This isn’t her first John Grogan book. She’s on a quest to score over 100 AR points at sch…

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Full disclosure, I slid into Belle’s DM’s in January after seeing a blurb about it in Real Simple— my favorite magazine- and she was really sweet and receptive about coming onto the podcast and gave me her publicist’s info and then… crickets. I circled back with her hoping to push the needle and I never heard back from her. Look, I get it, I’m a small but mighty podcast and freaking Oprah was calling, but still I felt a little slighted. So I was like, well… fine there are so many other women’s memoirs out there, women who are coming on the show that I need to focus on… so I did. But I kept getting asked about it Strangers. It was everywhere. The book of the moment and when you have a women’s memoir podcast and a women’s memoir is the book of the moment… you gotta read it.

So I did. And it’s well-written and jaw dropping and a peek into a very privileged world. Belle balances her expected reaction with how she wants to go about this life-shattering event in a calculated— excuse me, poised— way.

Personally, I wanted more anger. When I read how callously her husband literally walked away from their entire life, including their children, only to come after Belle’s money later…

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Growing up, you think, that won't happen to me. I’ll hang out only with boys I trust. I’ll cover my red solo cup at parties. I’ll stay away from dark alley ways and keep my wits about me.

You didn’t realize it could be fathers. Uncles. Brothers. Cousins. Aunts.
You didn’t know it might be teachers. Principals. Priests. Bishops. Coaches.

Though you were smart enough to not fall for the “she deserved it because she was wearing that or doing that” bullshit, it always felt like someone who would potentially sexually assault another person would be obvious about it. You didn’t know about grooming. Power dynamics. Secrets. Fear.

You didn’t know.

Nearly every minute,

someone in the U.S. is sexually assaulted. Every nine minutes, that someone is a child.

An estimated 443K people age 12+ experience sexual violence each year in the U.S.

And then, one day, a hashtag pops up online. Though founded in 2006, it gains traction after an actress is courageous enough to speak up against one of Hollywood’s elite. More people come forward. About other men. Some of them will be ‘cancelled.’ Some of them will be defended. Some of them will go to jail.

It feels like a victory.

And then, one day, a man is elected president who is caught on a hot mic saying he just grabs women by the pussy, whenever he wants. Because he has that kind of power.

And you wonder if the victory is short lived.

And then, one day, a woman comes forward during the confirmation hearing of a potential Supreme Court Justice. And then another woman. And another woman. The Justice is confirmed. The women’s families are threatened.

And then, one day, a man is arrested. And people start talking about a list. A list of names of high profile men and women who have aided this man in unthinkable acts of violence and violation against young girls and women. And one name is redacted time and time again, in an effort to protect that person from what his supporters would call a witch hunt. And you feel sick because you wonder why no one cares about protecting the children he sexually abused? He raped?

And the victory, you realize was short lived.

And then, one day, you have a daughter. A baby girl so precious that your heart literally aches when you think about how much you love her. How much the idea of anyone causing her any once of pain fills you with equal parts hate and equal parts fear. And you will wonder how you can protect her? How can change the culture? How can you help make the world see?

This month is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. All I can do is share the stories of the women who have found strength and healing in sharing their own.

This is not a complete list, but it’s a start. If you can, I invite you bear witness to their stories. If you can, I invite you to donate to rainn.org, an organization that provides free support 24/7 for any victims of sexual assault or abuse.

Thank you for being here
Xx, Alex

p.s. I know it’s Tuesday! Monday got away from me…

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yes yes yes

Sometimes, I can’t help but wonder… how did I get here?

As an only child, I was obsessed with the idea of having that one person who chose me the way I imagined siblings chose each other. I was quick to claim the coveted “best friends for forever ” status (solidify it with half of a broken heart necklace or bracelet? yes please!) and very much in the vain of Mindy Kaling’s Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, I would feel worried or jealous when I discovered that they (GASP!) had other people they chose to spend time with.

Fortunately, I got that dependency demon under control, with the help of tough love and therapy. I learned to… (CHEESE INCOMING) be my own best friend. I stopped needing constant validation and reminders of love from my friends and started enjoying spending time with myself. For me, my friendships morphed from desperate, selfish, and needy relationships to ones where I was happy to give my time, my energy, my love. No strings attached. No conditions. No balancing the check book. (If you don’t know what this means… wow, I’m old.)

This doesn’t mean I am a doormat and that no reciprocity exists. Quite the opposite. Because I’ve learned to value myself and my time, the people I choose to spend that time and energy on… understand my value too.

I feel really lucky. I have incredible women in my life that span generations. We see each other and choose each other, like we have all chosen our romantic partners. We respect each other and communicate through the bumps in the road. We don’t expect mind reading or perfection and we know that the love is there… even if we haven’t talked in a while.

And they have shown up for me in this venture in the most incredible ways. Their time, their voices, their wisdom, their regrets.

This is your sign to call or text your bestie— tell them you love them, you’re grateful for them. Maybe they’ll text right back or maybe they’ll see it in the middle of a million things, smile, make a mental note to respond when they can… and completely forget. And that’s okay, too.

Thank you to my incredible friends who are on this journey with me.

Here are four great memoirs with beautiful themes or sections on friendship. You can click on the books to purchase from my affiliate shop on bookshop.org.

And if you need a little help on how to start making deeper connections, this memoir and episode is a great place to start! (And how we started Babes in Bookland!)

Xx,
Alex

At 2:30 a.m. on July 11, 2020, Jen Hatmaker woke up to her husband of twenty-six years whispering into his phone to another woman from their bed. It was the end of life as she knew it. In the months that followed, she went from being a shiny, funny, popular leader to a divorced wreck on antidepressants and antianxiety meds, parenting five kids alone with no clue about the functioning of her own bank accounts. Having led millions of women for over a decade—urging them to embrace authenticity, find radical agency, and create healthy relationship—she felt like a catastrophic failure.

In Awake, Jen shares for the first time what happened when she found herself completely lost at sea—and how she made it to shore. In candid, sur­prisingly funny vignettes spanning forty years of girlhood, marriage, and parenting, Jen lays bare the disorienting upheaval of midlife—the implosion of a marriage, the unraveling of religious and cultural systems, and the grief that accompanies change you didn’t ask for. And, drawing on all resources—from without and within—Jen dares to question the systems beneath the whole house of cards, and to reckon with the myths, half-truths, and lies that brought her to this point.

More than one woman’s story, Awake is a critical analysis of the story given to all of us: the story of gender limitations, religious subservience, body shame, self-erasure. With refreshing candor, Jen explores a midlife renaissance—grieving what’s lost, cherishing possibility, and entering the second half of life wide awake.

When Kim Sunvee was three years old, her mother took her to a marketplace, deposited her on a bench with a fistful of food, and promised she'd be right back. Three days later a policeman took the little girl, clutching what was now only a fistful of crumbs, to a police station and told her that she'd been abandoned by her mother.

Fast-forward almost 20 years and Kim's life is unrecognizable. Adopted by a young New Orleans couple, she spends her youth as one of only two Asian children in her entire community. At the age of 21, she becomes involved with a famous French businessman and suddenly finds herself living in France, mistress over his houses in Provence and Paris, and stepmother to his eight year-old daughter.

Kim takes readers on a lyrical journey from Korea to New Orleans to Paris and, along the way serving forth her favorite recipes. A love story at heart, this memoir is about the search for identity and a book that will appeal to anyone who is passionate about love, food, travel, and the ultimate search for self.

From despoiling an exhibit at the Natural History Museum to provoking the ire of her first boss to siccing the cops on her mysterious neighbor, Crosley can do no right despite the best of intentions -- or perhaps because of them. Together, these essays create a startlingly funny and revealing portrait of a complex and utterly recognizable character who aims for the stars but hits the ceiling, and the inimitable city that has helped shape who she is. I Was Told There'd Be Cake introduces a strikingly original voice, chronicling the struggles and unexpected beauty of modern urban life.

Kimmel shines the spotlight on her remarkable mother, Delonda. Courageous and steadfast, Delonda finally realized that she could change her life, and she got up off the funky couch in the den, bought a beat-up flower power VW bug (and then learned to drive it), and went back to school, which gave her the chance to gain both financial independence and, at long last, self-respect.

A true pleasure for old fans and new ones alike, She Got Up Off the Couch is a gorgeous encapsulation of an innocent time when a child didn’t understand that her mother was depressed or felt stifled, but just noted on her way out the door that Delonda was a fixture in the living room. Kimmel captures the seminal moments of her mother’s burgeoning empowerment with the full strength of her distinctive, deft storytelling, and with the overflowing sense of humor that made A Girl Named Zippy a favorite of readers everywhere.

Mindy Kaling has lived many lives: the obedient child of immigrant professionals, a timid chubster afraid of her own bike, a Ben Affleck–impersonating Off-Broadway performer and playwright, and, finally, a comedy writer and actress prone to starting fights with her friends and coworkers with the sentence “Can I just say one last thing about this, and then I swear I’ll shut up about it?”

Perhaps you want to know what Mindy thinks makes a great best friend (someone who will fill your prescription in the middle of the night), or what makes a great guy (one who is aware of all elderly people in any room at any time and acts accordingly), or what is the perfect amount of fame (so famous you can never get convicted of murder in a court of law), or how to maintain a trim figure (you will not find that information in these pages). If so, you’ve come to the right book, mostly!

With several conveniently placed stopping points for you to run errands and make phone calls, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? proves that Mindy Kaling really is just a Girl Next Door—not so much literally anywhere in the continental United States, but definitely if you live in India or Sri Lanka.

Aurora James’s life is a great American “success story”—precisely because it looks so different from others we’ve seen. Scouted as a teen model, James struggled with body image and became disenchanted by the industry’s objectification of women and commodification of race. After she’d hit rock bottom, dropping out of high school and being arrested for street racing, she was forced to reshape her life. A slew of fashion-related jobs led James to discover the power of the runway, and she started her own business in a flea market: a sustainable fashion line showcasing traditional African designs that would become an award-winning international brand.

Already a rising star and trailblazer in fashion, she posted a revolutionary idea in the wake of George Floyd’s murder that challenged retailers to commit 15 percent of their shelf space to Black businesses. This became the Fifteen Percent Pledge, one of the fastest-growing social justice nonprofits. To date, more than two dozen of the world’s most recognized retailers have taken the pledge, redirecting $14 billion in annual revenue to Black and BIPOC brands.

Wildflower is the riveting story of how Aurora James made an indelible mark on the American economic system and a rallying cry for those eager to make change.

On September 24, 2021, Rachel Eliza Griffiths married her husband, the novelist Salman Rushdie. On the same day, hundreds of miles away, Griffiths’ closest friend and chosen sister, the poet Kamilah Aisha Moon, who was expected to speak at the wedding, died suddenly. Eleven months later, as Griffiths attempted to piece together her life as a newlywed with heartbreak in one hand and immense love in the other, a brutal attack nearly killed her husband. As trauma compounded trauma, Griffiths realized that in order to survive her grief, she would need to mourn not only her friend, but the woman she had been on her wedding day, a woman who had also died that day.

In the process of rebuilding a self, Griffiths chronicles her friendship with Moon, the seventeen years since their meeting at Sarah Lawrence College. Together, they embraced their literary foremothers—Lucille Clifton, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, to name a few—and fought to embrace themselves as poets, artists, and Black women. Alongside this unbreakable bond, Griffiths weaves the story of her relationship with Rushdie, of the challenges they have faced and the unshakeable devotion that endures.

In The Flower Bearers, Griffiths inscribes the trajectories of two transformational relationships with grace and honesty, chronicling the beauty and pain that comes with opening oneself fully to love.

Maya Angelou has fascinated, moved, and inspired countless readers with the first three volumes of her autobiography, one of the most remarkable personal narratives of our age. Now, in her fourth volume, The Heart of a Woman, her turbulent life breaks wide open with joy as the singer-dancer enters the razzle-dazzle of fabulous New York City. There, at the Harlem Writers Guild, her love for writing blazes anew.

Her compassion and commitment lead her to respond to the fiery times by becoming the northern coordinator of Martin Luther King's history-making quest. A tempestuous, earthy woman, she promises her heart to one man only to have it stolen, virtually on her weding day, by a passionate African freedom fighter.

Filled with unforgettable vignettes of famous characters, from Billie Holiday to Malcolm X, The Heart of a Womansings with Maya Angelou's eloquent prose -- her fondest dreams, deepest disappointments, and her dramatically tender relationship with her rebellious teenage son. Vulnerable, humorous, tough, Maya speaks with an intimate awareness of the heart within all of us.

In her memoir You Could Make This Place Beautiful, poet Maggie Smith explores the disintegration of her marriage and her renewed commitment to herself. The book begins with one woman’s personal heartbreak, but its circles widen into a reckoning with contemporary womanhood, traditional gender roles, and the power dynamics that persist even in many progressive homes. With the spirit of self-inquiry and empathy she’s known for, Smith interweaves snapshots of a life with meditations on secrets, anger, forgiveness, and narrative itself. The power of these pieces is cumulative: page after page, they build into a larger interrogation of family, work, and patriarchy.

You Could Make This Place Beautiful, like the work of Deborah Levy, Rachel Cusk, and Gina Frangello, is an unflinching look at what it means to live and write our own lives. It is a story about a mother’s fierce and constant love for her children, and a woman’s love and regard for herself. Above all, this memoir is “extraordinary” (Ann Patchett) in the way that it reveals how, in the aftermath of loss, we can discover our power and make something new and beautiful.

When Kate Gies was four years old, a plastic surgeon pressed a synthetic ear to the right side of her head and pulled out a mirror. He told her he could make her “whole”—could make her “right”—and she believed him. From the age of four to thirteen, she underwent fourteen surgeries, including skin and bone grafts, to craft the appearance of an outer ear. Many of the surgeries failed, leaving permanent damage to her body.

In short, lyrical vignettes, Kate writes about how her “disfigured” body was scrutinized, pathologized, and even weaponized. She describes the physical and psychic trauma of medical intervention and its effects on her sense of self, first as a child needing to be fixed and, later, as a teenager and adult navigating the complex expectations and dangers of being a woman.

It Must Be Beautiful to Be Finished is the story of a girl desperately trying to have a body that makes her acceptable and of a woman learning to own a body she has never felt was hers to define. In an age of speaking out about the abuse of marginalized bodies, this memoir takes a hard look at the role of the medical system in body oppression and trauma.

Wildflower is a portrait of Drew's life in stories as she looks back on the adventures, challenges, and incredible experiences she’s had throughout her life. It includes tales of living in her first apartment as a teenager (and how laundry may have saved her life), getting stuck under a gas station overhang on a cross-country road trip, saying good-bye to her father in a way only he could have understood, and many more journeys and lessons that have led her to the successful, happy, and healthy place she is today.

Which one interests you the most?
Xx, Alex

This has been an interesting theme that's popped up in the last month and the various memoirs I’ve read or covered.

In our first Bonus episode of the year (released for free!), I criticized influencer Elyse Meyer’s memoir because I felt was her focus on being too likable.

In my conversation last week with author on her forthcoming memoir, Selfish, (episode coming April 21st), we discussed how likability can be oppressive.

In editing my conversation with Katya Dunko on her memoir, I Drank from the Nile, I recalled how she confessed that she “didn’t want to be liked” to her writing coach.

My own relationship with likability has been challenging. On one hand, sometimes, ya just need people to like you. In high school, not being liked led to being bullied. As an actress, I’ve needed other people to like me enough to give me jobs!

But often, placing my value and my worth into other’s people’s hands has left me reeling with disordered eating, low self-esteem, and desperation. Who was I if people didn’t like me? Did I like myself enough for that not to matter?

I’ve made my peace with the fact that not everyone will like me. Age, wisdom, real love from amazing and supportive friends and partner helps. And this nugget lives rent free in my head:

I’ve had to— because it’s something I want to demonstrate for my children, especially my daughter.

And Kerry and Katy’s memoirs both show what happens when you stop caring about being “liked” and start being honest, open, and vulnerable.

Beauty. Connection. Growth. Memoirs that have the potential to help those lucky enough to find them.

It can make people uncomfortable (Kerry and I discuss this in our upcoming convo), but that’s how growth happens. It can also be inspiring. I told Katya I rooted for her because she exposes herself so much. (Our conversation drops next week! Make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss it!)

So what if we stopped worrying about likability and started focusing on vulnerability?

What’s “likability” costing you?

Xx, Alex

p.s. if you’re enjoying the show, please rate and review it wherever you listen. Thank you!

I get to ask really interesting, intelligent, brave, self-aware, poised women questions. About their books. About their lives. About life in general.

And I have major imposter syndrome.

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Often misattributed to Eleanor Roosevelt or Marylin Monroe, I always thought this was a rallying cry to be a “bad girl”— a girl who broke all the rules, wore what she wanted, smoke, drank, and cursed like a sailor. Promiscuous… maybe? A bitch? Definitely. A girl who could go toe to toe with whomever got in her way, a girl that would never let anyone tell her what she could or couldn’t do. A girl who didn’t care what anyone thought of her.

The very type of girl I was conditioned not to be. I was Baby sitting the corner, waiting for Johnny to pull me out and dance.

I didn’t realize I could simply… stand up on my own.

The truth was, I was in awe of this elusive type of woman. Because I wanted to make history too.

But as it turns out, this phrase wasn’t always the feminist mantra it is today.

It was coined by Harvard historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich in her 1976 academic article, “Virtuous Women Found.” And get this— it was merely an observation. In fact, Ulrich’s approach to history has been described as a tribute to “the silent work of ordinary people”.

Ordinary people, huh? I like the sound of that.

The 1976 article was about little-studied Puritan funeral services and in its original iteration, Ulrich used this phrase to indicate that well-behaved women were merely not studied by historians. She wasn’t encouraging anyone to be rebel or be more behaved.

But as it happens, things get taken out of context. Go viral (yes, even in 1976) and take on a life of their own.

Ulrich did eventually write a book called Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History, where she looks back at women of the past who challenged the way history was written. She ranges from the fifteenth-century writer Christine de Pizan, who wrote The Book of the City of Ladies, to the twentieth century’s Virginia Woolf, author of A Room of One’s Own. Ulrich updates their attempts to reimagine female possibilities and looks at the women who didn’t try to make history but did. And she concludes by showing how the 1970s activists who created “second-wave feminism” also created a renaissance in the study of history.

So where does this leave me? The girl who thought I had to be “bad” to leave my mark on the world. To shape history. To be remembered.

Well, since my youth, I’ve re-defined what being “bad” means. I’ve examined the ways our current society works hard to minimize women in a way that suits a misogynistic and capitalist culture. I’ve reflected on how puritanical values continue to mold rhetoric around women’s bodies and appearance and value.

But I’ve also learned that “making” history— shaping history can be quiet work too.

For me that looks like donating money and time when I can. Marching when I can. Raising my daughter to respect authority when it respects her. And to question things— me, authority, everything! I try to help her distinguish which rules are arbitrary and which rules aren’t. I’m teaching her to love herself and trust herself. I’m pointing out her privilege. I hope I’m modeling that women can and should be leaders. That kindness and compassion aren’t weakness. That she’s strong. That she’s enough.

(I’m also raising my son to have the same beliefs, though the world helps out with most of these, so it doesn’t seem as uphill a battle.)

I’m often borrowing this from Katherine Johnson’s memoir (a phrase her father repeatedly told her): “You’re as good as anyone, but no better.”

When in doubt, I turn to the women around me. Their tiny rebellions against the status quo. I turn to the women in the memoirs lining my bookshelves. Their large acts of rebellions. Their wisdom. Their history.

It’s Women’s History Month!

“Why is there no men’s history month?!,” some loser is whining under his red hat in an oddly shaped office. Because every month is men’s history month, ya snowflake!

I digress.

Shout out to President Jimmy Carter for proclaiming the first Women’s History Week in 1980. In 1987 Congress passed Pub. L. 100-9, designating March 1987 as the first official Women’s History Month.

Obvi, my podcast celebrates women and their history every damn episode, but here are few conversations that have some mini history lessons built in. I hope you find something that inspires you.

Xx, Alex

I had an interesting interview recently.

I was chatting with an author about her memoir and asking questions and she… side stepped almost every single one. These weren’t hard hitting journalistic queries. They were questions any reader, I think, would wonder. I was pushing her to go a little deeper, maybe, than she did in her memoir, but not by much.

And I was stumped. (Should make interesting editing later). I wasn’t sure what to do to get her back on track— do I ask the question again, slightly different this time? Do I push or no? I decided to just let it go and tried to continue my conversation and outline as best I could with what she was willing to give me.

It was interesting pattern of evasion.

I recently read and recorded a Book Club episode on Christina Applegate’s new memoir, You With the Sad Eyes. It was a powerful revelation of the woman behind the actress. Now, a few years into her Multiple Sclerosis diagnosis, she’s ready to tell the truth. She exposes painful truths about her abusive and tumultuous childhood and years of self-loathing and low self-esteem.

At one point, she writes that she has never once looked in the mirror and thought she looked good. Never once.

It’s heartbreaking and her memoir humanizes her in, frankly, an agonizing way. I told my friend and guest, Lizzie, reading her memoir was like watching her bleed. And I couldn’t do anything to stop the bleeding. I could only bear witness.

And of course, reflect on what her sharing experience was stirring inside me.

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Of course, a great first line does not a compelling memoir make, but in my experience I haven’t been too disappointed.

Here are few that have made me sit up straighter or buckle in.

Which one made you want to pick up the memoir?

I love how unique these covers are. Even the celebrity memoirs— Viola Davis, Crystal Hefner, Geena Rocero’s and Lisa Marie Presley (with Riley Keough)— all chose different, but still very powerful pictures. The way Crystal’s mouth is covered by the Title of the memoir. Viola’s defiant stare. The duality and sameness of Geena’s powerful profile. A young and innocent Lisa Marie and Elvis, cropped in half.

I love the juxtaposition of Erika L. Sanchez’s cover— the neon abstract paint swirl— and the depth, sometimes devastating depth, of her words.

Does the fire on Caitlin Doughty’s memoir look like a vagina to anyone else or just me?

I’m playing around with doing a series of last sentences, which in my opinion is the hardest line in a book, fiction or nonfiction, to nail. Especially for memoirs, though, when there isn’t a typical ending place to land on. Would a killer last sentence spoil the book for you or would it encourage you to read the memoir?

Here are our recent episodes if you’ve missed them!

This is my first Bites Sized Babes episode. I try to stay away from spoilers or merely summarizing the memoir and instead focus on my favorite quotes or any reflections and thoughts I had along the way. I’m open to constructive criticism!

And last week’s episode:

Can you hold two truths at once?

I sit down with author and sociologist Deborah J. Cohan to explore her memoir, Welcome to Wherever We Are, a clear-eyed look at psychological abuse, loyalty, and the quiet heroics of caregiving. From the first moments, Deborah names what so many experience but struggle to articulate—gaslighting, threats, verbal assaults, and financial control—and shows how a child’s devotion to her father can coexist with a fierce need for boundaries.

As we trace the book’s path through a pandemic launch, Deborah explains why a sociological lens makes memoir more than confession. She connects the dots between family dynamics, gendered expectations, healthcare systems, and the invisible labor that daughters and partners shoulder. Her years counseling violent men at Emerge, the nation’s oldest batterer intervention program, sharpen her insights: behavior can change, accountability matters, and empathy does not erase harm. That background also deepens her own reckoning with a brilliant, creative, and often wounding father.

Rather than preaching forgiveness, Deborah argues for something braver: ambivalence. Holding two truths—love and injury—without flattening either. We talk about staying present at the end of a complicated life, advocating from a distance, and confronting the limits of what one caregiver can do under debt, time pressure, and grief. Along the way we surface practical takeaways for anyone navigating eldercare, emotional abuse, or family estrangement: document patterns, set sustainable boundaries, recruit support, and learn the language that makes the unseen visible.

We close with the fuel that keeps Deborah moving—art, nature, movement, laughter—and a glimpse at her next project on her mother and creativity. If you’re searching for thoughtful conversation on caregiving, gaslighting, domestic violence education, and healing family patterns, this one offers tools and tenderness in equal measure. If the conversation resonates, tap follow, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs a little more language for their story.

I hope you enjoy!
Xx, Alex

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I didn’t watch the Super Bowl yesterday. As a USC alumni, I was rooting for Sam Darnold and the Seattle Seahawks (and was glad they won!), but I did pop in and out during Bad Bunny’s upbeat performance while I was cooking dinner. It was too fun to miss and I didn’t need a translation for that beat!

Before being named this year’s halftime performer, I had never heard of Bad Bunny. I know! I know! But somehow in last five years I’ve morphed into a 65 year old woman who prefers a podcast or two or the sweet, sweet sounds of instrumental jazz while I drive/ walk my dog. I’m sure I’ve heard his music— but seriously, there’s just been a lot of KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack and Pinkfong Halloween songs jamming in my house.

As the controversy around this (Puerto Rican! GASP!) singer (who will probably only sing in Spanish! DOUBLE GASP!) swirled, it really demonstrated just how angry people are at the idea of being exposed to anything out of their comfort zone. What does it say about me that even a year into this incredibly divisive administration, I’m still shocked but just how much it seems people love to hate? I’m not sure. I blame Heated Rivalry. That show has too many emotionally intelligent characters!

In all seriousness, I find myself constantly ruminating on this question: How the hell did we get here? And yes, I do recognize my privilege in thinking this. As many marginalized groups have pointed out— we’ve always been here.

In her NYT Opinion piece, Dr. Christina Greer writes this:

“Needless to say, these people are almost all white and liberal and are not used to feeling this fear of arbitrary, brutal state authority. But this moment, the one that was explicitly promised by Project 2025 and Donald Trump when he was a candidate, looks a lot like what my grandmother experienced every day for much of her life. It is frightening and disappointing but not surprising if one knows anything about the Black experience in America. And not the sanitized just-so version of the Black experience in which America skips from slavery, Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass to civil rights, Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks and somehow ends with a postracial America and Barack Obama.”

Here a few memoirs that speak to the Black experience.

As Bad Bunny sung and danced his way through the highest viewed halftime show in Super Bowl history, he didn’t use his platform to antagonize the people who antagonized him. His show oozed with joy and inclusivity and hope and yes… love. The message he left us all with: The only thing more powerful than hate is love.

It’s a tale as old as time, but what the world needs now is love. And if hurt people hurt people, then do people who love themselves… love one another more easily?

Which leads me to this week’s memoir. Author Amanda McCracken joins the show to discuss her book, When Longing Becomes Your Lover: Breaking from Infatuation, Rejection, and Perfectionism to Find Authentic Love: A True Story of Overcoming Limerence.

She defines limerence as an obsessive rumination on an idealized version of someone. On the podcast, we discuss the evolution of this term, the lightbulb moment Amanda had when her therapist suggested she had limerence and the way learning the word set her on a path towards a happy and healthy relationship— with an intimate partner, sure, but more importantly, with herself.

This quote feels applicable to what’s happening in our country right now. We can still be proud of and love America while recognizing all of the ways it has failed (and continues to fail) it’s citizens— genocide of indigenous peoples, systemic racism, lack of affordable healthcare, criminalizing abortion (to name a few). We have to acknowledge the wounds. You have to know where the venom is to suck it out.

It’s the same in our personal lives. We can love ourselves to change way easier than we can hate ourselves to change. As Bad Bunny reminded us, love is more powerful.

Amanda and I dive deeper into her journey on the podcast. I hope you check it out. Babes in Bookland is available wherever you podcast.

Xx,
Alex

Celebrate Black History Month with these episodes! (all are also available on Spotify and YouTube)

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This week, our instagram campaign covered “Motherhood: The Honest Version”. We provided recommendations for those first few months home with baby, postpartum mental health struggles, identity loss, solo/single motherhood, unexpected motherhood journeys and finished with maybe the most important one… mothering yourself.

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I always wanted to be a mom. Always.

But that doesn’t mean that the path to motherhood was paved with rose petals or that every day feels easy or that every moment I’m grateful.

Two days after the holiday break ended, my husband asked me if I missed having our son at home. I said no. The break had been long. It had been rainy. We dealt with some personal things. We potty trained. Honestly, once school was back, I sort of felt like I could finally breathe again. But still— my heart squeezed with guilt. Does this make me a bad mom? Because I’m okay knowing my son is happily playing at school and I’m finally able to get my house back in order? I brushed it aside— I know I’m a great mom. I am present with my children. I validate their feelings. I play with them and talk with them and— wait, why am I still trying to convince myself?

Mom guilt is so real. A phrase comes to me— yes, and. It’s the golden rule in Improv (is life just one long improv class actually?). Yes, and.

YES, I enjoy and love my son so much— I’m so beyond grateful and happy to be his mom, AND I enjoy when he’s at school. (I started typing “because” and realized this can be the full sentence.)

Recently, my husband and I went away for a weekend to celebrate our 10 year wedding anniversary. We left both of our kids in very capable and loving hands (with multiple family members who were ready for a weekend of play! play! play!) and set off on our retreat.

There, while I was laying by the pool, reading, it hit me:

I miss having no responsibility for anyone or anything, except to myself.

Not all the time, and honestly not even often. I thrive on getting shit done, and I love being needed by my kids (the dishes and the laundry, not so much) but sometimes, I miss the freedom of belonging to no one but myself. I realized I need these moments— without the guilt that’s usually attached to them. Because in a world where there really is always something I have to do, these moments are hard to fight for. Maybe that’s the part of “mothering myself” I’m still working on.

Motherhood is a transformative experience. It demands so much of you, challenges your expectations, takes from you, but gives you so much (everything) in return. In my most recent subscriber only post, I chat about the two film projects I’m working that delve deep into the motherhood experience. Let me know if you’d like to hear more about these or ways to support getting these films made :)

Yes, you can be thankful you’re a parent, and still want to not have to “parent” 24/7.
Yes, you can look forward to bed time, and miss them desperately once they’re asleep.
Yes, you can be so happy they’re asleep finally, and not feel bad about it!
Yes, you can fully trust the people watching your kids, and panic when they don’t text you back after a few hours. (Totally not a true story).
Yes, you can be thankful for the body that built the two little things running around destroying your house right now, and wish your body would look/act/not hurt as easily as it did before kids.
Yes, you can give your kids your heart, your love, most of your time and energy, and still hold back a little for yourself. Because you deserve love, time, and energy, too.
Yes, you are a mom, and you’re still your own person. (This may seem super obvious, but at least for me, the line has blurred. ha!)

Wherever you are on your journey, hi, I see you. I’m here with you. I hope the recommendations help you feel seen or understood.

I’m diving into Kerry Docherty’s (of the Faherty brand) new memoir, Selfish, this week. It’s getting mixed reviews on Goodreads so I’m very curious! And Kerry is going to be on the podcast to chat about it, so if you have any question recommendations, drop them in the comments.

Xx, Alex

A few great reads on Motherhood from around the web:
My Shrinking Brain (substack)
Motherhood Beyond the Fairytale (singlemomdefined.com)
A Parent’s Typical Day, as Envisioned by My Child’s Preschool (McSweeny’s— love McSweeny’s)
Motherhood Around the World (Cup of Jo)

Read more

These memoirs cover a myriad of physical experiences many of us live through (and of course, the emotional turmoil that often accompanies them): fertility journeys, disabilities, pregnancy, chronic illness, medial gaslighting, disordered eating, body dysmorphia, recovery, menopause and aging.

It’s hard to live in one’s body. This thing that is uniquely and intimately yours, yet is constantly exposed to criticism and control. For me, depending on the moment, it can be miraculous or cumbersome. There are times when I am in awe of what my body is capable of and times when I’m frustrated it’s not capable enough. Days when I mourn the malleability of youth slipping through my fingertips and days when I embrace the lines on my skin that remind me that I’ve laughed, I’ve felt, I’ve experienced, I’ve lived.

I’ve battled with disordered eating, trying to shrink myself to fit into… what? I don’t even know. All I knew was that smaller felt better. It felt good, it felt celebrated. But reducing myself physically didn’t serve the person I was trying to be. Now, I aim to feel comfortable taking up space.

When I couldn’t deliver my daughter vaginally because of our bodies’ conflicting anatomy, I marveled at the fact that if I had been attempting to give birth a hundred years ago, we probably both would have died. When I miscarried between the births of my children, I felt betrayed. When I hemorrhaged after the miscarriage, I felt annoyed that my body was actively trying to hurt itself… kill itself— me.

But unlike an ill-fitting outfit, I cannot shed it if it doesn’t suit me. So I learn to live with it— more than that, really. Learn to accept it, even with all of its conceived “flaws”. Learn to love it for the miraculous ways does things. Learn to cherish it, even on days when it’s aching and stiff. Learn to appreciate it, even if it doesn’t reflect today’s standards of beauty.

Whatever you’re going through with your body, I hope some of these memoirs help you find a love for it. Or at the very least, a renewed sense of awe in the magical thing that it is.

Our bodies (while at times seeming like they are solely working against us) are pretty damn incredible. Think of the things they allow us to do: touch… the skin of people we love; feel…. the ground beneath our feet; taste… the sweet pleasures this life has to offer; see… our children grow, moments of triumph, love and kindness in one another’s eyes; hear… laughter, song, words of encouragement, inspiring messages of hope, and stories of resilience.

These are gifts, given to us by the one thing we, literally, cannot live without.

You can find all of the memoirs covered in “There’s a Memoir for That” here. If you make a purchase through this link, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Thank you for being here.
Xx,
Alex

P.S. I really appreciated this nuanced take on talking about our bodies and the way they’re regarded in society.

“The truth is, silence doesn’t interrupt the obsession; it just obscures it. The bodies are still dissected, the images still circulated, the algorithms still humming. The silence only makes the harm harder to trace and easier to dismiss. We’ve been trained to speak in code about our bodies for so long, it’s no wonder no one knows what we’re really saying anymore.”

Then, the idea of the podcast was born, and I suddenly found myself thrust (okay, yes, technically I thrust myself) into this incredible world of wisdom, experience, beliefs, hopes, and of course, pain.

Since starting Babes in Bookland, I’ve read over 50 memoirs(!!!!) and my bookshelves are bursting at the seams. (As I type this, SEVEN memoirs are scattered around my desk.) They weren’t all amazingly written, but truly, they’ve all had profound moments or lines that made me pause, made me tear up, and/or made me think about my life and who I want to be a little differently. And all of them have continued to teach me that people can surprise you, life is what you make it, mind set is everything, happiness is a choice, and to quote Katherine Johnson’s brilliant father, “You’re as good as anyone, but you’re no better.”

Essay collections, memoirs, and autobiographies are all on the table, but I have two rules: one, the words and the stories come directly from the authors themselves (or in collaboration with a co/ghost writer) and two, I aim for mostly inspirational women. No one is perfect, but I try my best to avoid celebrities looking to make a quick buck or objectively problematic women.

What’s the difference between an essay collection, a memoir and an autobiography, you (didn’t) ask?

Essay collections group distinct, shorter pieces (personal essays) around a theme or idea, offering varied reflections rather than a single narrative arc.

Example: Michelle Buteau’s Survival of the Thickest. Her essays range from the difficult of physically developing at an early, dating misadventures, finding sisterhood, surrogacy and much more!

A memoir focuses on a specific theme or period and typically offers more emotional truth and reflection than, say, an autobiography. We focus on these for the show, and I’ve found that a lot of authors label their autobiographies as memoirs anyways.

Example: Bethany Joy Lenz’s Dinner for Vampires covers the popular actresses’ time in a cult while filming One Tree Hill.

An autobiography covers a whole life chronologically (birth to present), focusing on facts and major events and how they shaped the author.

Example: ’s Be Ready When the Luck Happens which details her life with a few bombshells mixed in!

We also cover memoir + social commentary, like ’s Fetishized or ’s Shame on You.

All offer a sense of community, inspiration, and a widening of perspective if you go in with an open heart and mind.

And look, I understand the relief in escapism. In today’s increasingly chaotic world, and after reading a really heavy memoir like Esptein survivor Virginia Roberts Guiffre’s Nobody’s Girl, diving into a fantasy or romance is exactly the remedy I need at the end of a long day. But there’s also something really important about bearing witness to the pain that we put one another through. Allowing these women to unburden themselves to me through their books makes me feel connected, human, alive in a way that is difficult to describe.

All I know is it’s a feeling that isn’t replicated by the latest Mhairi McFarland or my favorite book(no matter how much I adore both of those women’s’ work) because at the end of the day, those people aren’t real. Do those books make me think? Of course! Sometimes we need fiction to help face real truths about ourselves or our world, but I stand firm on the point that memoirs hold a clearer and larger mirror up for us to look in.

And sometimes the truth is stranger and more magical than fiction.

These women write about their own fears, accomplishments, desires, self-doubts, regrets, and dreams. They admit their mistakes. They take accountability for hurtful behavior. They apologize. They don’t apologize! They take up space.

They take up space. THEY TAKE UP SPACE! And they invite us all to take up space too.

Take up space with me. Learn with me. Grow with me. Question things with me. Find answers with me. Connect with me. This is for all of us.

Xx,
Alex

p.s. If you follow the show on instagram, you’ll see I’m taking a break from the podcast this month (to prepare for the podcast lol) and I’m doing a series “There’s a Memoir for That” where I recommend two - five memoirs per life experience. I normally only release two free posts a month but I’ll send out a roundup each Monday for those who’d appreciate quick links and more info.

Currently reading: Nobody’s Girl & Edna Adan Ismail’s A Woman of Firsts

But this particular class had a lot of pauses. A lot of holds. It made me uncomfortable. I wanted to move. Work hard. Work it out!

And then the teacher said something, “Stillness is often more challenging than moving. When you are still, you have no choice but to feel the pain. You can’t outrun it. You can’t move through it. It can only move through you.”

“Can you let go of the need to move? Can you let go?”

Read more

Today’s post is just a collection of the quotes I’ve pulled from the 26 memoirs (!!!) we’ve covered on the podcast this year. I hope they bring you comfort. Inspiration. Reflection. Connection.

Enjoy!

Let me know which one resonates with you right now and send to anyone who needs a little inspiration.
Have a wonderful week.
Xx, Alex

P.s. Thank you to all the women who share their hearts, stories, and words. I was thrilled with the mix of experiences we read about and discussed on the show. Thank you , , , Britney Spears, Chanel Miller, , , , , , , Hope Jahren, Jessica Simpson, , Shonda Rhimes, , Bethany Joy Lenz, Holly Madison, Crystal Hefner, , Sister Jean, Katherine Johnson, & Elizabeth Miki Brina.

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