I’m a sucker for an essayist with a strong voice and a way with jokes. Here are three recommended titles in that mode for pride!
The 2000s Made Me Gay by Grace Perry is a special favorite of mine. Today’s gay youth have dozens of queer peer heroes, both fictional and real, but former gay teenager Grace Perry did not have that luxury. Instead, she had to search for queerness in the (largely straight) teen cultural phenomena the aughts had to offer: in Lindsay Lohan’s fall from grace, Gossip Girl, Katy Perry’s “I Kissed A Girl,” country-era Taylor Swift, and Seth Cohen jumping on a coffee cart. And, for better or worse, these touch points shaped her adult identity. She came out on the other side like many millennials did: in her words, gay as hell. Throw on your Von Dutch hats and join Grace on a journey back through the pop culture moments of the aughts, before the cataclysmic shift in LGBTQ representation and acceptance–a time not so long ago, which many seem to forget.
(print) (OverDrive audiobook) (hoopla audiobook)
Girls Can Kiss Now by Jill Gutowitz deserves its flowers, too. Jill Gutowitz’s life–for better and worse–has always been on a collision course with pop culture. There’s the time the FBI showed up at her door because of something she tweeted about Game of Thrones. The pop songs that have been the soundtrack to the worst moments of her life. And of course, the pivotal day when Orange Is the New Black hit the airwaves and broke down the door to Jill’s own sexuality. In these honest examinations of identity, desire, and self-worth, Jill explores perhaps the most monumental cultural shift of our lifetimes: the mainstreaming of lesbian culture. Dusting off her own personal traumas and artifacts of her not-so-distant youth she examines how pop culture acts as a fun house mirror reflecting and refracting our values–always teaching, distracting, disappointing, and revealing us. This timely collection of essays– a fresh and intoxicating blend of personal stories, sharp observations, and laugh-out-loud humor– helps us make sense of our collective pop-culture past even as it points the way toward a joyous, uproarious, near–and very queer–future.
(print) (ebook) (digital audiobook)
Greedy by Jen Winston follows a path of questioning sexuality that many will find relatable. If Jen Winston knows one thing for sure, it’s that she’s bisexual. Or wait–maybe she isn’t? Actually, she definitely is. Unless…she’s not? Jen takes us inside her journey of self-discovery, leading us through stories of a childhood “girl crush,” an onerous quest to have a threesome, and an enduring fear of being bad at sex. Greedy follows Jen’s attempts to make sense of herself as she explores the role of the male gaze, what it means to be “queer enough,” and how to overcome bi stereotypes when you’re the posterchild for all of them: greedy, slutty, and constantly confused. With her clever voice and clear-eyed insight, Jen draws on personal experiences with sexism and biphobia to understand how we all can and must do better. She sheds light on the reasons women, queer people, and other marginalized groups tend to make ourselves smaller, provoking the question: What would happen if we suddenly stopped?
(print) (ebook) (digital audiobook)
