One Life

An excellent audio read by Pinoe herself. Not a slight to her, but she's not a writer by trade, so I was expecting to like this but I was not expecting to be blown away by the book overall. Joke's on me because this was such an impressive piece of writing. Liz and I listened to it together and had to keep pausing to talk about events we remembered but also about how good the writing was or how she perfectly grew the story from the seeds she had been planting. The whole thing is structurally impressive. She also does a great job conveying her advocacy and activism points in a way that acknowledges and works through her privilege but also weaves these ideas organically into her stories without feeling like they're didactic lessons to the audience or lowering the complexity of the ideas for readers newer to this work. Perfect tone and balance, one of my favorite reads this year and one that should have a massively wide audience.