February was slower than January, but I was still able to get five books in. Have you ever had the issue where, after reading a book you don't really like, your reading life comes to a bit of a halt? That happened with me this month, and I wasn't happy about that at all! I definitely struggled a bit after that particular read (I won't name any names) and felt like I couldn't get back on my feet after I (finally) finished.

But let's not talk about that, let's talk about my favorites of the month! Here they are...


Eloquent Rage - Brittney Cooper
Anyone who identifies as a feminist and believes that feminism needs to be intersectional should consider this required reading. I've never read a book that so succinctly addresses the myriad issues that Black women face, and how these issues need to be taken into consideration if we're to move feminism forward. Cooper is one of the founders of the Crunk Feminist Collective and her story (wonderfully interwoven with feminist theory, because the personal is political) is a great read.



Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude - Ross Gay
I'm ashamed that, up until I decided to go to a recent reading and discussion Gay did with another favorite poet of mine - Eve Ewing - that I'd never heard of him. In order to familiarize myself with his work before the reading, I checked this book out of the library. Now I can't wait to read everything Gay writes. Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude is a beautiful book of poetry touching on, you guessed it, gratitude. But gratitude doesn't always look like joy. Sometimes gratitude is earned through pain and loss. Because Gay isn't afraid to write about both types of gratitude, this collection feels real and true and beautiful in a way that the current and, frankly, capitalist discussions around gratitude and joy don't. Read it.



Whatever Happened to Interracial Love - Kathleen Collins
This is a bit of a weird pick for a favorite because, quite honestly, it's a very uneven collection of stories. That being said, the ones that I did like took my breath away and have stuck with me since I put the book down. Though Collins was, what we'd called today, a "creative" during her lifetime, she was relatively unknown as a writer until after her death when her daughter came across some short stories Collins had stored in a trunk. The stories are mostly set in the 1960s and 1970s during the struggles for civil and women's rights, and are told through the perspective of highly educated, middle-class, black women who often struggle between worlds due to class and education. Despite the age of these stories, it's a perspective that isn't often found in fiction and so overall the book felt oddly modern.

Other books read this month: We Cast a Shadow - Ruffin; What It Means When a Man Falls From the Sky - Arimah