The 2021 Omaha Reads selection was Amber Ruffin's and Lacey Lamar's
You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey, which made it our selection for September. And the title is right - we couldn't believe what happened to Lacey. It was a tough read, especially since we live in the town where all of these things are happening. We're an educated group of ladies and don't live with our heads in the sand, but I think that all of us were shocked to find out just how racist so many of those who live in our city are.
This is a book that really got us talking - about what happened to Lacey and to Amber and to their parents. It really made us think about the things we've done and said in the past that might have made it into a book like this. We actually went around the table and each of us made a confession. I was proud of our group for being able to do that and proud that we are a close enough group that we felt safe enough to be able to say those things.
We all learned a lot from this book but one of the main things we may all of taken away from this book is to speak up when we see someone being racist. The number of times that others stood by while Lacey's job was in jeopardy, for example, were shocking.
For October, the task was to find a book by a Canadian author which was set in Canada. After turning down a lot of books because they seemed to be too dark, our choice was Miriam Toews'
A Complicated Kindness. It was too dark. And depressing. All of us found ourselves skimming at some point in the book as it seemed that the main character, teenager Nomi, was doing the same thing over and over again. But in writing the book that way, Toews does manage to convey the bleakness of life in a small, religious town in the middle of nowhere. Along the way, she alway sneaks in the details that move the book along. While we understood the reason Toews ended the book the way she did, none of us was a fan. We did discuss the book but as it was not a popular choice, it was tough to keep things on track. It was just too hard to read about the terrible things that happened to this young girl.
