Another Week. Yet another hello, dear reader.
First things first. There’re 30 of you lovely folks receiving these weekly newsletters. 30 of you. Thirty of you! You do not have even the slightest idea how ecstatic that makes me. Just the thought of there being an audience to what I have to say/write is special.
Wrote today’s article listening to this Lofi mix.
Earlier last week, I started listening to Amanda Nguyen memoir, Saving Five.
Her accomplishments aside, a memoir, so early in the career, seems premature, no?
But I was wrong. Here are some of the accomplishments, she’s achieved, at just 33
Wrote a US federal law into existence
Spoke at the UN
Founded Rise, a nonprofit organization for SA (Sexual Assault) survivors.
Space flight, despite the harsh backlash, still counts.
Wrote a NYT bestselling book
Time Woman of the year - 2022
Nobel Peace Prize Nominee
Harvard Alumni
Interned at NASA
That is more than enough to be writing a memoir, I’d say.
It takes immense courage to speak about your SA, let alone pass a law to help other victims. Naturally, I admired Amanda and was eager to see what she had to say. Going into the book, I was expecting it to be majorly about the experiences she had as a SA survivor. Which it was, but she also included parts about her childhood and how it shaped her. Personally, the metaphors used in the interconnecting chapters felt a little too forced at times but were necessary for the book to move along.
She very expertly tells her story through the eyes of her younger self and her older self. Assigning ages as their names. Hence the name saving five, as in saving the five-year-old self she once was. What I loved about the book is that she doesn’t stick to being a victim. She kept the tone of the book uplifting and despite of the circumstances, she persevered to make laws better for everyone, not just her.
Although the book does talk about her journey of creating the bill and then seeing it through to becoming a law, I found it to be less inspiring than the act itself.
What I mean by that is, I already knew of her. I already knew of the work she’d done. What I’d hoped to read in the book was what exact roadblocks she faced to get there. There is mention of them, sure. But it isn’t in as much detail as I personally would have liked. The whole book felt like it was written to tug at the heartstrings than to inspire.
Either way, her work alone is inspiring enough to create a generation of young empathetic leaders.
In the book, she often talks about how she put her dreams of being an astronaut on hold to dedicate a decade of her life to activism.
Recently, those dreams were fulfilled. She became the first Vietnamese woman in space. Yes, Blue Origin’s space flight for just 10 minutes, but it doesn’t matter. If there was one woman on that flight who deserved to be there, it was her.
It’s a good morning time read to remind yourself of how little you’re doing with your own life :)
Talk soon x
May your TBRs always overflow, and your bookmarks be always in use.