I'm glad you enjoyed The House at Sugar Beach!

What was it about the language in My Grandmother's Hands that didn't work for you? I haven't read the book, but looking at reviews it sounds like kind of a mixture of The Body Keeps the Score-style stuff about somatization of trauma, and body politics (which makes me suspect I can guess some of the problems you had with it, but I don't want to jump to conclusions).

I did! It was the perfect pick for Liberia! <3

And I overall really enjoyed My Grandmother's Hands and really appreciated that there are a bunch of actual exercises to help tap into and settle your body, and the way he talks about historical and past trauma living in bodies was super interesting. The focus of the book was on racial trauma and white body supremacy, but it didn't feel particularly intersectional--the author is a cis het man, and that felt like a limitation in framing. Though of course these exercises and concepts can be applied intersectionally I found myself wanting a bit more of that explicitly laid out, particularly as he dedicates several chapters to police bodies and the intersection of black/white/police officers, but not black/woman/trans/queer etc. He also uses phrasing such as "red and yellow bodies" which I understand to be in line with his use of "white and black/brown bodies", but that struck me as not appropriate language. And there was definitely some implicit anti-fat bias in regards to healthism and weight which rubbed me the wrong way. Which sounds like a lot! But the benefits for me did outweigh the critiques even if I didn't absolutely love it the way I wanted. I actually have The Body Keeps Score on hold at the library so I'm curious to see how that one hits.

Yeah, what you're saying is pretty much what I would have expected, because I've had a lot of the same issues with works dealing with body politics. Lack of intersectionality (especially in feminist body politics, where you quickly run into reductive attitudes about what "female bodies" and "male bodies" actually are), plus wording that can easily take on a dehumanizing, objectifying tone, even though the intention is obviously the opposite of that. But if you vibed with the stuff about trauma being held and experienced in the body, The Body Keeps the Score should be right up your alley!

There are SIXTY-ONE short stories in this one, and so far I've not enjoyed a single one... yay...

oof, rough!!

this "around the world" challenge sounds very cool! is it all the countries?

For my Around the World Challenge I'm attempting to read a book from every country as defined by the UN list, which can get complicated in terms of politics and what qualifies but I had to cut things off somewhere! I'm also doing 10 bonus territories as that brings my total to 208 countries which gets me to reading a book a week for four years to complete the challenge. :D