Book Review - Listening in the Dark: Women Reclaiming the Power of Intuition

Thank you to Libro FM for an audio arc of the essay collection, Listening in the Dark: Women Reclaiming the Power of Intuition, edited by Amber Tamblyn.

Writer and actress Amber Tamblyn edited this collection of essays from female contributors centered around the idea of women following their intuition. The contributors are from a wide variety of backgrounds and many narrated their own stories on the audio version of the book.

As with many essay collections, Listening in the Dark was a bit hit or miss. I was impressed by some of the contributors, especially our current Poet Laureate, Ada Limon, who just has a magical way with words. I love her writing.

A common thread is the historic distrust of women who follow their intuition or speak out. For example, women labeled as witches for talking about their intuition and it being considered magic and not verifiable. We may no longer kill women for witchcraft, but the essays in Listening in the Dark, reveal how society diminishes women’s voices and perspectives. Personally, I believe in the power of intuition and have found that following my own has served me well in life, or alternately, done me harm when I haven’t followed it. I’m not sure that women have a unique form of intuition, however, I can agree that women are often suppressed or silenced, even in seemingly progressive societies.

I enjoyed enough of the contributions to recommend this thought provoking collection.

Book Review- Liza Rodman and Jennifer Jordan's The Babysitter: My Summers with a Serial Killer

The Babysitter: My Summers with a Serial Killer is a chilling 1960’s true crime book set in Cape Cod and is recounted by Liza Rodman with the help of her co-writer Jennifer Jordon.

Rodman had a chaotic childhood, raised by a neglectful mother who worked summers at a local motel. The motel’s handy-man, Tony Costa, was a young, charming man, who Rodman’s mother trusted to occasionally watch her young daughters.

Although Costa never hurt Rodman or her sister, Costa exhibit odd behavior, including taking the girls out to the woods where bodies of his victims were later discovered. Rodman didn’t even realize the truth about Costa, until she inquired about him when she was an adult, just thinking that he had drifted out of their lives. Many of Costa’s victims were not much older than the girls and many had been brutally dismembered.

The Babysitter is part an exploration of Costa’s life and his crimes, but it is also part memoir with Rodman analyzing the events of her childhood. It’s surprising to admit, but Costa’s murders almost seem less shocking than the neglect and cruelty of Rodman’s mother. It makes sense that the girls would find comfort in Costa, an adult who gave them attention and who was kind. Rodman explores this juxtaposition of finding out that someone whom she had fond memories of, was also a monster. It makes her question her own recollections of her childhood and her ability to judge and trust others. Why couldn’t she see Costa for the monster he was? The revelation of Costa’s crimes and Rodman’s inability to truly see him, shakes her to her core.

The Babysitter is a fascinating and shocking book. A must-read for true crime fans.

Book Review- Cecilia Rabess' Everything's Fine

Thank you to Simon and Schuster for sending me a physical arc of Cecilia Rabbis’ debut novel, Everything’s Fine.

Jess is a recent graduate working as an analyst at Goldman Sachs. Although brilliant, Jess is a new employee and the only black woman in her department. She is struggling to be taken seriously. She reconnects with Josh, a college acquaintance and semi-nemesis, who is also working on her floor. Josh is brash, conservative, and argumentative, also white. Although the two seem to have little in common, their debates shift in tone to an unlikely attraction. They discover that the other person is more nuanced and caring than the labels that they had assigned to them. However, this is 2016 and a historic election is about to impact their fragile relationship.

Everything’s Fine is a whirlwind of a book. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a female character working as an analyst and inhabiting this world. Rabess comes from his background and undoubtedly this influenced her writing and choosing this particular setting, but as a reader, I was fascinated. It’s not my world and I won’t pretend to understand all of the technical aspects, but Rabess’ writing is accessible and I understood enough of Jess’ career to not only follow the story, but to be intrigued. As a woman, I connected with Jess’s struggles in a male dominated profession. As a white woman, I listened to her struggles as a black woman in her work, but also dating Josh and life in general. The story was very eye-opening.

One aspect of Jess that will likely resonate with many readers is that she is young and struggling to define herself. This is her first major job and first adult relationship. She’s at that point in life, where she is transitioning from college to being an adult on her own, yet she does not have everything figured out. She struggles with people labeling her, even when she does not quite know where her life is headed. It is a time of figuring things out and lots of uncertainty. I’m in my mid-forties now, but Rabess took me right back to my twenties and all of the emotions associated with that time in my life.

I rooted for Jess and Josh. Their relationship is passionate and complicated, but also between two people who are essentially good, even if they have fundamental differences. There are also some steamy sex scenes!

At the heart of Everything’s Fine is the message that labels are destructive and that people can, and often do, change throughout their lives. Individuals are so much more complicated and diverse than society allows us to believe. I loved this book and can’t wait to read Rabess’ next novel. She’s a fabulous storyteller!