An Ordinary Girl

One of the Must-Read Books of 2019 According to O: The Oprah Magazine * Time * Bustle * Electric Literature * Publishers Weekly * The Millions * The Week * Good Housekeeping “There is more life packed on each page of Ordinary Girls than some lives hold in a lifetime.” —Julia Alvarez In this searing memoir, Jaquira Díaz writes fiercely and eloquently of her challenging girlhood and triumphant coming of age. While growing up in housing projects in Puerto Rico and Miami Beach, Díaz found herself caught between extremes. As her family split apart and her mother battled schizophrenia, she was supported by the love of her friends. As she longed for a family and home, her life was upended by violence. As she celebrated her Puerto Rican culture, she couldn’t find support for her burgeoning sexual identity. From her own struggles with depression and sexual assault to Puerto Rico’s history of colonialism, every page of Ordinary Girls vibrates with music and lyricism. Díaz writes with raw and refreshing honesty, triumphantly mapping a way out of despair toward love and hope to become her version of the girl she always wanted to be. Reminiscent of Tara Westover’s Educated, Kiese Laymon’s Heavy, Mary Karr’s The Liars’ Club, and Terese Marie Mailhot’s Heart Berries, Jaquira Díaz’s memoir provides a vivid portrait of a life lived in (and beyond) the borders of Puerto Rico and its complicated history—and reads as electrically as a novel.

Ordinary Girl is legendary singer-songwriter Donna Summer's delightfully candid memoir about her journey from signing in a Boston church to her unexpected reign as the Queen of Disco, and the tragedy and spiritual rebirth that followed.

“The book's teenage protagonists and their bravery will enthrall young adults, who may find themselves inspired to take up their own causes.” —Washington Post An astonishing World War II story of a trio of fearless female resisters whose youth and innocence belied their extraordinary daring in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands. It also made them the underground’s most invaluable commodity. May 10, 1940. The Netherlands was swarming with Third Reich troops. In seven days it’s entirely occupied by Nazi Germany. Joining a small resistance cell in the Dutch city of Haarlem were three teenage girls: Hannie Schaft, and sisters Truus and Freddie Oversteegen who would soon band together to form a singular female underground squad. Smart, fiercely political, devoted solely to the cause, and “with nothing to lose but their own lives,” Hannie, Truus, and Freddie took terrifying direct action against Nazi targets. That included sheltering fleeing Jews, political dissidents, and Dutch resisters. They sabotaged bridges and railways, and donned disguises to lead children from probable internment in concentration camps to safehouses. They covertly transported weapons and set military facilities ablaze. And they carried out the assassinations of German soldiers and traitors–on public streets and in private traps–with the courage of veteran guerilla fighters and the cunning of seasoned spies. In telling this true story through the lens of a fearlessly unique trio of freedom fighters, Tim Brady offers a fascinating perspective of the Dutch resistance during the war. Of lives under threat; of how these courageous young women became involved in the underground; and of how their dedication evolved into dangerous, life-threatening missions on behalf of Dutch patriots–regardless of the consequences. Harrowing, emotional, and unforgettable, Three Ordinary Girls finally moves these three icons of resistance into the deserved forefront of world history.

Hoping to live "over the rainbow" on Maui, a successful career woman in her fifties abandons her home in Toronto to realize her long-awaited dream. The new life she has sought seems strewn with roadblocks to her happiness that ultimately drive her to seek the healing of her own ancient pain as a pathway to achieving her heart's desire: The stable loving relationship that has always eluded her. This contemporary, poignant memoir follows the intrepid author on her worldwide travels seeking the grail of her heart's desire while learning to integrate her losses and life lessons with joy in her heart and ever a good tale to tell. While adventuring across Europe she takes us on her journey of self -discovery, magically connecting everywhere she goes like a modern-day wizard.

Vintage clothing lover Caro decides she wants an ordinary life with an ordinary man after a failed relationship with an upperclass, cheating fiance. But it's terribly difficult to be ordinary when you're friends with a princess! Caro is offered the chance of a lifetime: swap lives with her good friend Princess Lotty of Montluce! The catch? She needs to play the girlfriend to Lotty's unwilling fiance, Prince Philippe. Lotty and Philippe have dreams of their own and marriage to each other isn't in cards, but not if Dowager Blanche, Lotty's grandmother, has anything to say about it! Swapping lives sounds all well and good, however if Caro and Philippe can't play a convincing couple, it's over! Philippe is as far from ordinary as he can get?not exactly Caro's type. Can an eccentric fashion fan and a pompous prince pull it off in this dramedy of romantic deceptions? What happens when they both start to believe the lie?

We all want to belong. Somewhere, maybe to someone. If you find a single moment of relatability while reading Sentiments of an Ordinary Girl and feel less alone for a second, or feel joyous, or even acceptance, then know that you have a friend in me, that there is someone, somewhere on this planet, who cares.

An ordinary girl. An extraordinary love? Professor James Forsyth is intrigued when he first meets Philomena Selby. She's so shy and kind – he's used to much more demanding women! There was no doubt James is very handsome but Philly knows he has a fiancée and as a plain country girl, she can't hope to match such a glamorous woman. But James has been struck by Philly's inner beauty…and surely she's much more the woman he wants as his wife…? Originally published in 2001.

Margaret Forster presents the 'edited' diary of a woman, born in 1901, whose life spans the twentieth century. On the eve of the Great War, Millicent King begins to keep her journal and vividly records the dramas of everyday life in a family touched by war, tragedy, and money troubles. From bohemian London to Rome in the 1920s her story moves on to social work and the build-up to another war, in which she drives ambulances through the bombed streets of London. Here is twentieth-century woman in close-up coping with the tragedies and upheavals of women's lives from WWI to Greenham Common and beyond. A triumph of resolution and evocation, this is a beautifully observed story of an ordinary woman's life - a narrative where every word rings true.