Hi friends,
September was a good month for our family. We celebrated Sarah’s first birthday, which made me kind of sad since my last baby is growing up, and we did lots of fun weekend activities with the kids.
I also got in a few good reads, including some nonfiction books that might be controversial. Let me know what you all think of these reads and if you have suggestions for what to read next.
Best,
Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up by Abigail Shrier
Rating: 2 of 5 stars
Recommendation: not really
Review: Buckle up, buttercup. I have thoughts about this book. I recently resolved to put down more books that I wasn’t enjoying. I have a tendency to feel like I have to finish a book even when I’m not enjoying it, but I’ve realized that there are just too many books in the world and not enough time to dedicate to finishing anything that I’m not really into. I think I might need to make an exception to that rule in some cases though because when I was reading this book I realized that it can be beneficial to read books that make an argument that you don’t agree with. In this book, Shrier argues that therapy can have negative side effects like any other medical treatment. She makes the case that these negative side effects aren’t often explained and that most patients don’t understand them. She then goes on to make the case that the increase in the amount of therapy that adolescents and teens have used has not helped alleviate the increase in mental health diagnoses. Both of these facts are likely true, but she then uses these facts to make a lot of conclusions and arguments that I don’t think are supported by the evidence. At one point she says, “Parents should only allow their children to take psychotropic medication as the very last resort,” which yeah, I just don’t agree with. There are lots of other arguments and advice that she gives parents raising kids nowadays, some of which made more sense to me than others, like not allowing children to have a social media presence until they’re at least 16, but I can’t really recommend this book to anyone because I disagree so strongly with parts of it.
Good Reasons for Bad Feelings: Insights from the Frontier of Evolutionary Psychiatry by Randolph M. Nesse
Rating: 4 of 5 stars
Recommendation: yes
Review: I actually saw this book recommended in a really insightful review of Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up by Abigail Shrier. I was trying to make sense of what I thought about that book, and one of the reviewers said that this book was a better way to understand mental illness and its causes. I have to say that I enjoyed this book a good deal more than Bad Therapy, and that may be because Nesse is an actual certified doctor and psychiatrist, whereas Shrier is a Fox News pundit. Anyway, Nesse delves into trying to explain why evolution has allowed the selection of people that transmit mental illness. It’s a fascinating question, and one that Nesse claims none of his colleagues have explored. To be honest, I always take these claims of “this was a total revolutionary idea that everyone else overlooked in the field,” with a grain of salt when reading popular science books, but I digress. In any case, Nesse puts forth a number of interesting evolutionary explanations for why mental illness has perpetuated throughout human history. One of the reasons that he puts forth is that people today are living in a very different environment than what our hunter-gatherer ancestors evolved in for hundred of thousands of years. Another is that some sensory alarm mechanisms, like anxiety, become over sensitive and are applied in inappropriate situations. He has a few sections dedicated to explaining depression and anxiety specifically and says that depression has not been selected out of people because it’s a helpful indicator of when to quit an activity that’s not resulting in achieving a goal. Likewise for anxiety, the ability to plan and prepare for the future can sometimes be taken beyond what is practically advantageous and applied to situations that we don’t have control over or that don’t present real risk. It’s a fascinating read, and while there’s not a ton of evidence to support all of his arguments, I enjoyed reading and thinking about why mental illness continues.
Second-Class Saints: Black Mormons and the Struggle for Racial Equality by Matthew L. Harris
Rating: 4 of 5 stars
Recommendation: yes
Review: This was in many ways a difficult book to read. Harris tells the story of how The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ended its policy of restricting people of black African descent from priesthood ordination and temple attendance in 1978. One of my biggest takeaways is that even the men that I sustain as prophets are flawed and have their own prejudices and biases. Reading some of the explanations for the policy that Church leaders put forth over the years was infuriating and baffling. Another big takeaway I had is how things can change even in a very traditional and conservative organization like the Church. It’s a testament to the wisdom of receiving ongoing revelation that something as major and signalificant as this policy can change. I was thinking of this in particular when listening to general conference today. A black leader spoke of his own conversion and struggle when he learned about the ban as a missionary only a few years after his baptism. I’m also reminded of a friend of my own generation I had in a previous ward who was in an interracial marriage. She told us about how Church members were still warning her about the now debunked “curse of Cain” teaching before she got married, so these ideas, while no longer taught and condoned, are still present in Church members. Another thing I learned from this story though is that people advocating for change can and have had an impact on the decisions our Church leaders make and Church policy. For me, that’s a really helpful and hopeful message as I continue to pray and ponder about my own questions. Harris is a great storyteller and he combines all of his historical sources into an engaging narrative. I highly recommend this book to all members of the Church. For me, asking and thinking about difficult questions regarding Church history and policy can be a faith strengthening experience if done with accurate and insightful context and information, which Harris provides in this book.
The Martian Contingency (Lady Astronaut Universe #4) by Mary Robinette Kowal
Rating: 4 of 5 stars
Recommendation: yes
Review: I have mixed feelings about this book. In this Lady Astronaut installment, Elma York finally gets to the surface of Mars with her husband and tightly knit crew. As it always does with space flight, things go wrong and secrets held from the first Mars landing expedition begin to endanger the future of the current and future Mars habitats. In this respect, it felt like Kowal was retreading the same ground as themes from the first three books of racism, sexism, and prejudice. I was hoping that she would go somewhere new with this one though. It is nice though to read a book where the protagonist is a middle age woman going through perimenopause symptoms. Ever wondered what it would be like to have a hot flash in a space suit? Me too. I’d recommend for fans of the series so far, but I think that the first two were better.
The Hidden Girl and Other Stories by Ken Liu
Rating: 4 of 5 stars
Recommendation: yes
Review: Liu is a story telling genius. I loved his epic fantasy Dandelion Dynasty series, but I hadn’t yet picked up his short story collection I was glad I did because it was excellent. The best sequence was a collection of short stories all set in the same universe but at different points in the future and with connected characters. Liu raises some great questions that sci-fi provides the perfect context to discuss including what is necessary for a human life to flourish? How do we maximize the human experience without overtaxing our planets resources? With AI seeming to take over our social and cultural discourse, this book has some interesting things to say about our relationship with technology. I took off a star because like with other short story collections, I felt like some of the stories were cut short artificially especially with characters just dying. Maybe that’s just a weakness of the genre, but I would still recommend it for fans of sci-fi and Liu.
The Magician of Tiger Castle by Louis Sachar
Rating: 3 of 5 stars
Recommendation: yes
Review: Holes by Sachar was one of my favorite books growing up, and I thought that the movie was one of the best book to screen adaptations I’ve ever seen. So I was excited when I heard that Sachar had now written an adult fantasy book. This book tells the story of political intrigue and forbidden romance but from the perspective of a third party court magician. The first half of the book was really good following our bumbling, bald middle age magician as he gets caught up in court politics and the princess’s upcoming wedding. The second half has a totally different vibe and the ending was weird but not in a good way. So half of it was good? I’m not sure I’d recommend, but I don’t think it would be a bad experience. It was just kind of disappointing
