Books like Unbound — picked by fans

This book by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey is another book I couldn’t put down.

Two dogged journalists publish a report about Harvey Weinstein’s sexual abuses that helps launch the #metoo movement. Not only were the journalists brave in their pursuit of the truth surrounding powerful men, the voices of all the women who came forward when they were subject to danger for doing so were a testament to the power of true stories and women coming together for a greater good.

In trauma studies, Judith Herman is the GOAT. Truth and Repair follows up Herman’s landmark book Trauma and Recovery and cements her contribution to the study of sexual violence, healing, and justice.

Although The Body Keeps the Score became a surprise pandemic bestseller, it is Truth and Repair that updates trauma theory and clinical practice for the #MeToo era. Herman argues that justice is part of the healing process for individuals and communities.

Her feminist perspective on the real-world factors that enable sexual abuse is clear eyed and her prescription for how to connect healing and justice is ultimately hopeful.

I like this book because it takes on the troubling theme of consent in the case where one person is an adolescent and the other a significantly older adult. I think in all cases of this power dynamic, the confusion a young person feels when she is eager for the love and attention of the older man blurs the meaning of consent for her.I know it did for me.

Yet the truth is a young teenager isn’t capable of consent; she is unaware of the price she’ll pay for what seems like love but is actually abuse. When the perpetrator is a well-liked or respected leader, like a coach or teacher, the confusion is worse because we are all led to believe this is a trustworthy person.

Michelle Bowdler’s piercing question pinpoints the hypocrisy of laws that often favor abusers rather than those they harm. This happens so routinely that survivors speak of two assaults: the abuse itself and the revictimization as they seek justice.

Bowdler was the victim of a serial rapist in Boston whose break-ins and assaults terrorized the city. After Bowdler reported the attack, she was assured that the crime would be investigated. Nothing of the sort happened. Is Rape a Crime? pulls back the curtain on how sexual assault victims are treated by law enforcement and concludes with a powerful demand for change.

Although Sula is my favorite Toni Morrison protagonist, I’ve found the most profound revelation of power in the four women I consider the collective protagonist of A Mercy. Florens is the primary protagonist, but the communal self she forms with the others leaps off the page.

In a society where men value independence, I rooted for these women as they leaned into interdependence: Rebekka, white Mistress of the house; Lina, the Native American servant; Sorrow, the servant suspected of being mixed-race and feeble-minded; and Florens, the enslaved black girl taken as payment for a debt.

This multiracial cast pools their skills to survive in a society suspicious of any woman sans man. A Mercy seems timely to me as America still struggles to accept women and minorities as partners.

Lorene Cary tells her own story of attending an elite boarding school through a talent-search program for low-income students of color. Lorene’s experience shows vividly the costs of being a token in a setting of privilege.

This vivid memoir was dismaying to me as someone who wants students to have opportunities to realize their potential by having access to top-quality schools. 

A novel in verse with a thrilling magical bent, this book defied all my expectations while somehow exceeding them.

Out of all the books on my list, this one is the most blatantly magical, but the wild happenings are so woven into the contemporary setting that they feel believable. I also love how this book deals with two protagonists who struggle with depression and grief in different ways and find ways to support each other without belittling the intensity of each other’s suffering. Add in a satisfying plot twist, and this book is a soulful, brilliant ride.

This book brilliantly tells the story of the guerilla warfare that Black people waged against the purveyors of slavery in the antebellum South. It belies the White establishment’s portrayal of the compliant, intellectually challenged Negro who was content to live under the necessary guidance and protection of his or her master.

In fact, a sprawling network of underground freedom fighters developed secret codes, signs, and escape routes that enabled them to thwart the system that strove to keep them in chains. The book’s protagonist, Liz Spocott, is a “dreamer” who is able to see the future.

This book helped me understand that fiction writers are also dreamers, capable of seeing worlds that do not yet exist, and pushed me to join their ranks.

We tend to think about the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s as dominated by militant male voices. This book explores the rich contributions of black women artists to the movement—by amplifying the voices of women artists in their own words. The book is a collection of oral histories, drawing on dozens of interviews with influential Black women artists. Some of them are recognizable, like playwrights/poets Sonia Sanchez and Ntozake Shange. Others are less familiar names whose influence should be appreciated more fully. This is a rich celebration of the impact of women artists during a key period of African American cultural change.

I’ve always been an avid reader despite not having peer-aged characters who resembled or represented me when I was a child. Fast forward to when my children were little: suddenly, there existed a plethora of African-American children’s literature. With pure delight, I indulged my little ones in magnificent books featuring characters that reflected them. Want to know a secret? I read those books for myself as well as for them. Recently, when finding a young African American girl at the center of Looking for Hope, I felt a delightful connection with my inner child. Make no mistakes. The young protagonist, Hannah “Mouse” Maynard, endures a horrific life event that alters her existence, interrupts her innocence, and thrusts her into a perilous, mature journey that fails to diminish her abiding sweetness.