Sample Saturday is when I wade through the eleventy billion samples I have downloaded on my Kindle. I’m slowly chipping away and deciding whether it’s buy or bye.

You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith

Why I have it: Spotted on NYT’s Read Like the Wind newsletter.

Summary: Poet Maggie Smith explores the disintegration of her marriage and her renewed commitment to herself, examining contemporary womanhood, traditional gender roles, and the power dynamics that persist even in many progressive homes.

I’m thinking: Yes.

First They Killed My Father by Loung Ung

Why I have it: Because I’m going to Cambodia next year, and it’s included in lists of notable literature from Cambodian authors.

Summary: One of seven children of a high-ranking government official, Ung lived a privileged life in Phnom Penh until the age of five. Then, in April 1975, Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge army stormed into the city, forcing Ung’s family to flee and disperse. Loung was trained as a child soldier in a work camp for orphans, her siblings were sent to labor camps, and those who survived the horrors would not be reunited until the Khmer Rouge was destroyed.

I’m thinking: Yes.

Easy Beauty by Chloé Cooper Jones

Why I have it: Not sure.

Summary: Jones learned early on to factor ‘pain calculations’ into every plan. Born with a rare congenital condition, her pain is physical. But there is also the pain of being judged and pitied for her appearance, of being dismissed as ‘less than’. After unexpectedly becoming a mother (in violation of unspoken social taboos about the disabled body), something shifts, and Jones sets off on a journey to reclaim the spaces she’d been denied, and denied herself.

I’m thinking: Maybe.

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