Icons: 50 Heroines Who Shaped Contemporary Culture by Monica Ahanonu

This nonfiction book with vivid, distinct illustration by Micaela Heekin features a lot of the usual faces like Serena Williams, Malala Yousafzai, Hillary Clinton etc. The only new faces for me out of the fifty were filmmaker Agnes Varda, performance artist Grace Jones and designer Rei Kawakubo so that was interesting.

But as I knew most of the figures, it didn’t give any new insights to these icons, primarily focusing on the positives and triumphs of their careers like Hillary Clinton which sidesteps her 2016 loss and the attacks waged against her during the campaign. Maya Angelou’s section was pretty powerful though.

While it wouldn’t be my first choice for nonfiction since there are so many other books covering these women, but Icons provides a cool time capsule. Written in 2019, it interesting to see how several of these icons have fallen out of favor or encountered controversies like Adele, Ellen DeGeneres, and J.K. Rowling, showing how these icons can fall out of favor.

Another reason why I find this book a bit forgettable is that Ahanonu doesn’t provide any introduction or running theme to why did she choose these icons? Yes, I can guess, but what did it mean for Monica, why these women specifically?

First Ladies: Presidential Historians on the Lives of 45 Iconic American Women edited by Susan Swain

Put together from the C-Span First Ladies history series, this book is the transcript of C-Span’s documentary featuring an array of historians such as Richard Norton Smith, Edith Mayo, Michael Henderson, Carl Sferrazza Anthony, William Seale among others.

Together, they discuss the legacies, controversies, deconstructing myths, relationship with husbands and impact of how we view first ladies throughout history. Historians shared surprising character connections between First Ladies who’ve been forgotten or underrated like Lou Hoover, Pat Nixon, Helen Taft, Caroline Harrison and how they paved the way for other more famous First Ladies like Eleanor Roosevelt, Jackie O and so on.

I also learned cool trivia like Lucy Hayes being a chocaholic, Dolly’s famous snuff box, and insight to their letters and such. It’s a great book who wants to learn more about the women behind the man and their influence on U.S.’s domestic affairs.

The Illustrated Feminist: 100 Years of Suffrage, Strength and Sisterhood by Aura Lewis

Written for the 100th anniversary to suffrage, Lewis’ book covers ten landmark events/figures that defined each decade, providing just a sneak peek into the shifting perception of women’s roles, how far we’ve come, and how far we’ve yet to go.

Some of the events are familiar like the Lily Ledbetter Act, flappers, Amelia Earhart, Wonder Women, Langley Computers etc. But I learned a lot of a lot of new people such as Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander (first African woman to earn a PH.D), and Lettie Pate Whitehead Evans (first board member of a major co. Coca-Cola). As well as new organizations, items and policies: Kotex (first commercial available sanitary napkin), Red stockings (women’s think group), the equal Credit Opportunity Act, Seventeen Magazine, Emily’s List, Women’s Mosque of America, and more.

Lewis’ book is balanced as she touches on both sides of controversial events in the feminist movement like Barbie, Planned Parenthood and Margaret Sanger, Enovid (better known as the Pill), Doris Day, and Guerillla Girls, showing the nuance of the movement and how things may be improved in terms of intersectionality and such. And if one wants to continue research, Lewis provides suggested reading on specific topics.

Bookish Broads: Women Who Wrote Themselves into History by Lauren Marino and illustrated by Alexandra Killburn

For anyone who enjoyed Lee’s Badass Bygone Broads, Marino speaks to every book-lover in Bookish Broads, telling the stories of these famous authors with a casual but more serious commentary for those who don’t like Twitter slang. She acknowledges that the selection is only the beginning and there were hundreds she had to cut out, be it because they were foreign and had no English translation, or she enjoyed one’s work more than the others.

As one can imagine from the subtitle, the book features such seminal women like Agatha Christie, the mother of crime fiction, Anis Nin who introduced diarists, Virginia Woolf and her feminist modernism, Zora Neale Huston, Aphra Behn, Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, Murasaki Shikibu and more.

Besides the classics it also includes nonfiction authors and journalists such Zitkala-Sa and Rachel Carson. It also finally introduced me to famous authors I’ve always heard of but never bothered to learn about or their works so now I feel very informed on the likes of-George Sand, Colette, Willa Cather, Margaret Mitchell, Harper’s friendship with Truman Copote, Ursula K. Le Guin, Joan Didion (especially since I didn’t understand her work when she read it), and Octavia Butler.

It also introduced new authors I never heard of like the predecessor of southern gothic genre, Carson McCullers, experimental progressive Doris Lessing, Brazilian icon Clarice Lipsector whose books are sold in vending machines, Eileen Chang and Rosario Castellanos who helped indigenous tribes in Mexico protect their language.

Unlike other books, Marino touches on JK Rowling’s controversy, Wilder’s manifest destiny books at the expense of indigenous tribes, and even tells more about Christie’s life after her disappeance, showing the scope of these women’s lives beyond just their work, making them more fully-realized beings.

Besides the three page biographies, there’s also mini sections on Medieval Mystics like Hildergard von Bingen, Saint Teresa of Avila; Secular Scribes like Christine di Pizen; Shakespeare’s Sisters like Lady Mary Sidney and Aemlia Lanyer; Children Book Authors like Laure Ingells Wilder, Beatriz Potter, Frances Hodges Burnett, L.M. Montgomery, and Margaret Wise Brown.

There’s also little sections on writer-adjacent items- pseudonyms and writing spaces.

The book is well done, but I did feel that it neglected a bit of Elizabeth Gaskell’s work in the gothic genre, focusing more on her family life and work as Bronte’s biography. Jhumpa Lahiri’s section also felt disjointed. There were also minor mistakes like repeating sentences and hyphen in the word inspiring.

Nonetheless, the love for these writers and the works they brought into the world are evident in Marino’s prose and I thoroughly enjoyed learning more about these women writers fighting back obstacles and prejudice to give work that changed the world.

Also just to reflect on this month. Maybe it’s because I’ve been reading a lot more on historical women and their journeys and maybe it’s because I’ve started to become more aware of sexism and discrimination but now I’m just so proud to be a woman. 

I’m inspired by the fact that even throughout history when we have been oppressed by being forbidden to speak, by “proper” clothes like corsets, by threats and violence that there are women that fight against the odds.

They fight despite everyone and everything that pushes them back. 

They fight for the right to be themselves-women- and for others to be themselves-women- and to be accepted fully as women who have voices, have opinions, have feelings, have strength and amazing ambition equal to and sometimes more than men. 

Also that we have great role models to follow in sports, in stem, in the arts, in politics, in humanities, in comics, in books, in movies, in tv, in real life and in fiction- basically everywhere which just goes to show how women have touched every aspect of life. 

But moreover that even though things aren’t as perfect and accepting as we want it to be, there are thousands of women being born every day that will bring their talents and power to what they belive in and that they will continue the good fight. They will resist, persist, and change the world in their own way. 

I’m also so proud to be born in this month just so we could celebrate women all month!! And also that we can take the time to marvel and reflect how far things have changed and how far we have come. Even though there are some ancient women that defied the norms even in ancient times. 

Let all these real women keep speaking up and showing what they can do, and sharing the love. 

Other books I’ve read this month

(Beautiful Chaos and Beautiful Redemption by Margaret Stohl and Kami Garcia, Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, Bookish Broads by Lauren Marino, Icons by Monica Ahanonu, Forgotten History series by Ruta Sepetys, Confessions of a Slightly Neurotic Hitwoman and Further Confessions of a Slightly Neurotic Hitwoman by J.B. Lynn, Take the Monkeys and Run by Karen Cantwell, Illustrated Feminist by Aura Lewiw, The Union of the Rakes by Eva Leigh, Rebel Rose by Emma Theirult, Feather and Flame by Livia Blackthorne, Glass and Cinder by Melissa De La Cruz, Beauty Queens by Libba Bray, Shut In by Kody Keplinger, Dangerous Secrets by Mari Mancusi, 10 Things I Hate about Pinky by Sandhya Menon, Art of Ducktales by Kenneth Plume, Matched by Ally Condie, Go the Distance by Jen Calonita, Once trilogy by Morris Gleitzman and Bobbie’s Faye’s (kinda, sorta, not exactly) Family Jewels by Toni McGee Causey)

Archie Comics: Xoxo Betty and Veronica, Love Showdown by Dan Parent, Betty and Veronica: Rock and Roll, Clash of the New kids by Dan Parent, Man from Riverdale by Tom DeFalco, Archie and friend forever by Dan Parent, Betty and Veronica Friends forever vol 1 by Dan Parent, Rocking the world by Dan Parent, Battle of the BFFs by Dan Parent, 80 years of Christmas, 60 magical stories, and Best of the pussycats

Betty and Veronica Double Digest #156-158, #206 Jughead Double Digest #171