Whew was this hard to narrow down! I loved basically every nonfiction I read/listened to, but these are the ones that have stuck with me the most.
The vibe
Books / Headphones / Tabs / Pens / Notebooks / Sticky notes / Booklights
You’re going to want to take notes with these books and audiobooks!
The reviews
IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOUNTAIN by Silvia Vasquez-Moreno. Silvia has had 👏🏼 one 👏🏼 heck 👏🏼 of a 👏🏼 life!!! From being sexually assaulted and struggling to hide her sexuality/alcoholism from her super Catholic family to immigrating to the US for college and building a bad ass corporate career, Silvia’s life was forever changed when she picked up climbing mountains and decided to accomplish the Seven Summits and became the first Peruvian woman to get to the top of Mt. Everest!
The book structure is *chef’s kiss* — she alternates between the various phases and struggles of her life and ties into the narrative of her Everest hike, which begins with taking a group of sexually abused and trafficked victims along with her on the first leg of her journey. Through this storyline, you meet some truly inspiring women taking on a hike that is extremely difficult. Once they get to base camp, Silvia moves on and omg does it sound insane — the mental and physical effort she needed for her summit. I was on the edge of my seat!
TW: there are a lot… child abuse, sexual assault, human trafficking, suicide, alcoholism, cancer, homophobia, rape.
HOW TO BE PERFECT by Michael Schur. Calling all The Good Place fans! The show’s creator has written a book about his research into moral philosophy and what constitutes a good person. I loved listening to this book and hearing the cast of the show’s cameos!
Fun fact: I hadn’t watched the show until AFTER I finished the book. Now I think I’ll need to go back and re-listen once I finish watching the show! (I’m now on season 3!) Either way and order you consume them, the show and the book are 10/10 recs for me for edutainment!!
UNCULTURED by Daniella Young. First of all, all the trigger warnings. This one sat on my TBR for a minute before I was ready for the intense trauma of it — and I still wasn’t entirely ready. Sexual abuse, physical abuse — and so much of it. And as tough as it is to read…. It’s absolutely incredible how strong this woman is. Physically and mentally. She’s overcome so dang much and reading in her own words how she struggled through to take control of her own life made me so proud and I don’t even know her. Man was I rooting for her!!
Going in I knew this was going to be about a woman’s experience in a cult as a child, but I definitely did not know the cult or the extent of the cult’s belief. I think most of what I’ve read or watched about cults covers the abstract, not the detailed personal experience from a survivor. Wowowowow. 💔 I did NOT know the second act of this book was about Daniella’s experience in the military. She jokes that she left one cult for another, and the other one also has some darkness to it. I really liked this part of the book — a pleasant surprise to me! I was on the edge of my seat.
FRIENDS, LOVERS, AND THE GREAT BIG TERRIBLE THING by Matthew Perry. boy oh boy do I just want to hug Matty after reading this one. Never have I had someone so humanly explain their addiction in such a raw way. This book has a few behind-the-scenes gems from Friends, but know going in that the entire memoir is about Matty’s addiction and fighting for his life. It’s dark — with dark humor sprinkled in — but I am glad I read it. I feel like I better understand addiction. Note: read by the author! Highly recommend audio format!
THE SPORTY ONE by Melanie Chrisholm. Mel C is a true professional who totally had the ultimate rags to riches story — she wanted to be a star, and she achieved that dream faster than anyone ever thought she would. It’s what happened next that dulled that sparkle of her original dream. In her memoir, Mel C describes the rise and fall (well, really the small dips) of the Spice Girls. She sets the record straight and shares — for the first time — her own experience, both the absolute highs to her lowest lows. (There are some trigger warnings on page one — disordered eating, depression.)
Mel C is an absolute stand-up gal who shares her story so graciously and respectfully. Ultimately, the Spice Girls were about friendship, and even almost 30 years later she doesn’t betray that. I’m also just so impressed with the solo career she made for herself. Every single Spice Girl made their own solo album. Only MC made EIGHT!!! What an absolute boss.
CRYING IN H-MART by Michelle Zauner. This book ripped my heart open again and again. Michelle’s observational and brutally honest writing fully captures how intimately pure motherly love can be and how devastating grief can be. I believe anyone who reads this memoir will gravitate toward one major theme more than another — whether it’s the food, the mother-daughter relationship, or the grief. For me, it was the grief and gosh did it hit me hard. I know this book has been extremely hyped and I totally get why — it’s worth the hype. Just go into it cautiously because it might hit a little too close to home if you’ve suffered a significant loss in your life. Without a doubt though, it will make you super hungry.
“Hers was tougher than tough love. It was brutal, industrial-strength. A sinewy love that never gave way to an inch of weakness. It was a love that saw what was best for you ten steps ahead, and didn’t care if it hurt like hell in the meantime. When I got hurt, she felt it so deeply, it was as though it were her own affliction. She was guilty only of caring too much. I realize this now, only in retrospect. No one in this would would ever love me as much as my mother, and she would never let me forget it.”
— Michelle Zauner, Crying in H-Mart
MEAN BABY by Selma Blair. This one far surpassed the fun hollywood stories and celeb name dropping celeb memoirs usually have. Selma goes into such beautiful detail about her childhood and her unique relationship with her mother. She also shares her struggles with alcohol addiction, sexual abuse, motherhood, and multiple sclerosis.
I’M GLAD MY MOM DIED by Jennette McCurdy. Jennette McCurdy is best known for playing Sam on iCarly on Nickelodeon. Now if I was just a tad bit younger, I would have been obsessed with it. But I had vague idea of the show and it’s characters (summer camp counselor life). Sam was a larger-than-life, somewhat lazy, food-loving sidekick. But that couldn’t be further from what the girl was playing that character. In real life, she was suffering from abuse from her mother and at constant war with herself for everything she put in her mouth. Manipulated by religion and a selfish mother, Jennette was never truly able to find out who she was until her mom died.
This book is written in a way that you really feel like you’re hearing from young lil baby Jennette. It’s horrific the things her mother did and the enabling child acting allowed. This one was tough, but I just had to get through it to get to happy adult Jennette! We don’t get much from her but you can definitely see on IG she’s finally getting to be the person she wants to be. It’s heavy, but Jennette employs a dark humor that takes some getting used to. It feels weird to say I liked it considering how sad it is but I mean… I did?!
AMERICAN DETOX by Kerri Kelly. The $650 billion a year wellness industry isn’t making us well — it’s making us worse. Access to wellness is a privilege that the powers at be are not offering to everyone — specifically non-white, non-rich Americans. This takedown of the American wellness industry provides an opportunity for readers to detox — not in a $80 a day juice cleanse or a $300 facial type of way. But in a way that pulls back the curtain on a toxic culture fueled by white supremacy, perfectionism, and more.
The only way to truly be well is when everyone around you has the same opportunity and access to be well too. Packed with information, this book’s takeaway for me was how programmed we are by society and the culture in America. How messaging is so dang important, and how we have to question the role our privilege plays in our wellness.
LET’S NEVER TALK ABOUT THIS AGAIN by Sara Faith Alterman. Never have I ever read something that was just so perfectly ~my~ humor. All the stars to this memoir that took loss and grief and made a book that made me feel literally all the feels. 💕 When she was younger, Sara Faith Alterman stumbled upon a stack of sex books in her childhood home. Her parents NEVER talked about them — or sex in general. When little Sara peaked into the books — she saw the author’s name. These were books written by her father.
The subject of those books was never addressed again until years later when Sara’s aging father who lost his job decided to revisit “the family business” of writing books and taps his journalist daughter to be his editor. She balances this uncomfortable responsibility while slowly watching her father lose his mental capacities. I know this sounds heavy, and it is. But the Altermans love puns and wordplay and making light of tough situations. I too love puns and wordplay and cannot appreciate the author’s sense of humor more.
BookNerdalie 