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The Sunday Post is a chance to recap the past week, talk about next week, tell you what I’m reading, and share news. It’s hosted by The Caffeinated Book Reviewer, Readerbuzz, and Book Date.

The Sunday Post #285

On The Blog Recently

• On Tuesday there was a book haul.
• On Tuesday I showed you the best book covers from 2021.

In My Reading Life

The final books of Nonfiction November!

I finished Unmentionable: The Victorian Lady's Guide To Sex, Marriage, And Manners by Therese Oneill. Like most of the books I read, I have mixed feelings about it. It's set up like a guide to the Victorian era for female time travelers. It tells you what you need to know about clothing, marriage, beauty, socializing, health, and travel. The writing style is irreverent and fun, and I love the old photos and advertisements. I'd make a terrible Victorian lady! It seems like Victorians were afraid to write about the female body, so some of the advertisements for women's health products are so vague that I have no idea what they're selling. Why do I need a product to cure "irregularities and suppressions"? What does that even mean? I hope Victorian women had nice friends and mothers because that's the only way they're going to learn anything useful about their bodies.

I enjoyed this book because it busts some myths and taught me a few things. My biggest issue with the book is how American it is. The Victorian era got its name from Queen Victoria. Why are we (mostly) ignoring the country where she lived? Most of the author's research materials came from the US. I found that disappointing.

For the most part, I enjoyed the author's snarky writing style, but it got on my nerves a few times. When I came across a fact I didn't know already, I wanted information, not jokes! I also think the author glossed over scary things (slavery, eugenics, mental health care, poverty) to keep the book light and fun. If you want to know about those topics, this book is not for you.

I had lots of fun reading this one, but it left gaps that I need to fill with less-fun books about the Victorian era. That being said, I will definitely read the author's other book, Ungovernable: The Victorian Parent's Guide To Raising Flawless Children. Maybe it'll help me with Baby Brooklyn. She's far from a flawless Victorian toddler 😉. Actually, "Ungovernable" is a good way to describe her.

Then I read a graphic novel memoir. (Graphic memoir? I think that's the correct term for the genre, but that makes it sound violent and/or sexy, which it isn't.) It was Hey, Kiddo by Jarrett J. Krosoczka. The author was raised by his grandparents because his mother was a heroin addict and his father didn't believe Jarrett was his biological child. The memoir is mostly about how Jarrett grew up and achieved his dream of becoming a cartoonist.

This book sat on my shelf for over a year because I love the art style, but I hate books about drug addiction. I didn't know if the pretty pictures would be enough to get me through the plot. Luckily, the pictures were enough! Drug addiction isn't the focus of the story. It's mostly about the author and his love/hate relationship with his grandparents. If you come from a messy chaos family (like I do), then the book is extremely relatable. I definitely saw myself in the author. (He's way more successful than me, though. That's why he has a beautifully illustrated graphic memoir, and I have . . . a blog with memes I steal from Pinterest.) I really like the memoir, but I think it's too long. It occasionally meanders and doesn't feel like it's going anywhere. That's my only complaint. If you're interested in the childhood of a professional artist, check it out.

Right now, I'm reading An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle For Domination by Sheera Frenkel & Cecilia Kang. It's about the behind-the-scenes drama at Facebook and how the site misuse the data it collects from users. The book is okay so far. I haven't read very much of it yet.

In The Rest Of My Life

Five things that made me happy recently:

1. If you celebrated Thanksgiving, I hope it was awesome. I ate a ton of food and played The Sims 4. Good times.
2. Now I get to decorate for Christmas!
3. It finally snowed. It usually starts snowing here during the first week of October. Then the snow sticks around until early May. I think we set a record for latest autumn snowfall.
4. I started watching Locke & Key on Netflix. This might be my newest obsession.
5. I finished shopping for my Secret Santa. Now everything is wrapped and in the mail. I hope she likes it.

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Take care of yourselves and be kind to each other. See you around the blogosphere!