What Am I Reading? – Chapter Two

Hi Everybody,

I hope you all enjoyed the last chapter of “What Am I Reading?” I actually got done with two of the books that I talked about. What better to do than to add two more titles!

Let’s get started!

The first novel on the reading block is The Gown: A Novel of the Royal Wedding by Jennifer Robson. It’s a historical fiction book that takes place in 1947 London, and it’s about two embroiderers – Ann Hughes and Miriam Dassin – who are chosen to take part in creating Princess Elizabeth’s wedding gown. Meanwhile, in 2016 Toronto, Heather Mackenzie tries to unravel a mystery of a set of embroidered flowers that her grandmother possessed. It just so happens that they resemble quite closely to the ones seen on Queen Elizabeth II’s wedding dress.

I literally started this book today, and so far, it’s pretty interesting. I feel like it’s one of those novels that grabs people’s attention by simply describing or showing a dress, yet it will show that it’s more than that. I have a similar reaction every time I think of the times that I watched Gone With the Wind. I can’t wait to see where it takes these storylines. Also, I have to point out that The Gown is a great title. Usually, whenever I see titles that have “The _____”, I make fun them because of how vague they are (see The Child review for reference). However, in this case, that title signifies importance of a specific dress. Also, I enjoy saying “The Gown” like an artistic movie director describing their mindsets while filming.

Marisa Calin narrates the audiobook, and so far, she does a great job of maintaining English, French, and Canadian accents.

The second and last book on the reading block is White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo (a white woman). This talks about white fragility – defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, how it protects racial inequality, and what can be done in order to have meaningful conversations about race.

As I have mentioned in my The Hate U Give book review, many people have decided to read books to understand racial prejudice against black people. This was part of the reason why I wanted to read this specific title. Another reason was that I have seen both praise and criticism of how the book handles its very “sensitive” topic, and I would like to see where both sides are coming from. So far, the book is informative with a lot cited sources, but as a warning, this is written for white people for good reasons.

And that, we come to the end of the second chapter of “What Am I Reading?”

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