Two books and a series.

I am currently reading Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson and American Rule: How a Nation Conquered the World but Failed Its People by Jared Yates Sexton.

Both of these are excellent, _Caste_ in particular.

They are also freaking difficult to read. The descriptions of how enslaved people were treated is overwhelmingly awful, and Sexton doesn't let you forget that this nation was founded on lie, and which lies they were and how they came into being and became part of the American mythos.

Painful, necessary reads.

Painful.

So, at the same time, I'm tearing through a fluff series that isn't great but is fun and light, and doesn't require any emotional or intellectual investment of me at all: The Fever Series by Karen Marie Moning. I doubt I'll manage to read all 11 books (though you never know) but I'm reading #3 right now, and it helps to balance the horror of the other two books. I mean, fake Fae horror is bad, but it's not real. What was done to other human beings because of the color of their skin, and what's more what was baked into the laws and origins of this country so the cruelty could go on unpunished... well, that's real.