This week Audrey’s Corner provides book recommendations from Sacred Heart students Jillian Reis, Ayasha Cantey, and Kailey Blount with themes of social justice and empowerment.
“What My Mother And I Don’t Talk About” by Michele Filgate
Michele Filgate’s “What My Mother and I Don’t Talk About” found me in a time of reflection. Home for the summer, memories of childhood followed me down familiar roads. Filgate’s short story collection is an ode to memory. It is a cathartic read. A reflection of our most complicated of relationships. Fifteen authors share varied stories of the women who gave them life, giving readers space to reflect on our own. In a time where motherhood is too often politicized, “What My Mother and I Don’t Talk About” humanizes the experience of womanhood. – Kailey Blount ‘23
“A Time To Kill” by John Grisham”
The book “A Time To Kill” by John Grisham is a heart-wrenching story that follows the path to justice. This book forces you to question ethics to determine if two wrongs make a right. Does the color of one’s skin change the level of justice someone deserves? This book gives you a lens into a world filled with hatred and chaos. But could looking at the world through a different lens change it all?
A 10 year old black girl is brutalized by two drunken white men. The men believed they did nothing wrong. With a corrupt justice system that was bound to let them walk, the father of the little girl decided to take justice into his own hands. – Ayasha Cantey ‘25
“DPS Only!” by Velinxi
“DPS Only!” is a graphic novel about a young girl, in the shadow of her popular esports champion brother, becoming a professional player while learning about how women are treated in the industry. This book pushes for female empowerment in a subtle way and in an area where women are rarely highlighted if at all. Esports and gaming can be a lot of fun, but for women who want to make a living from it, it also comes with a lot of ridicule and harassment. The book is also a graphic novel which is a genre that is overlooked as being more for children, so it is refreshing to see the medium used to talk about more serious topics. – Jillian Reis ‘23
