Three books guaranteed to boost your courage
By Megan Collins, Founder of @themanicuredshelf
As someone who has lived a pretty privileged and relatively safe life, courage for me was never really about facing danger in the traditional sense. My experience with finding courage can be best described with the Brene Brown quote: “Integrity is choosing courage over comfort. It’s choosing what’s right over what’s fast, fun, or easy; and it’s practicing your values, not just professing them.”
The idea that doing the right thing would require so much courage was a surprising fact of adulthood for me. I often find myself in situations where it would be easier to keep my mouth shut, look the other way, and mind my own business because it’s more comfortable. But if we’ve learned anything in the last few years, it’s that we need courage to challenge the status quo.
To help, I’m bringing you three books to inspire courage paired with a corresponding Brene Brown quote!
Mexican Gothic
“Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen”
Mexican Gothic is a suspense novel with gothic leanings that follows Noemi, a young Mexican socialite who is sent by her father to check on her newly married cousin. Upon arriving she finds her cousin sickly and her new English family suspicious. Immediately, she steps into the role of caretaker and advocate, something that’s wrought with racial and gender-biased tension. Courageously undeterred, Noemi continues to push and ask questions and the secrets she uncovers test even her seemingly unwavering bravery.
CULTURAL THEMES: Women, Mexico, Colonialism, Spirituality, Magic
Read Speed: Fast
From Memes to Movements: How the World’s Most Viral Media is Changing Social Protest and Power
“Courage is contagious”
I will be completely honest with you. This is not a recommendation for everyone. However, if you’re someone who is extremely online, loves memes, and is interested in the way the internet is playing a role in shaping our society through filtering and disseminating information and perhaps more important misinformation this is for you. Memes, TikToks, IG accounts, these types of media are often dismissed as frivolous but they are actually powerful tools that Gen Z is using to spread messages and I for one think that’s very courageous of them.
CULTURAL THEMES: Memes, Internet, Politics, Social Media
Read Speed: Slow
Blue Ticket
“When we have the courage to walk into our story and own it, we get to write the ending.”
Blue Ticket imagines a dystopian world where, upon getting their first periods, women are assigned a blue or white ticket. ‘Blue ticket’ women are given an IUD and sent on their way to face the world alone, they must leave their families and survive their way through the wilderness to ‘the city’ where they are promised a career and freedom. ‘White ticket’ women are ‘chosen’ for motherhood and live more sheltered lives but are expected to get married and produce children.
When I read this last July, the system that Mackintosh outlines in Blue Ticket seemed extreme (literally being assigned a reproductive future) but it’s become more than just a poignant metaphor for the social and economic realities facing women living in Texas today. By inverting the argument—taking a character who desperately wants to have a baby (as opposed to an abortion) but isn’t allowed—Mackintosh brilliantly explores what ‘a woman's right to choose’ truly means and the psychic, physical, and inhumane repercussions of what happens when that choice is taken away and the immense courage women must have if they want to live life on their own terms.
CULTURAL THEMES: Women, Motherhood, Feminism, Reproductive Rights, Patriarchy
Read Speed: Fast
Megan Collins is a Cultural Insights Analyst & Founder of @themanicuredshelf and a regular contributor to the M.T. Deco Blog