of life when her tight-knit, religious family begins unraveling. The well-drawn, believable characters are both sympathetic and agonizingly realistic with all their flaws, weaknesses, and passions.

Perhaps it’s just because of its unique setting, but everything about this book surprised me in a good way. The plot, the characters, and the relationship between the protagonist and her strict, overbearing father, her mother who falls into a deep depression, and her older sister who goes to Mexico as a missionary and returns mysteriously pregnant.

Growing up in a conservative Christian family, there were some aspects of the novel that I strangely identified with, but the extreme situations that these characters faced because of their values and religious beliefs truly kept me engrossed in this particular family’s life and in discovering the consequences of their extreme decisions.

3) We Never Asked for Wings by Vanessa Diffenbaugh was another novel that I read in just a few days. In some ways, it was more of a light-hearted read, although the subject matter covered such tough topics as illegal immigration, single motherhood, and economic inequality.

Diffenbaugh, who also wrote the best-selling The Language of Flowers, writes simply and beautifully, drawing you in with her main character who is a young working mom with two kids struggling to make ends meet and to overcome her past mistakes.

I found her story of redemption hopeful, inspiring, and enjoyable to read. It really made me reflect on how difficult parenting can be, especially when you are trying to find your own identity at the same time and are still learning how to accept responsibility for your choices in life. Through the character of the teenage son in particular, you really begin to see how much the mother’s decisions have affected the outcome of her child’s future as he struggles to create a successful and meaningful life for himself.

4) A Window Opens by Elisabeth Egan was another novel that just seemed to come into my life at the right time. Although it is written as fiction, the main character’s journey closely resembles the life of author Elisabeth Egan, who left a job as a book editor at Self magazine to work briefly at Amazon. Her novel is the story of a mother of three who decides to go from a comfortable part-time position at a women’s magazine into a demanding and exhausting career at a digital publishing company when her husband’s job is in jeopardy.

To make things more complicated for the protagonist, her father is battling recurring throat cancer and does not have much time left with his kids and grandkids. This book really hit so close to home for me, and while the humor and quick pacing made it easy to read, there were definitely moments that I shed a few tears as I thought about my struggles trying to maintain a work-life balance and spend time with my own father and kids.

I distinctly remember more than one night where I definitely should have been working or sleeping but ended up staying late just to finish this book because it simply gave me a chance to reflect and escape at the same time.

5) M Train by Patti Smith was the last memoir I read in 2015. I was standing in the children’s section of our library waiting for my four-year-old to finish playing on the iPad when I saw this book strategically placed in a corner with a sign that read, “Parents need to read too!” Can I just tell you how much I love whoever the librarian was who came up with that sign and display?

I honestly knew very little about the talented Patti Smith prior to reading M Train, but reading her book was such a refreshing and inspiring experience. She really gives you a perspective into the mind and life of a true artist. Even as a wife and mother, she seems to embrace the free-spiritedness of being an artist and the creativity that seems to spring from the most unusual places.

Her writing is poetic and falls into a kind of stream-of-consciousness style at times, and jumps around in time and place. But somehow it all works together, combined with her polaroid photographs of significant moments, objects, and places in her life. It was the perfect book to end out the year, as it left me yearning a bit to get out of my comfort zone and refocus on the things that make me feel most alive and inspired.

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What were some of the best fiction and nonfiction books you read this year? I’d love to add more to my reading list for the new year