Last month, I wrote about the challenge of making art in a pandemic, but let me tell you: I have had no trouble consuming art during COVID-19. I’ve always been a dedicated reader, but I feel like I’ve been devouring books left and right since I came home to stay on March 13. I’ve been catching up on books I’d been meaning to read for ages (like the incredible The Library Book, by Susan Orlean), but I’ve also been trying to keep up with new releases. For one, there are a lot of really amazing-looking books coming out right now, but I also want to do some small part to support the independent bookstores that are working so hard to keep our communities reading, as well as the authors who are bravely launching their books into this crazy, upside down world of anxiety and isolation.
Here are five books — all written by women — that have launched into COVID-19’s world, that I hope you’ll enjoy as much as I have.
The Life and (Medieval) Times of Kit Sweetly
Jamie Pacton’s debut novel, The Life and (Medieval) Times of Kit Sweetly, has been billed as a genderbent A Knight’s Tale, and a “smart, fun, feminist romp.” And it is all those things, but it’s also so much more.
This story about one young woman’s initiative to give girls the right to be knights at the Medieval Times-esque entertainment restaurant where she’s worked as a “serving wench” for years tackles feminism against the backdrop of modern poverty. Kit’s confidence and her determination and her vulnerability will be refreshing and familiar to any young reader who’s felt stifled by expectations.
The Roxy Letters
Mary Pauline Lowry’s The Roxy Letters made me nostalgic for Austin. Which is weird, since I live here. But not having left my house except for grocery pickups and dog walks lately, spending time at the intersection of 6th Street and Lamar, where much of the book takes place, felt like such an exciting, exotic adventure!
In 2012, when Roxy learns that Lululemon is opening at 6th and Lamar, she decides she’s had enough of corporate America ruining Austin’s weird, and she’s going to do something about it — while also trying to reignite her passion for art, figure out how to coexist with her ex-boyfriend-turned roommate, and not get fired from her job at Whole Foods.
I’ve seen this billed as a book for fans of Where’d You Go Bernadette and Bridget Jones’s Diary, and both are true. It’s got the confessional tone and strong opinions of Bridget Jones and the smart, sometimes rather dark humor of Bernadette. But when the Austin Chronicle threw A Confederacy of Dunces into the mix, they hit the nail on the head. It’s sincere, funny, provocative, and just the right kind of absurd.
Dancing at the Pity Party
I don’t usually gravitate toward graphic novels or memoirs, but I really love fellow Northwestern alum Tyler Feder’s work, so I was excited to get my hands on Dancing at the Pity Party, her graphic memoir about losing her mom to cancer. As with everything Feder creates, the book is heartfelt, vulnerable, authentic, and, of course, really beautifully illustrated. It’s raw and honest without being maudlin, and it touches on all the expected and unexpected facets of grief in a way that is equal parts serious and celebratory.
Little Universes
I got to write about Little Universes, by Heather Demetrios, for BookPage, so I’ll send you there for my full review, and I’ll keep it brief here. Demetrios gives readers two sisters who are dealing with the fact that life has been turned completely upside down. In their grief, they drift toward isolation, but they have to learn to come together again to find a new normal.
Kind of like we’re doing now, right?
I’m thinking this book may be exactly what we need to help us find one another in and after this pandemic.
Afterlife
I encountered Alvarez several times in school. I read In the Time of the Butterflies in high school English, and How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents and ¡Yo! in college, and every time I read her work, I was just immersed. Her characters, whose lives were vastly different from mine, felt like close friends, and she opened my eyes to other cultures, other time periods, other worlds, in a way I’d never experienced.
So I couldn’t wait to pick up her new novel, Afterlife, and it more than lived up to my memory of Alvarez’s work.
The central questions of the novel (and I’m borrowing from the book jacket here) are, “What do we owe those in crisis in our families, including—maybe especially—members of our human family? How do we live in a broken world without losing faith in one another or ourselves? And how do we stay true to those glorious souls we have lost?”
As Alvarez says in a beautiful video she posted on Instagram, her book — no book — can give the answers, but her hope is that Afterlife will make readers feel accompanied on their own journeys. Couldn’t we all use a little of that feeling right now?
What books are getting you through the pandemic? Check out more of what I’m reading on Bookshop.org, and share your favorites in the comments below!
This post contains affiliate links to my shop on Bookshop.Org, an online bookstore dedicated to supporting independent bookstores. Any purchases made through the links in this post will,, at no extra cost to you, provide me a small commission (and, more importantly, send money to local bookstores).