The Best Book I Read This Month: The Satapur Moonstone by Sujata Massey

In the interest of transparency, I only read one book this month. Thankfully, it was a really good one. The Satapur Moonstone is the second book in Sujata Massey’s Perveen Mistry series.

The series is set in 1920s India, where Perveen works as a lawyer in her father’s law firm. Her position as an independent, college-educated, professional woman is unusual in her society, but it gives her access to clients that male lawyers could never consider. In this installment of the series, Perveen is asked to help settle a dispute between female royalty one of the independent Indian states.

The mystery was well crafted, and I enjoyed its twists and turns. But what I really liked about this book was the character development. The character building that was done in the series’ first book (The Widows of Malabar Hill) isn’t forgotten. Instead, it is used to provide tension between Perveen and a newcomer in her life. That tension is not completely resolved by the end of the book, and I hope to see that thread continued in Book 3 of the series.

The other aspect of the book that seemed particularly well done was its depiction of the intricacies of political relationships in India at the time of British rule—not just the relationship between the British and Indian leaders but also the way the British presence influenced the relationships among Indian royalty in supposedly independent states. I have not done enough research to know how realistic Massey’s depiction is, but it felt real and as a reader, that’s all I ask for.

The Best Book I Read This Month: Six-Gun Snow White by Catherynne Valente

The best book I read this month was the novella Six-Gun Snow White by Catherynne Valente. As you might guess from the title, it is a retelling of the fairy tale “Snow White” set in the Old West.

What struck me first, and what I fell in love with, was the story’s narrative voice. It is vibrant and colorful, as if someone were sitting in front of me telling the story aloud.

The cover illustration is equally striking, and the pen-and-ink sketches scattered throughout the book add a nice visual dimension to the storytelling.

The story itself is not a Disney fairy tale, either. It’s dark in places and does not sugarcoat the harshness of life in the Old West. The exploitation, violence, racism, and sexism of the era are key aspects of the characters and story line. In this tale, Snow White is the daughter of an unscrupulous white mining magnate and a Crow woman, and her racial heritage colors the way she is treated, especially by her stepmother. But this is a fairy tale, and after many trials and much tribulation, Snow White does find a Happy Ever After.

The Best Book I Read This Month: An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

The best book I read this month was a powerful work of nonfiction: An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz.

I’d be lying if I didn’t say this was a hard read. Hard not because of the writing style but because of the content. This is not the history that’s presented in school books, except in very token and superficial ways.

The book is relatively short (fewer than 300 pages of narrative text) and well documented. It recounts the mistreatment and murder of Native Americans and Native American efforts to fight back from the founding of the first English colonies to the 20th century.

There’s a tone of anger in Dunbar-Ortiz’s work, which is well-justified given the events she recounts. It was difficult to read the details of the atrocities that white men committed, whether in the name of England, or the United States, or Manifest Destiny, or just plain old white supremacy.

The book does assume that the reader has a working understanding of the major events in US History. For example, it doesn’t explain much about the founding of the colonies of Jamestown or Plymouth. It focuses instead on how the founding and settling of these colonies led to the displacement of and violence against the Native Americans on whose land these colonies were established. There is no fairy tale of Pocahontas here, nor is there a feel good story about Squanto and the first Thanksgiving.

Instead, the recurring themes of white entitlement and the dehumanization of Native Americans are hammered again and again and again. Because white America was relentless in its quest for American Indian land and blood. In many ways, it still is.

This was not a happy read but I believe it is a necessary one, if we are ever going to achieve any kind of social justice, if we have any hope of creating an equitable society.

The Best Book I Read This Month: Looking Glass by Christina Henry

The best book I read this month was a collection of novellas called Looking Glass by Christina Henry. The collection is the third book in Henry’s The Chronicles of Alice series, which are retellings of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland books. The first book in the series, Alice, is one of my most favorite retellings ever. This one felt very similar.

Looking Glass is made up for four novellas. The first follows a young girl named Elizabeth. As her story progresses, we learn about her connection to Alice. Two of the novellas focus on Alice and Hatcher (Henry’s Mad Hatter character). The fourth introduces us to Hatcher’s life before Alice.

Of the four stories, the Elizabeth story is my least favorite—because Alice is peripheral to the story and Hatcher doesn’t appear at all. For me, the Alice series is the story of Alice and Hatcher, and that was missing from the Elizabeth story.

My favorite of the stories was the novella that portrayed Hatcher’s backstory. While the story did not include Alice at all, it did provide a deeper view of a beloved character—and revisited one of the villains from the first Alice book. It was a satisfying visit to the past.

I highly recommend this book and this series, but it’s a case where the series really does need to be read in order. So start with Alice. You won’t regret it.

The Book I Read This Month: The Forgotten Girl by India Hill Brown

The best book I read this month is a ghost story written for kids. The Forgotten Girl by India Hill Brown is a middle grade novel about two girls who feel forgotten, one of whom is alive and one of whom is not.

I bought the book to support the Black Publishing Power campaign, an effort to show publishing that there is a market for Black stories by Black authors. (Children’s publishing, especially, is overwhelmingly white and those authors of color who do break through rarely get the financial and marketing support that white writers get.) The book did not disappoint, and I hope publishing does a better job of publishing stories like this one.

Iris Rose is a Black girl who attends a predominantly white middle school. Despite her leadership in school activities, she is often “forgotten” when it comes to public recognition. One night, Iris and her best friend Daniel sneak out to play in the snow and stumble on a neglected graveyard—specifically the grave of a young girl named Avery Moore. Avery also feels forgotten, and she latches onto Iris, with dangerous consequences.

I am well outside the target age ranges for this book, so I can’t say that I found it scary. (I do think a kid would find it unsettling, at the very least.) I did find the story to be engaging and charming. The story is effective on another level, too. It’s a kid-friendly introduction to racism, both overt and subtle, and to the nation’s history of segregation.

I highly recommend it.