For Barbados, I read How The One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House: A Novel by Cherie Jones, and I highly recommend this book for anyone doing a Read Around the World quest.

Before I read The One-Armed Sister, I knew Barbados was a small island in the Caribbean with tropical vibes. I imagined something idyllic like this:

The One-Armed Sister took that idyllic image of a tourist resort and mashed it up, reminding me once again that the wold is so much more complicated than a postcard image. Jones unapologetically exposes the violence and extreme poverty that plague the locals, especially women, in the fictional resort town of Baxter Beach. where wealthy tourists stay in lavish beachfront properties while the locals scrabble to eek out a living.

This book gave me such a deeper understanding of Barbados. Yes, there are probably places where you can take gorgeous selfies for social mediabut then there’s this:

As I wrote this post, I kept thinking about the Santa Monica Pier, one of the most popular tourist destinations in Los Angeles. Google Santa Monica Pier, and you’ll see lots of photos of the Ferris wheel and folks on rollerblades, and if you walk along the pier, you can imagine you are in one of those photos, but if you pay attention, you’ll also notice homelessness, poverty, and folks strung out on drugs. You’ll see teens who look like runaways and wonder if somewhere there’s a parent looking for their child. There’s a lot more happening beneath the surface of those idyllic spots in Paradise.

I’ll be thinking about this book for a long time.