Adult Braces: Driving Myself Sane by Lindy West

I don't often choose to pick up nonfiction, but I used to read Lindy's work when she wrote for the website Jezebel, and the release of this book came with a bit of drama that had the internet buzzing for a bit. The upside of that drama is that it made me want to read it myself and form my own opinions, but the downside is that I definitely started reading it with an opinion already half-formed, so let's dig into it!

Adult Braces recounts Lindy's solo road trip across the continental United States in 2021, from her home in Seattle, WA to Key West, FL, and back again. It's a trip outside of her comfort zone, coming in the midst of a deep depression and the realization that when her husband, Aham, told her that they were polyamorous and that they intended to remain so after marrying her, they really meant it. And that's where the source of the drama came from - as Lindy did publicity for the release of Adult Braces, and people started to read the book, folks began to wonder if Lindy had been pressured into a polyamorous relationship (she, Aham, and their third partner, Roya, had come out as a throuple a few years ago), or if this was something she actually wanted.

After reading the book myself, I have to say that I'm unsure. My take on memoirs is that they are, on some level, a conversation between the author and the reader. The author is attempting to not only memorialize something about their life, but to also invite the reader into that life, and asking them to consider how they would react. Lindy also makes that point midway through Adult Braces, when she reveals that Aham was dating not just Roya, but another woman who violated the few guidelines Lindy had put in place when she and Aham had discussed his polyamory:

I could write this book in a way that would make you hate Aham's guts and pity me for staying with him. Or I could write it in a way that makes him sound tortured yet wise and makes me sound like a codependent freak. It's all true. All nonfiction is actually fiction.

Much of Adult Braces is stressful to read, if only because we're in Lindy's head with her. The bits she includes about Aham do make you hate his guts, even if that wasn't her intention, but she also takes her typical self-deprecating humor so far that she manages to come off like a codependent freak. Many of the chapters that don't directly recount her road trip instead focus on her mental health, as she goes through therapy, struggles with her self-esteem, and more. Peppered throughout are moments where Aham pops up, and what she chooses to share, doesn't shine that great of a light on him. From this, it's easy to understand why readers/commentators/social media posters would feel like Lindy was pressured into polyamory, and that Aham would only be into polyamory for all of the wrong reasons. Still, it's also funny in places, which provides some balance against Lindy's overwhelming poor sense of self.

If you're looking for a travelogue, then this isn't the book for you. While Adult Braces is structured around Lindy's road trip, the focus really isn't on the places she visits, though she does recount stories about people she meets along the way, hikes she takes, and so forth. Most of her trip is pretty formulaic - she camps in her ridiculously painted rental camper van or spends the night with friends or family, as she travels southeast to Key West. She doesn't have some huge revelation as she makes her way across the country and back, other than that with distance, she finds that she can think about opening her relationship with Aham to include Roya without feeling an all-consuming panic like she did while she was at home. As she travels alone, she begins to realize that because of her mental health, she was suffocating in a box of her own making, too afraid to try something new, and that fear includes being willing or not willing to a take risk in her relationship to make her partner happy:

Maybe the lesson isn't that I finally learned whether or not I wanted Aham, or Roya, or polyamory, or monogamy, it's that, for once, I ran toward the thing that scared me the most and leapt into an unknown that caught me and made me feel alive again, taught me to trust my instincts again, showed me that what I desire is to feel desire, to feel unafraid, to feel more everything, to be hungry. Maybe that's its own accomplishment, worth celebrating, or at least worth granting some space to breathe, and maybe it's all I can do to take one step at a time deeper and deeper into life.

Now onto what's really important, which is my opinion about the central theme of this memoir: Lindy's attempt to explain why she was finally willing to accept polyamory. My experience is very limited when it comes to romantic relationships, and I don't think I could ever be in an open relationship, but like a lot of other folks on the internet, I feel like there are a lot of red flags here that Lindy is willing to ignore in order to stay with Aham. It doesn't help that by focusing on her internal struggles and avoiding a full recounting of their relationship (admittedly, something we are not owed as readers, but also something that undermines the whole point of committing this to paper), we are left with what little crumbs she gives us, and those crumbs are moldy. There's a point in the story where she shares that she and Aham developed a routine where they would lay in bed together after waking up in the morning and only talk about good things. It's a cute idea, until Lindy explains that this was a routine they only started doing because she would wake up, begin worrying about a bill or task that needed to be done, share that with Aham, and that would cause him to panic, get upset, and then act distant towards her the rest of the day. I thought of that anecdote as I got to the end of the book, when Lindy shares that Roya is so good at taking care of mundane tasks, like paying bills the moment they arrive, or labeling leftovers in the fridge. I couldn't help but to wonder: were they actually building a more stable relationship by adding a third partner that they both share, or did Lindy just get an unpaid personal assistant that Aham has permission to bang with her knowledge (and sometimes her participation)? Perhaps I'm being too reductive by focusing on that.

In conclusion, Adult Braces is at times infuriating and humorous. I'm not sure if I could recommend it as a general recommendation, but if you also caught wind of the drama and are curious to read it and form your own opinions, please do.

P.S. I should note that the next book I read after this one was a monster romance where a wolfman couldn't stop wagging his tail any time he was around the curvy baker, and to be honest, that's the kind of love that we all deserve.

The Second Life of Mirielle West by Amanda Skenandore

Historical fiction - a made up story that is set in the context of actual history - teaches a reader about history while providing the rich satisfaction of an unforgettable novel. This novel published in 2021 scores high on both counts. 

In a previous review for this blog (September 22, 2025) I wrote: The best novelists are able to create a cast of characters who come from vastly different life experiences and are on differing trajectories when their paths cross and lives intertwine within the framework of a compelling story. I'm repeating that here because author Amanda Skenandore achieves this in The Second Life of Mirielle West, a story of a fictional 1920s Los Angeles socialite whose soft and self-centered life is derailed by a devastating personal tragedy followed by the contraction of leprosy. Yes, leprosy. 

With Mirielle, we enter the world of the leper colony - as they were called 100 years ago - and all the horrors endured by residents after they are forcibly admitted by law to what was in fact a real-life institution located outside of New Orleans for more than a century. Founded in 1894 and originally called the Louisiana Leper Home, it was the only hospital in the country that provided care for people with leprosy. Before a cure was developed, the fear and stigma surrounding this illness was ruinous to patients and families.  

The book's fictional characters are drawn skillfully enough that you can't stop thinking about them. Their sorrows and disappointments become yours while you learn about an astonishing chapter of medical history that most of us know very little about. That in itself is a rich payload, delivered in an un-put-downable story. A very worthwhile read as both a satisfying novel and an instructive bit of history.  

-Marianne W.

Esperance by Adam Oyebanji

    What happens when people start randomly coming up drowned... in their own homes... with lungs full of sea water? It is a mystery Ethan is tasked to solve, even now as a Chicago detective down on his luck.

   This book was one of those reads where if you don't think too hard or deep dive into any of the topics, its fun. It was entertaining as a run of the mill mystery, but it was somewhat superficial with the themes it seemed to be exploring even with the sci-fi components. These themes in question seemed to be racism, xenophobia, colonialism, revenge, and reparations... among others. 

    I will give it its flowers though, because there were many instances where it was somewhat funny and snarky with its dialogue, only so effective because of the context surrounding the characters. There was also sapphic relationship that was progressing over the course of the book, which was an unexpected touch.

    All in all, it wasn't the most groundbreaking read, but it's nice if you want a sci-fi mystery to keep you entertained for a while. Give the book a try and let me know how it goes!

- Leo

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

 

    "Half of a Yellow Sun" is a story driven by the lives of everyday people who are torn apart by a war, finding ways to not lose any more parts of themselves. The book takes place during the Nigerian-Biafran War from 1967-1970.

    It follows primarily three characters: Olanna, an Igbo woman with roots from a wealthy family who has moved in with her university professor lover; Ugwu, a boy from a village hired as a servant boy for both Olanna and her lover; and Richard, a white man from England who strives to be a writer and is the lover of Olanna's sister. 

    Each one of our characters has similar, yet drastically different circumstances because of their identities. We watch as they see the horrors of the war unfold. We watch as they begin to face these horrors on. We watch as they find everything under the yellow sun they can cling to to fight these horrors off. 

The books is elegantly written and is a classic among Nigerian literature, making beautiful and insightful commentary about race, ethnic disputes, politics, war, and class. I'll share my favorite line of the book that made me bust into tears when I read it, as I feel it perfectly encompasses the effect of war, especially in relation to the title:

"Darkness descended on him, and when it lifted, he knew he would never see _______ again, and that his life would always be a candlelit room; he would see things only in shadow, only in half glimpses..." 

Please give this book a read and let me know what you think!

- Leo

Necessary Fiction by Eloghosa Osunde

    Necessary Fiction is a story of stories taking place in Lagos, Nigeria all centering around a group of queer individuals. Queerness is something still somewhat taboo in Nigeria, so to see the community, love, and experiences of the group is a beautiful spectacle. Some of the stories even involve a more spiritual component, pulling from Nigerian myth and lore.

    The book scurries across multiple perspectives while also juggling nonlinear storytelling, often going back in time. Each chapter follows a different person within the group, with some being revisited after time has passed.

    I think this book was entertaining, but longer than it needed to be. Some of the sections could've been reduced or didn't need to be there, but were still compelling nonetheless. Some of the characters also seemed to try very hard to seem interesting, which given the circumstances, I kind of understand. But my biggest gripe was the fact that many of the parents of the queer folks.... were also queer? Almost all of them. I found that very strange.

    All in all though, the book was engaging and beautiful, with the primary luster coming from the love woven between the relationships, until it becomes a manifestation within the self. Check this book out if you're looking for any queer black stories, especially those of African origin!

- Leo

I Want to Be a Vase by Julio Torres, illus. by Julian Glander

 With its bold, aspiring statement title, humorously quotidian central figure, and vibrant digital 3D art, I Want to Be a Vase is a fascinating creation. It concerns what happens when a toilet plunger decides one day that it wants to be a vase. Confusion among the other objects in the apartment ensues, with the vacuum cleaner the loudest naysayer. 

The plunger's determination to become its own version of a vase frees other objects to explore more meaningful work: The stove pot wants to hold trash, the mirror wants to be a pillow ("a sharp, breakable, dangerous pillow!"), and the mug wants to be light (just light, not a lamp). 

The vacuum looses its innards over the perceived chaos, but eventually comes around when it realizes that when everyone has a job they are happy with, its own work can be accomplished faster and easier. 

It's a playful, nuanced story about self-actualization. Reading it to a class of children, I found it to be a little wordy and sly, worth really sitting with and exploring its ideas one-on-one, but I was delighted by the children's observations. One normally very sleepy and quiet boy observed of the first three pages (a view of a city at the foot of a mountain range; the city; the window in an apartment building) that what it was doing "was like a movie," which really seemed sophisticated for a five-year-old. At the end of the story, the Book itself tells the reader it would love to be a hat, and so we took turns with the students trying on different looks, which was a really fun way to end story time. 

-Michael G. 

Half His Age by Jennette McCurdy

Seventeen-year-old Waldo realizes on the first day of senior year that what she wants, more than anything, is her forty-year-old creative writing teacher. Her attraction to him is sparked by his honesty, his frank admission of disappointment in the way his life has turned out. It seems so unlike the evasions and defenses of everyone else she knows. His fine lines, his paunch, even his B.O excite her more than the slim bodies, pouty lips, and floppy hair of her previous lovers. Her pursuit of him is relentless. 

Former child actor Jennette McCurdy made waves with her best-selling memoir I'm Glad My Mom Died and Half His Age is her debut novel. By its very premise and aggressive/suggestive cover, it aims to shock and discomfort. 

As soon as I heard about it on the New York Times podcast I placed a hold and once it was available I read it in three sittings over the course of 24 hours. It's bitingly funny, sad, and thrilling. Waldo dispatches love, boys, her absent mother (who hops from man to man pathologically) with swift and merciless humor, and she herself is not immune from her own cynical judgement. Her binge-eating junk food until it hurts ("I've always derived a strange pleasure from the pain of junk food. Icees vacuumed up through a straw in less than a minute so the brain freeze hits hard. Nachos packed with so many pickled jalapenos that my nose runs. Kettle chips heaped into my mouth, my hand a claw excavator, forcing them in as their rugged edges cut my gums.") and filling online carts with fast fashion she knows she'll never wear are cyclical coping mechanisms for the loneliness and disconnect she feels. 

There is something in Waldo that is akin to the (anti-)heroines of Otessa Moshfegh's Eileen and unnamed protagonist of My Year of Rest and Relaxation: Disaffected and lonely, with an intelligence and humor that eviscerates. 

Will Waldo get what she wants? What does she want, really? McCurdy mixes a blend of unhinged and seductive to comic effect, creating a character and a voice full of desire and rage that is completely her own. 

-Michael G. 

Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash

After Catherine unilaterally decides to open her marriage, the Floyd family descends into chaos, involving multiple over-the-top scandals, each fit for an episode of a zany tv show. 

With its rapid fire wit and colorful characters in a harbor town, this family comedy shares DNA with the cartoon Bob's Burgers. The father fumbles his good intentions, the fabulous mother loves her booze, the daughters are fearless, wacky, and brilliant. There's even a larger-than-life billionaire villain. One of the side characters I loved was "War Crimes Wes," the veteran boyfriend of the eldest daughter who is a staunchly adoring man with no imagination and something like Crohn's Disease, which gives him a pained stoicism everyone immediately respects. Each chapter focuses on the perspective of one character, usually rotating among the family members, but including others, like Wes. 

Though the Floyds share a house, they each live largely separate lives. It is satisfying and lovely to see how they meet up in the end in a patchwork sort of way that affirms what a healthy family looks like. 

-Michael G. 

The Lion's Run by Sara Pennypacker

From a literary standpoint, our small library in Ferguson is not a sleepy place. In a steady stream throughout the year we add thousands of carefully chosen new books of every variety to our collection. Here is one that I immediately checked out for myself as soon as we acquired it last week; it looked so appealing. And what a story it tells! This novel - written as historical fiction for middle schoolers - grabbed me in the first words and drew me right into a tense and dangerous world: that of Nazi-occupied France in 1944. 

Thirteen-year-old Lucas Dubois - so named because he was found in the woods as an infant (dubois meaning "of the woods") - lives in an orphanage. Daily life is routine and tedious, everyone is always hungry, and a couple of the other boys are a constant menace to him. After he gets a job delivering produce to local institutions in his small French village, however, the quality of his life begins to change dramatically. The people this lonely boy encounters and the relationships he builds outside of the orphanage begin to elevate a life that had previously seemed to hold very little promise. 

The German occupiers in his village have imposed a suffocating stranglehold on everyday life. On his vegetable delivery rounds, Lucas begins to see things that disturb him. He sometimes hears secrets discussed among adults who don't always notice this quiet boy as he makes the daily deliveries. Before long, he has seen and heard enough to compel him to join the underground resistance to the Nazis. The more deeply this resourceful boy gets involved in subterfuge, the more dangerous life becomes.

The Lion's Run is categorized for readers aged 8 to 12. A good story is a good story however, and this suspenseful and beautifully written novel has a universal appeal not restricted to age. 

I have read many novels about the Second World War and I have hiked mountain trails on the French side of the German-French border, where some of that war's most vicious conflicts were carried out and where barbed wire, stone and iron remnants of it are still prominent along the mountain trails. In this novel I learned more than I ever knew about the Germans' systematically brutal and exploitive treatment of the French during that war. Moreover I found unsettling echoes of some of the worldwide threats on today's horizons: the rise of racial supremacy sentiments in both the US and Europe, fears about people's safety, the official aggressions, detainments and deportations of people the government deems undesirable, the increasing US use of government surveillance on citizens, and the race-based pronatalism expressed by white supremacists. There are echoes of The Handmaid's Tale in this novel, as the Germans under Hitler were indoctrinated that "boy babies are only future soldiers and girls are only future mothers of more soldiers." Therefore in order to replenish the German population, during this military occupation thousands of teenage French girls were systematically romanced and impregnated by German soldiers and then separated from their babies. 

In an echo of that human predicament, even the poor orphanage cat - "a good mouser" - was immediately, forlornly separated from the kittens she bore each year - though for the opposite purpose. I also learned things about horses I'd never known, and fell deeply for one particularly winning horse in this novel.

After extraordinary twists and turns, the book concludes with an ending that is triumphant for Lucas and sad for other characters. The story's end is a new beginning for him, leaving him with much more confidence in himself and his future. 

This is a book I didn't want to be done with. I want a sequel!

-Marianne W. 

I’m So Happy You’re Here: A Celebration of Library Joy by Mychal Threets; illustrated by Lorraine Nam

From award-winning librarian and the new host of Reading Rainbow comes this delightful book celebrating inclusion and the wonders of the public library. The colorfully illustrated book explores all that the library has to offer, including not only books but cooking classes, gardening classes, board games, musical instruments and of course, story time! This book will appeal to children 3+.

-Julie B.

Haircut Day with Dad by Monica Mikai and For a Girl Becoming by Joy Harjo

Ferguson Library is continuously adding new books to its children's collection. Two beautiful new ones tap into the love and nurturing that exist within circumscribed communities.
In Haircut Day with Dad by Monica Mikai, a child is taught what to expect at the barbershop on Saturday morning trips there with his dad.

In a Black barbershop, there is much more than hair cutting and shaving going on. As "the broom sweeps up endless conversations," a haircut experience feeds the soul and refreshes the spirit in so many ways that "Dad and I leave feeling like two new guys. I feel like I could win any race, and I feel a little taller."

A little of that feeling rubbed off on me in reading this charming book. It captures the remarkable richness of a seemingly routine experience. This is a book for a dad and small son or daughter to share even if the barbershop is chiefly the territory of the male gender. The illustrations are infectious, with particular attention to hair and to the variety of expressions captured on faces of all ages in the shop. It's a lesson for anyone on how to nurture a child's well being.



Another beautiful book - For a Girl Becoming - is by former United States Poet Laureate Joy Harjo. This one is about the joy the birth of a child brings to a Native American family and community, and the guidance children are given, based on spiritual principles of reciprocity and kinship with everything in the universe. A small example of the content:

"As you travel...remember this. Give a drink of water to all who ask, whether they be plant, creature, human or spirit; may you always have clean, fresh water.

"Give kind words and assistance to all you meet along the way. We are all related in this place. May you be surrounded with the helpfulness of family and good friends."

The entire book is written in this manner while the captivating illustrations enrich the written content on every page.

These two books are all about teaching the ways of the world in ways that simultaneously nurture children and prepare them for living in it.


-Marianne W.

Superhero by Marc Tauss

 

Maleek is a boy who loves comic books; he also is a scientist and superhero. When the city’s parks and playgrounds disappear, Maleek and his robot sidekick, Marvyn, save the day. Told in spellbinding black and white photos, children ages 3-5 will love this book. 

-Julie B.

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

"I am an old woman and my life has been some strange balance of miraculous and mundane" - wrote fictional Sybil Stone Van Antwerp, a retired attorney, in a letter to the real life Lonesome Dove author Larry McMurtry. Couldn't we all say that latter part about our lives - that they are a mix of mundanity and the profoundly unexpected?

I waited several months to get my turn with this novel after putting in a request at the library in the early Fall; it's been that much in demand since its April 2025 publication. The Correspondent has been called the sleeper hit of 2025.


The novel is structured as a series of letters and emails between protagonist Sybil and a number of people in her personal orbit, as well as a few well known authors she did not know personally including McMurtry and Joan Didion. In the first three quarters of the book there doesn't seem to be much that is remarkable about this woman's life: Though it has its difficulties and profound sorrows, it is also a fortunate and rather insulated life.

Sybil has always loved to write and receive letters. In retirement this inclination sharpens as she begins to devote several mornings a week to correspondence with a number of people. Curiously though, many of her letters ramble on and on with way too much information. The woman should have kept a diary to record some of this stuff rather than pour it so narcissistically into letters. The purpose of this unfiltered tedium of course is to establish who Sybil is, as well as to further the novel's trajectory. Still, I read with skepticism; she seems to lay bare her soul unnecessarily in so many of her letters, as do most of the people who write back to her. She even does this in emails exchanged with a customer service rep, crossing boundaries that eventually get the employee fired. So many of her letters to peripheral acquaintances are full of irrelevant detail. For a letter writer as practiced as Sybil is, this seems odd. Who really does that with everyone they know, whether close or not?

On the other hand the intimate confidences exchanged with her lifelong friend Rosalie who lives in another city are genuine and beautifully expressed, as are letters to and from her brother. I love that she and Rosalie end every letter with "I'm reading [ _________.] What are you reading?"

A lot of people love Sybil. But she isn't likeable. Her daughter doesn't even like her. She comes across as entitled, closed-minded, defensive, thoughtless, pushy - a regular Karen, to use a pejorative label from the current vernacular. When she meets an obstacle, rather than considering others' positions or points of view, she just keeps pushing to get her way. Yet she always does the "correct" thing when a social situation calls for it. She has superficially good manners, but thoughtfulness, sympathy, and empathy are not Sybil's first instincts. I didn't like this woman, yet after a few pages the book started to embed hooks in me such that I looked forward to returning to it each time I had to put it down.

Given these complaints, what hooked me once I'd begun this book? Beautiful prose, for one thing - even in inappropriately rambling letters. And: other people's stories that unfold in ongoing correspondence. Sybil's correspondence is a conduit to some emotionally haunting human interest stories. The Correspondent felt at times like a de facto collection of riveting short stories parsed out bit by bit in the letters Sybil received. These stories-within-a-story kept me plugged in throughout.

Yet toward the end of the book, at last I found Sybil's own story satisfying. In the last decade of her life she begins to soften and open herself up less narcissistically and more genuinely. She becomes likeable - but only after being confronted in various ways with her own rigid, reflexive thoughtlessness and made to see the sometimes devastating effects on others of her decisions and behaviors. Her transition is evident in her writing. After she begins to let down her guard, life gets bigger and very interesting, presenting her with the above referenced miracles.

I suspect each reader won over by The Correspondent connects a bit of their own experience to the emotionally resonant universal themes woven into it. Altogether a satisfying novel worth the wait.

-Marianne W.