Type Away Cait

pc: Cait Malilay "A Second Reckoning: Race, Injustice and the Last Hanging in Annapolis" by Scott D. Seligman delves into the historical case of John Snowden, a Black man charged under circumstantial evidence for murdering a White woman named Lottie Mae Brandon in 1917.  Seligman , an award-winning writer and a historian, walks readers through the case and the historical time period of Maryland's capitol, focusing specifically on race relations, while occasionally touching on gender norms and laws that restricted women from participating in government. Seligman presents the book in such a way where he's not setting out to prove whether Snowden was guilty or innocent, but rather simply stating the facts. There are many characters that help push forward the investigation, which made national headlines, one of them being Mary Grace Winterton Quackenbos Humiston. Humiston was a detective from New York who was hired by The Washington Times to solve the case.  She came fro...

pc: Cait Malilay  Can you imagine if you found out that the people who raised you weren't actually your parents? "A Girl Returned," by Donatella Di Peirtrantonio, tells the story of a 13-year-old girl in the mid-1970s Abruzzo whose life is turned upside down when one day she is dropped off at a house full of strangers, who happen to be her real family. Unnamed, she is referred to as "l'arminuta," the returned.  The phrase, "the returned," implies that she becomes objectified.  She not only returns to her real family, but her nickname, which was labeled by her classmates,  emphasizes that she lacks a sense of identity, and feels discarded and unwanted.  "One had given me up with the milk still on her tongue, the other had given me back at the age of 13. I was a child of separations, false or unspoken kinships, distances. I no longer knew who I came from. In my heart, I don't even now," (Di Peirtrantonio 115). It turns out that who she...

The Republican-majority House of Representatives removed Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota from the House Foreign Affairs Committee in a vote of 218-211 on Thursday. The GOP repeatedly called out Omar for her past anti-Semitic rhetoric and statements about Israel. Republican Rep. Max Miller of Ohio addressed on the House floor how she was barred from traveling to Israel in 2019. "How can someone not welcomed by one of our most important allies serve as an emissary of American foreign policy on the Foreign Affairs Committee, and given her biased comments against Israel and against the Jewish people, how can she serve as an objective decision maker on the committee?" Miller said. She has since apologized for her remarks after being urged by her colleagues on both sides in the then Democratic-majority House led by Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California.  @IlhanMN / Twitter Omar gave a touching speech while displaying a photo of her 9-year-old self as she shared her background, an...

pc: Instagram / @cait_malilay_reads Will I ever, again in my life, fall in love with another book as much as "A Little Life" by Hanya Yanagihara?  Shortlisted for the 2015 Booker Prize, this whopping 816-page-long novel tells the story of four friends who meet in college, develop their own identities and face life's obstacles and milestones that come with adulthood. Readers will meet  Willem, the charming actor;                    Malcolm, the creative architect; JB, the cocky struggling artist and                    Jude, the mysterious lawyer with a dark past. ***TRIGGER WARNING:** This book contains descriptions of rape, addiction, physical and emotional abuse, self-harm and suicide.  This novel that's loved by many celebrities, such as Dua Lipa, Chris Pine and Dakota Johnson , is about friendship, the effects of trauma, love in all its forms and, of course, life it...