Ok so let me give you a small peak behind the curtain, first and foremost I LOVE sharing these books with you, and I LOVE sharing what I think of them, but sometimes sharing my thoughts on a book seems daunting because it made me feel so much, and how do you convey that properly, but also not give any spoilers? It’s tough, but it’s what I try to do with every post, then throw in one like todays, where the books highlighted a very personal part of my life, and the struggle of how much to share becomes a bit overwhelming. However, as I said recently, I really am trying to create a more vulnerable space for us to discuss these stories and get to know each other better.

So, welcome to the chat, the graphic novel series, Heartstopper by Alice Oseman. I first heard about Heartstopper when two of my cousins (who have always been more like sisters) would not stop talking about the Netflix series. They were both obsessed with one of the male leads and they kept expressing how amazing the show was. Then they told me all I needed to hear, “you know, it’s based on a book series,” and I was immediately intrigued. We then had a girl’s date to see Barbie, grab some food, and of course head to a bookstore where the entire Heartstopper graphic novel series was waiting on a shelf right next to the front door. It was the exact sign I needed to scoop it up and dive into the story.

As described on Alice Oseman’s website, “Heartstopper follows two teenage boys, Nick and Charlie, as they meet at a British grammar school, quickly become friends and fall in love. Each volume navigates the ups and downs of first love, friendships, coming out, and mental health, beautifully framed by a warm cast of supporting characters.”

Heartstopper is officially up two five volumes with its sixth and final one rumored to be released in 2025 (I’m just basically sitting here twiddling my thumbs trying to keep it cool until that happens). Knowing the premise of the storyline I expected to enjoy it, think it was cute, and move on but wow was I wrong. I swallowed these books whole and barely took a breath in between. From the very beginning their awkward yet friendly interactions remind you of high school in the realest sense, while also making you feel hopeful. The unlikely pair, Nick is on the rugby team and a year older, while Charlie is the quiet drummer who is still reeling from being outed and subsequently horribly harassed the year before, quickly form a friendship that seems to make zero sense to everyone around them. And yet somehow, they just can’t stay away from each other, repeatedly preferring to spend time together than apart. This friendship makes Nick’s friends question why a straight guy would even want to hang out with the “gay kid” and Charlie’s friends question whether Nick has Charlie’s best interests at heart or is it some long con game to further humiliate Charlie. As a reader you can’t help but wonder at first whether you might need to protect Charlie from Nick, but what you very quickly realize is that Nick will never be that type of person. He genuinely cares for Charlie and struggles with what that might mean. This story is definitely about first love, but it’s also about understanding who you are, finding friends that are more like family, letting go of friends that should not be a part of your life, and of course having fun in high school. I’ve heard the term “coming of age,” so often in media that over the years it’s lost it’s meaning a bit, and then I read Heartstopper and saw just how perfectly well it was done. You watch these characters, along with their group of friends grow and change and eventually become comfortable in their skin, growing stronger and braver, all because of the people they surround themselves with.

Subscribe now

It is a truly beautiful story, but it is based in the reality of what so many people experience. The content warnings for this series is long, so please bear with me, but they are important to list, here goes: emotionally abusive relationship, one incident of a non-consensual kiss, references to past homophobia – including uses of homophobic slurs, references to past bullying, eating disorder/anorexia – discussion, behavior, portrayals of restrictive eating behavior and other discussions around eating disorders, references to incidents of self-harm, and the list goes on from there but I do not want to spoil anything in the story and will say that you can find a complete list of the content warnings on Alice Oseman’s website. I say all of this because when reading these books, you will fall in love with Nick and Charlie and their love will make you swoon, I can’t officially say that’s a fact but also it’s basically a fact. However, what you need to be prepared for (something I was not) is that their lives are based in our very real world of real problems. This isn’t just a story where they have their first kiss and live happily ever after, because just like in real life, it’s a little more complicated than that.

Everyone already knows Charlie is gay, but Nick is trying to understand his growing attraction to Charlie while still being attracted to girls. He goes on his own journey, trying to understand who he is and what his label should be. Luckily, he has friends around him that will accept him exactly as he is, but unfortunately, when it comes to family, that’s a different experience entirely. One of my favorite parts of Nick’s story is him realizing he can take as long as he needs to figure out who he is, and as one character tells him, once he decides who that is, he doesn’t owe it to anyone to share that part of him. He can do that whenever and however he wants. Charlie’s experiences are in fact heavier, but that does not diminish Nick’s experience in any way. During his journey of self-discovery, he loses friends, makes new ones, tries to learn who he is without the acceptance of others, even people he loves, while also learning who he is in his relationship, and who he is on his own. His story is powerful in its own right and I’m so happy a character like Nick Nelson exists.

Charlie’s story is heavier, and even as I try to figure out how much to share, I find myself pausing and taking a breath. You learn very early on in the first book that Charlie was outed at his all-boys school the year before our story begins, and he experienced all kinds of bullying and unwanted attention. He luckily had a handful of friends that were his safe space, but even with his found family at school, it still didn’t stop the harassment. Without knowing how to handle this horrible experience Charlie began to seek control in whatever way he could, which manifested for him in issues with food, and not eating it when he became overwhelmed and was struggling with anxiety. Which for a teenager, that was outed and then put through hell, who was now dating someone his classmates thought wasn’t a right fit because he’s the popular rugby player, all while trying to be there for his boyfriend while he tries to understand his sexuality, while also being there for his friends and having issues with his parents, and of course, you know, school work. It’s enough to make most people feel out of control, so as the reader you begin to see what the people in the story do not. Charlie eating less and less and you want to scream at the people around him “Look! Please pay attention to him, he needs help!” But what happens all too often is that everyone is wrapped up in their own worlds - the main characters in their own stories, to really notice the person quietly struggling. Until Nick does. There’s a scene that will stick with me forever, I know it will because I tattooed something on myself so I never forget it, but I’m getting ahead of myself. In this scene, our lovely group of friends are on a school trip to Paris and there have been a few meals in a row that Charlie has been too overwhelmed to eat, no one notices until breakfast one day when Nick questions Charlie’s lack of eating. Charlie quickly comes up with an excuse that Nick knows is a lie, but instead of demanding answers he offers to pack up a croissant for Charlie in his backpack just in case he gets hungry later on. It is the simplest of scenes but when I read it, I broke down.

In high school and during my twenties I struggled heavily with restrictive eating, what started as a desire to be thin, (something I never was) turned into an obsession that I thought about constantly, cheering my behavior on any time someone complimented how I looked and then feeling deep shame when I would inevitably eat an average portion of something, only to have people comment how disappointed they were because I had clearly been doing so well on my weight loss journey. Yea, it wasn’t the best time in my life, and truthfully I struggled with so much of it in silence, because no one noticed, all anyone seemed to care about was what I looked like, and when I looked thinner they were happy, when I looked heavier they were disappointed. It messed with my head in ways that I am still dealing with the repercussions of 15-20 years later. As the years went on, that unhealthy behavior became less about appearance and more about what I could and could not control, things in my life felt out of my control? I knew one area in which I could make decisions that felt like my own, no matter how unhealthy the behavior was. It took a really, and I mean REALLY long time before I got to a place where this behavior wasn’t an everyday occurrence, it took even longer to learn how to love myself through it all, understanding and learning new ways that helped me instead of further hurt me, because everyone’s story is different and therefore everyone’s healing is different as well. I came up with strategies that worked for me, I started to challenge myself to look at myself differently, and with a more loving gaze. After over a decade of working diligently to love myself and handle life’s ups and downs with grace, I was having the occasional misstep, but nothing at all like what I had experienced in the past. So when I started therapy I brought it up to my doctor, essentially asking her what I needed to do so this was never an issue for me anymore (do you see those control tendencies peaking through with that question? I definitely do) and she responded with, “Maybe this will always be something you live with, you have it controlled and managed, but there may never be a future for you where you don’t have to be vigilant in your behavior and choose over and over again to take care of you. What we’ll work on is what to do when or if those moments come up again.” I didn’t like that answer so naturally I changed the subject and didn’t bring it up again for weeks. But as I’ve said before, I think I swallowed a magic bean at some point and the right story always finds me at the right time. Enter Heartstopper, what I thought would be a light story about high school love, only to be slapped in the face with the one thing I didn’t want to think about. I read the croissant scene, and I broke down, I wished in that moment more than ever that at any point when I was at my lowest, someone would have noticed and shown me the kind of grace Nick showed Charlie. He didn’t demand answers, he didn’t shame his behavior, he was concerned, and in his actions reminded Charlie that there was someone that loved him and wanted to take care of him. Naturally, I walked into my next therapy session as an open wound, and I could almost feel my therapist’s happiness that we were finally going to address this topic. That session went long over time, but during it I cried so much I had a pile of tissues in front of me when it was time to leave. I explained how much I had wished for what Charlie had, someone to see what they were going through and help them through it and she said something I’ll never forget, she said “No one is going to save you, that’s your job, you need to save yourself and it’s up to you to buy your own croissant.” I cried even harder. We spent the next few sessions finally diving into this area of my life and I’m so grateful for her guidance and emotional hand holding while I tried to make peace with everything and learn how to move forward. For me, a large part of that, was to make the lesson permanent on my skin, so I got a small croissant tattooed on me, surrounded by tiny hearts seen on the pages of the Heartstopper books as a reminder, that I need to be my own Nick Nelson, I need to take care of myself with the kind of love and grace we all deserve. To say it’s been transformative would be an understatement, every day I see it, every day I’m reminded of this story and what it meant to me, what it taught me, and how it’s changed my life.

I’ll never be able to thank Alice Oseman personally, but I can recommend these books to all of you because it’s a beautiful story that makes you smile so frequently, even amongst its heavier topics. And what’s even better, is that I’ve seen videos and read reviews on what this story means to other people and everyone has different takeaways, different characters or relationships that plucked at their heartstrings, which makes sense given the absolute phenomenon this story has been. I understand now why they turned it into a Netflix series and I need to tell you, I’ve seen the series four times already. It is SO GOOD. I have never, and I mean never, seen a better film adaptation made. I have zero notes, the scenes in the show are ripped directly from the pages of the books and anything that was added to the show that isn’t in the books only added to the storyline, when so many adaptations take things away that always leave the fans wanting more. The Heartstopper series is on Netflix and if reading graphic novels isn’t your thing, I respect that and highly recommend watching the show. It will warm your heart and remind you what it feels like to fall in love for the first time.

Share

So as I said at the end of my last post, I went down the Alice Oseman rabbit hole with these books, I read Heartstopper three times, I’ll probably read it one more time in preparation for the release of the final book, but when I was done I wanted more. So I purchased the rest of her books, all of which are not graphic novels. They are also significantly different, a bit darker, which I was not expecting. Their lists of content warnings are extensive but they’re great stories nonetheless, and she has three that are tied to our Heartstopper series.

The first one being This Winter “A Heartstopper Novella” it is a story that takes place between two of the books of the Heartstopper series and it focuses on Nick, Charlie and his sister Tori during a difficult holiday season. The description goes like this: I used to think that difficult was better than boring, but I know better now…I’m not going to think about the past few months, about Charlie and me, and all of the sad. I’m going to block it all out. Just for today. “Happy Christmas, ” I say. The festive season isn’t always happy for Tori and her brother Charlie. And this year’s going to be harder than most. It’s a short and heavy novella but it adds even more to the experiences of the characters we’ve grown to love.

Next up we have Solitaire, a story completely from Tori, Charlie’s sister’s point of view. The description goes like this: In case you’re wondering, this is not a love story. My name is Victoria Spring. I like to sleep and I like to blog. Last year – before all that stuff with Charlie and before I had to face the harsh realities of A-Levels and university applications and the fact that one day I really will have to start talking to people – I had friends. Things were very different, I guess, but that’s all over now. Now there’s Solitaire. And Michael Holden. I don’t know what Solitaire is trying to do, and I don’t care about Michael Holden. I really don’t. –  With this book, I liked being able to understand Charlie’s sister better as she seems so different from him, and it reminded me that so many relationships have to chart their own course and they aren’t a cookie cutter experience. It’s also quite a bit of a mystery which I enjoyed.

Lastly, on the Hearstopper adventure we have Nick and Charlie “A Solitaire Novella” Think of this as a bonus chapter some authors like to put on their websites for fans to read. Is it absolutely necessary to read it if you’re reading the graphic novels? No, but it does add more to the story and for that I loved it. The description goes like this: Everyone knows that Nick and Charlie are the perfect couple – that they’re inseparable. But now Nick is leaving for university, and Charlie will be left behind at Sixth Form. Everyone’s asking if they’re staying together, which is a stupid question – they’re ‘Nick and Charlie’, for God’s sake! But as the time to say goodbye gets inevitably closer, both Nick and Charlie question whether their love is strong enough to survive being apart. Or are they delaying the inevitable? Because everyone knows that first loves rarely last forever… In this book Nick and Charlie have to address the elephant in the room, Nick is a year older and needing to think about the next chapter of his life, and how do you do that when the guy you love is getting left behind while he finishes his last year of school. This book addressed the very real issue of discovering who you are outside of your relationship, something that is so hard to do at that young age.  I enjoyed it a lot and it was probably my favorite of her books outside of the graphic novels.

Next we have her final three books, these I admittedly enjoyed less but that’s because I am a 37 year old woman and these are significantly younger characters, yes so are the characters in Heartstopper but I was invested from the very beginning, and with these I felt less so. That isn’t to say they weren’t good reads, I just wasn’t the target audience, but in case you are, let’s go over the descriptions. First up we have, Loveless and the description goes: It was all sinking in. I’d never had a crush on anyone. No boys, no girls, not a single person I had ever met. What did that mean? Georgia has never been in love, never kissed anyone, never even had a crush – but as a fanfic-obsessed romantic she’s sure she’ll find her person one day. As she starts university with her best friends, Pip and Jason, in a whole new town far from home, Georgia’s ready to find romance, and with her outgoing roommate on her side and a place in the Shakespeare Society, her ‘teenage dream’ is in sight. But when her romance plan wreaks havoc amongst her friends, Georgia ends up in her own comedy of errors, and she starts to question why love seems so easy for other people but not for her. With new terms thrown at her – asexual, aromantic – Georgia is more uncertain about her feelings than ever. Is she destined to remain loveless? Or has she been looking for the wrong thing all along? This wise, warm and witty story of identity and self-acceptance sees Alice Oseman on towering form as Georgia and her friends discover that true love isn’t limited to romance.

The next book in this adventure is I Was Born For This with the description being: For Angel Rahimi, life is only about one thing: The Ark – a pop-rock trio of teenage boys who are currently taking the world by storm. Being part of The Ark’s fandom has given her everything – her friendships, her dreams, her place in the world. Jimmy Kaga-Ricci owes everything to The Ark too. He’s their frontman – and playing in a band is all he’s ever dreamed of doing. It’s just a shame that recently everything in his life seems to have turned into a bit of a nightmare. Because that’s the problem with dreaming – eventually, inevitably, real life arrives with a wake-up call. And when Angel and Jimmy are unexpectedly thrust together, they will discover just how strange and surprising facing up to reality can be.

Lastly, we have Radio Silence, What if everything you set yourself up to be was wrong? Frances has always been a study machine with one goal, elite university. Nothing will stand in her way; not friends, not a guilty secret – not even the person she is on the inside. But when Frances meets Aled, the shy genius behind her favorite podcast, she discovers a new freedom. He unlocks the door to Real Frances and for the first time she experiences true friendship, unafraid to be herself. Then the podcast goes viral and the fragile trust between them is broken. Caught between who she was and who she longs to be, Frances’ dreams come crashing down. Suffocating with guilt, she knows that she has to confront her past…She has to confess why Carys disappeared…Meanwhile at uni, Aled is alone, fighting even darker secrets. It’s only by facing up to your fears that you can overcome them. And it’s only by being your true self that you can find happiness. Frances is going to need every bit of courage she has...

These books, all eleven of them address so many things, love, friendship, identity and sexuality, found family, and mental illness in ways incredibly unique to every individual character. When you see it like that, what Alice Oseman created is a masterpiece, there is a character for everyone to see themselves in and feel heard and understood, something everyone is looking for. I have added all of her books to my online shop, Reading With Christine Figs on Bookshop.org and I hope you will give them and the Netflix series a chance.

Alright my loves that’s all for now, I hope you’ve enjoyed our time together, and you stay tuned for the next one where I talk about my most recent reads Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus and Just For The Summer by Abby Jimenez.

So, until next time, I hope you read, and if you can’t because that just how life goes sometimes, I hope you enjoy some art, in whatever form you find it, because when life gets difficult it is art in all of its many forms that can hold us, heal us, and give us hope. I love you all, happy reading!

Subscribe now

Subscribe now

How is everyone feeling today? My best friend Sarah and I used to host a podcast called The Magic Seekers Society, in which we started each episode asking each other the question, “How is your heart feeling today?” It was a question our friend Taylor is known for, and it always prompted some of the best conversations. So here I am asking you, how is your heart feeling today? My hope, obviously, is that your answer is somewhere along the lines of full, happy, excited, in love. However, life rarely works out so happily, so if your answer is more like heavy, lonely, filled with despair, I hope you hear my words and take them as the warm hug I wish I could give you right now. I’ve been there and it seems to always feel like it will never end, until it does, and then it feels like life has righted itself again. I hope these feelings find their way out of you soon and when they do, you take a long deep breath and show yourself some love and grace for having come out on the other side of it.

Today, my heart, is feeling rageful. Does that sound dramatic? I’m sure it does, but with the topic we are about to discuss, I think by the end, you’ll be feeling some rage as well. In today’s episode we will be discussing the nonfiction book, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann. I first heard about this book/story when my brother, Niko, informed me he had just finished working on the film adaptation – he is a finishing editor in movies and television, and when he tells me his name is in the credits, I can’t help but already be excited without knowing anything about the project. He told me about the movie of the same title starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert DeNiro and that it was originally a book. Well, SIGN ME UP. I love film adaptations and I love reading the book beforehand to see what I’m getting myself into.

Which, to be honest, I did NOT know what I was getting myself into.

The book description goes like this: In the 1920’s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, they rode in chauffeured cars and lived in mansions. Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed. Mollie Burkhart watched as her family became a prime target. Her relatives were shot and poisoned. Other Osage were also dying under mysterious circumstances, and many of those who investigated the crimes were themselves murdered. As the death toll rose, the case was taken up by the newly created FBI and its young, secretive director, J. Edgar Hoover. Struggling to crack the mystery, Hoover turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White, who put together an undercover team, including a Native American agent. They infiltrated this last remnant of the Wild West, and together with the Osage began to expose one of the most chilling conspiracies in American history.

I have never in my life thrown a book across the room more than I have this one. It took me forever to read, because I would read a few pages, become enraged, throw it, walk away, and then come back to repeat the same cycle. While reading it, friends kept asking what I thought of it and I kept responding the same way: “It’s taking forever because it keeps PISSING ME OFF and I need to take breaks from it,” and then I would force them to listen as I explained a small portion of the story to see the horrified looks on their faces as well.

So, buckle up, because this one is a wild ride. I won’t do justice in trying to give you a synopsis of this story because this is the real account of what the Osage went through and I don’t want to make light or diminish their experiences in any way, so what I share will be taken directly from the book.

On one of the first few pages, David Grann introduces the premise of this story by stating: “In the early 1870’s, the Osage had been driven from their lands in Kansas onto a rocky, presumably worthless reservation in northeastern Oklahoma, only to discover, decades later that this land was sitting above some of the largest oil deposits in the United States. To obtain that oil, prospectors had to pay the Osage for leases and royalties. In the early twentieth century, each person on the tribal roll began receiving a quarterly check. The amount was initially for only a few dollars, but over time, as more oil was tapped, the dividends grew into the hundreds, then the thousands. And virtually every year the payments increased, like the prairie creeks that joined to form the wide, muddy Cimarron, until the tribe members had collectively accumulated millions and millions of dollars. (In1923 alone, the tribe took in more than $30 million, the equivalent today of more than $400 million.) The Osage were considered the wealthiest people per capita in the world.”

You might be wondering, as many people do when they hear of this story as to how it all really began, well, as Grann explains: “In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson purchased, from the French, the Territory of Louisiana, which contained lands dominated by the Osage. Jefferson informed his secretary of the navy that the Osage were a great nation and that “we must stand well, because in their quarter we are miserably weak.” In 1804, a delegation of Osage chiefs met with Jefferson at the White House. He told the navy secretary that the Osage, whose warriors typically stood well over six feet tall, were the “finest men we have ever seen.” At the meeting, Jefferson addressed the chiefs as “my children” and said, “It is so long since our forefathers came from beyond the great water, that we have lost the memory of it, and seem to have grown out of this land, as you have done… We are all now of one family.” He went on, “On your return tell your people that I take them all by the hand; that I become their father hereafter, that they shall know our nation only as friends and benefactors.” But within four years Jefferson had compelled the Osage to relinquish their territory between the Arkansas River and the Missouri River. The Osage chief stated that his people “had no choice, they must either sign the treaty or be declared enemies of the United States.” Over the next two decades, the Osage were forced to cede nearly a hundred million acres of their ancestral land, ultimately finding refuge in a 50-by-125-mile area in south-eastern Kansas.”

When I hear of the way Jefferson spoke to them it makes me want to vomit, the patronizing tone of him calling them his children and referring to himself as their father, all while never intending to consider their best interests is beyond infuriating. He pulled them in under the guise of unity, and then forced them to the far reaches of their land in the hopes of wiping them out.

If you think that this was all they did, then you, like me, are incredibly unaware of the lengths they went to in trying to eradicate the American Indians and their culture from our lands. A large majority of this book surrounds the family of Mollie Burkhart, they were only one family of the many whose lives were eventually torn apart, but as we all know too well, sometimes you don’t see how bad it can one day get until you look back on the beginning.

Subscribe now

Grann goes on to share: “In 1984, when Mollie was seven, her parents were informed that they had to enroll her in the St. Louis School, a Catholic boarding institution for girls that had been opened in Pawhuska, which was two days’ journey by wagon to the northeast. An Indian Affairs commissioner had said, “The Indian must conform to the white man’s ways, peacefully if they will, forcibly if they must.” Mollie’s parents were warned that if they didn’t comply, the government would withhold its annuity payments, leaving the family starving.”

When describing what it was like to attend these schools, it is said: “Each hour of the day was regimented, and students were lined up and marched from point to point. They were taught piano, penmanship, geography, and arithmetic, the world distilled into strange new symbols. The instruction was intended to assimilate Mollie into white society and transform her into what the authorities conceived of as the ideal woman. So while Osage boys at other institutions learned farming and carpentry, Mollie was trained in “domestic arts”: sewing, baking, laundering, and housekeeping. “It is impossible to overestimate the importance of careful training for Indian girls,” a U.S. government official had stated, adding, “Of what avail is it that the man be hard-working and industrious, providing by his labor, food and clothing for his household, if the wife, unskilled in cookery, unused to the needle, with no habits of order or neatness, makes what might be a cheerful, happy home only a wretched abode of filth and squalor? … It is the women who cling most tenaciously to heathen rites and superstitions and perpetuate them by their instructions to the children.” Many Osage students at Mollie’s school tied to flee, but the lawmen chased after them on horseback and bound them with ropes hauling them back. Mollie attended classes eight months each year, and when she did return to Gray Horse, she noticed that more and more girls had stopped wearing their blankets and moccasins and that the young men had exchanged their breechcloths for trousers and their scalp locks for broad-rimmed hats. Many students began to feel embarrassed by their parents, who didn’t understand English and still lived by the old ways. An Osage mother said of her son, “His ears are closed to our talk.”

The government was accomplishing its mission of wiping out the future of the Osage culture, for one they deemed more appropriate, which of course only meant, one that looked like their own.

As time went on, additional issues began to arise, as Grann shared: “A growing number of white Americans expressed alarm over the Osage’s wealth – outrage that was stoked by the press. Journalists told stories, often wildly embroidered, of Osage who discarded grand pianos on their lawns or replaced old cars with new ones after getting a flat tire. Travel magazine wrote, “The Osage Indian is today the prince of spendthrifts. Judged by his improvidence, the Prodigal Son was simply a frugal person with an inherent fondness for husks.” A letter to the editor in the Independent, a weekly magazine, echoed the sentiment, referring to the typical Osage as a good-for-nothing who had attained wealth, “merely because the Government unfortunately located him upon oil land which we white folks have developed for him.”  Grann goes on to say: “The accounts rarely, if ever, mentioned that numerous Osage had skillfully invested their money or that some of the spending by the Osage might have reflected ancestral customs that linked grand displays of generosity with tribal stature.”

The anger that white Americans expressed over the spending habits of the Osage was simply seeped in jealousy. They could not understand how the people they considered less than human, could possibly have more than themselves. They refused to acknowledge that the home of the Osage had been torn away from them and they had been forced to live on this land. Instead, they took issue with how rich the land made them, claiming it had never been earned. Another reason why these statements are so ludicrous is that this was during the “roaring 20’s” as we’ve learned to call it, a time of celebrating life by living it lavishly, but somehow the Osage were being judged for the same behavior others were celebrated for.

However, as further proof that the Osage were considered less than, Grann writes, “Many Osage, unlike other wealthy Americans, could not spend their money as they pleased because of the federally imposed system of financial guardians. The law mandated that guardians be assigned to any American Indians whom the Department of the Interior deemed “incompetent.” In practice, the decision to appoint a guardian – to render an American Indian, in effect, a half citizen – was nearly always based on the quantum of Indian blood in the property holder, or what a state supreme court justice referred to as “racial weakness.” A full-blooded American Indian was invariably appointed a guardian, whereas a mixed-blood person rarely was.”

These guardians dictated how members of the Osage were “allowed” to spend their money, it didn’t matter if it was for material items, food, or even medicine, any and all purchases would need to be approved by a white man. Then to make matters even worse, when sellers of said items learned an Osage member was the person purchasing, they would triple the price, if not more. A funeral service for an Osage member could cost upwards of $100,000 in today’s world, which for the record, was NOT the price for those who were not American Indian. There were even many instances in which the guardians took a percentage of the inflation in costs, meaning, if a car dealer was planning to sell a new vehicle at the cost of $10,000, they would charge an Osage member upwards of $30,000, sharing a portion of the difference with the guardian of the Osage, making them both richer, by legally stealing from the Osage. Add on the fact, that many white American men would marry Osage women, gaining rights to their fortune, only for those women to one day go missing or be found deceased, leaving everything to their husbands to spend however they saw fit.

Grann goes on to state, “At one congressional hearing, another Osage chief named Bacon Rind testified that the whites had “bunched us down here in the backwoods, the roughest part of the United States, thinking ‘we will drive these Indians down to where there is a big pile of rocks and put them there in that corner.’ Now that the pile of rocks had turned out to be worth millions of dollars, he said, ‘everybody wants to get in here and get some of this money.’”

Then, the killings began. If you think everything I have already shared gives away too much of what this book is about, believe me when I say it has barely scratched the surface. As the description of this book explains, at the height of the wealth of the Osage, one by one they started to be murdered, and it seemed as though there wasn’t a single person that seemed to give a shit. At one point Grann writes, “A prominent member of the Osage tribe put the matter more bluntly: ‘It is not a question in my mind whether this jury is considering a murder case of not. The question for them to decide is whether a white man killing an Osage is murder – or merely cruelty to animals.”

Yet another passage that made me throw the book across the room. In my personal opinion, Killers of the Flower Moon is a must read. You can absolutely watch the movie, in fact, I recommend it, and not just because you can see my brother’s name in the credits, but because you can tell that Martin Scorsese understood why this story was important to tell. Whether you read the book or watch the movie, my hope is that you become filled with rage at the injustices that occurred, because walking around not knowing the atrocities that the Osage went through, isn’t necessary when the stories are in front of us to learn from.

I have added Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann to my online shop Reading With Christine Figs through Bookshop.org and I hope that you will take the time to educate yourself on this time in history.

Alright my loves that’s all for now, I hope you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, and you stay tuned for the next one where I talk about my most recent reading adventure as I went down the Alice Oseman reading hole and read every single one of her books, including the incredibly popular Heartstopper series, now also a Netflix show.

So, until next time, I hope you read, and if you can’t because that just how life goes sometimes, I hope you enjoy some art, in whatever form you find it, because when life gets difficult it is art in all of its many forms that can hold us, heal us, and give us hope. I love you all, happy reading!

Add reaction

Well, 2024 is well under way and it feels so good to be back sharing the books and art that make me feel something and also in this new format! Personally, 2023 was one of the busiest years of my entire life, if you follow me on Instagram then you’ve seen it all, tons of traveling and celebrating life’s moments, and of course lots and lots of time with family and friends. It was amazing, but I decided 2024 would be the year of rest, of healing through therapy, of saving money, of smaller adventures that still fill my heart, and of course, reading. So. Much. Reading. The first few months of this year I intentionally slowed down, with nothing big on the calendar my weekends were mine again, of course to read, but also to sleep in, watch movies, bake, craft and build Legos, and intentionally take time for myself. It was pretty freaking great and on a more personal note, exactly what I needed while taking my healing journey through therapy seriously. Anyone else out there in therapy? It’s something I’ve always wanted to pursue and I’m finally in a position to do so, but wow is it hard. It’s taken so much of what I’ve buried down deep and brought it all right to the surface to look at under a microscope. Needless to say, it’s been difficult, and uncomfortable, it’s been painful and has left me spending many hours staring into the distance processing so much I haven’t allowed myself to feel before. It’s completely kicked my ass while simultaneously being the greatest gift I could have ever given myself.

You might be asking, why are you telling us this Christine, aren’t you supposed to be talking about books? Well, the truth is many things at once, first and foremost I’ve challenged myself to be more open, something I’ve always given the illusion of, but still kept way too much close to the vest as the saying goes. So I’m going to try and be more vulnerable with you in the hope that maybe it will feel like we know each other a little better. Secondly, when life gets hard, I read. I’m sure many of you understand that feeling, but when it all feels to be too much, I escape, I run away from reality into the pages of a book, and while I’m learning that it’s not always the healthiest coping mechanism to ignore ones pains, if I’m being honest, most books have taken those pains and done exactly what therapy has done, bring them to the surface, forcing me to look at them and acknowledge them. So, I’ve been reading a lot, and absorbing books at an alarming rate, because therapy is hard, but in reading so much, things from my life have been brought to the surface through the pages of a book, and then I address it in my next session with my doctor. It feels like this magical cycle, where my books are guiding me down a path, I don’t have the map for. It’s not always easy after spending years of trying to work through things on my own, but it’s been amazing to see how these sessions have already changed my life in some ways.

So, I’m going to continue on this journey, and I’ll continue to lean on my books, who have always made me feel less alone and when they bring up something in me that I know I need further help with, I’ll reach out to my doctor, and also my friends, and my hope is that you will do the same. Reading can be such a solitary experience, it’s you and this book, and your experience with it is magical but it’s yours, because even if your best friend reads it, they might take something totally different away from it. My promise to myself, and the one I hope you will make as well, is to never stop being swept away in a story, and when that story brings you shattered back down to earth for what it might reveal in your heart, to lean on those you trust, who will hold you while you try to understand all of the feelings you’re experiencing and never once judge you for connecting so deeply with the pages of a book.

*Deep breath*

Alright, let’s get on with the show, and dive into it with the first book of 2024, The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller.

The description goes like this: Achilles, “The best of all Greeks” son of the cruel sea goddess Thetis and the legendary king Peleus, is strong, swift, and beautiful and irresistible to all who meet him. Patroclus is an awkward young prince, exiled from his homeland after an act of shocking violence. Brought together by chance, they forge an inseparable bond, despite risking the god’s wrath.

They are trained by the centaur Chiron in the arts of war and medicine, but when word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, all the heroes of Greece are called upon to lay siege to Troy in her name. Seduced by the promise of a glorious destiny, Achilles joins their cause, and torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus follows. Little do they know that the cruel Fates will test them both as never before and demand a terrible sacrifice.

So, I first heard about this book when it made its rounds on Book Tok, the side of TikTok that is FILLED with book recommendations. I saw video after video of tear-streaked faces holding back sobs while they talked about how this book absolutely wrecked them, those reviews, plus a love of Greek mythology told me I needed to get my hands on it ASAP. In true fashion, I got a copy right away, but it took months before it made its way to the top of my “to be read” pile haha.

I know the next thing I am about to say is spoilery, I get that, but the truth is everyone who has heard about this book knows, it’s a love story. Madeline Miller writes what has always been theorized, what would it have been like if Achilles and his portrayed “best friend” had actually been lovers. There is a well-known painting called Achilles Lamenting the Death of Patroclus that was created by Gavin Hamilton somewhere between 1760 & 1763. It’s the type of piece that pulls you in for its heartbreak because as Achilles holds Patroclus’ lifeless body in one arm while holding back the people who try to get closer to him with his other arm, there is an anguish on his face that hints this relationship may have been more than originally described. This book dives into that story, it gives you an insight into what it might have been like for these young boys to meet and grow up together, one destined for greatness, the other, an outcast from his own community. Their unlikely friendship pulls you in, remembering what it feels like to want to be known by someone else, and the indescribable joy you experience when someone knows all of you, and loves you for it. This book takes place over the course of their entire lives and inevitably brings you to the climax, when Helen of Sparta is taken, and everyone joins in on the fight to bring her home.

What I loved the most about this book was how much I felt like I was IN the story with them, they spent a large amount of their training with Chiron living in a cave and I swear in most scenes, I felt as if I was in that cave with them. Madeline Miller created a world that I could see so clearly, and with every passage of time during the inevitable war I remembered feeling, “we’ve been at this for forever,” which is what the characters felt as well. I wasn’t bored reading it wondering when it would end, instead I felt as the characters felt, that this war was going on for so long with so many lives lost and at what cost? To feel what the characters also felt so intensely truly goes to show just how good of a writer she is.

There is a line in this book that gets quoted frequently and I can understand why, it goes: “Had she really thought I would not know him? I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came, and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.” Doesn’t everyone want to be loved like that? To not only be known for how you look or how you treat someone, but simply and deeply for who you are. It was a wonderful love story to read and like so many others, I was left in a puddle of tears by the ending.

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller has now been added to my online shop, Reading with Christine Figs through Bookshop.org. I strongly recommend it but only if you have a box of tissues nearby.

Now onto the art portion of this episode where I’m going to share Rupi Kaur’s The Sun and Her Flowers.

Rupi Kaur is a Canadian poet and photographer and her books of poetry include Milk and Honey, The Sun and Her Flowers, Home Body, and her last Healing Through Words which came out in 2022.

I first discovered her work when I was gifted Milk and Honey by one of my best friends and I have loved her work ever since. Today I’ll be sharing one of my favorite poems from The Sun and Her Flowers, titled What Love Looks Like, here we go:

What does love look like the therapist asks

One week after the breakup

And I’m not sure how to answer her question

Except for the fact that I thought love

Looked so much like you

That’s when it hit me

And I realized how naïve I had been

To place an idea so beautiful on the image of a person

As if anybody on this entire earth

Could encompass all love represented

As if this emotion seven billion people tremble for

Would look like a five foot eleven

Medium-sized brown-skinned guy

Who likes eating frozen pizza for breakfast

What does love look like the therapist asks again

This time interrupting my thoughts midsentence

And at this point I’m about to get up

And walk right out the door

Except I paid far too much money for this hour

So instead I take a piercing look at her

The way you look at someone

When you’re about to hand it to them

Lips pursed tightly preparing to launch into conversation

Eyes digging deeply into theirs

Searching for all the weak spots

They have hidden somewhere

Hair being tucked behind the ears

As if you have to physically prepare for a conversation

On the philosophies or rather disappointments

Of what love looks like

Well I tell her

I don’t think love is him anymore

If love was him

He would be here wouldn’t he

If he was the one for me

Wouldn’t he be the one sitting across from me

If love was him it would have been simple

I don’t think love is him anymore I repeat

I think love never was

I think I just wanted something

Was ready to give myself to something

I believed was bigger than myself

And when I saw someone

Who could probably fit the part

I made it very much my intention

To make him my counterpart

And I gave myself to him

He took and he took

Wrapped me in the word special

Until I was so convinced he had eyes only to see me

Hands only to feel me

A body only to be with me

Oh how he emptied me

How does that make you feel

Interrupts the therapist

Well I said

It kind of makes me feel like shit

Maybe we’re all looking at it wrong

We think it’s something to search for out there

Something meant to crash into us

On our way out of an elevator

Or slip into our chair at a café somewhere

Appear at the end of an aisle at the bookstore

Looking the right amount of sexy and intellectual

But I think love starts here

Everything else is just desire and projection

Of all our wants needs and fantasies

But those externalities could never work out

If we didn’t turn inward and learn

How to love ourselves in order to love other people

Love does not look like a person

Love is our actions

Love is giving all we can

Even if it’s just the bigger slice of cake

Love is understanding

We have the power to hurt one another

But we are going to do everything in our power

To make sure we don’t

Love it figuring out all the kind sweetness we deserve

And when someone shows up

Saying they will provide it as you do

But their actions seem to break you Rather than build you

Love is knowing whom to choose.

I love love love this poem, she perfectly captures what it’s like to fall so in love with someone that they become your image of love and end up making you feel like it’s the only place you will ever find it. It describes how hard it is to realize how wrong you were, not just about this person, but in ever wrapping up the idea of love in a singular human, because it hurts everyone in the process. And in the end, as anyone else who has been in her shoes has learned, love is so much more than what we thought it was, as she says, “love is understanding we have the power to hurt one another but we are going to do everything in our power to make sure we don’t.” Ugh that’s just too good, and when we think she can’t get it any more perfectly, she hits us with the ending, that in learning what love is, it will be so much easier to recognize what it’s not.

The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur has now been added to my online shop, Reading with Christine Figs through Bookshop.org.

Alright my loves that’s all for now, I hope you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, and you stay tuned for the next one where I talk about my most recent read, Killers of The Flower Moon by David Grann.

So until next time, I hope you read, and if you can’t because that just how life goes sometimes, I hope you enjoy some art, in whatever form you find it, because when life gets difficult it is art in all of its many forms that can hold us, heal us, and give us hope. I love you all, happy reading!  

Subscribe now