memoirs – Equal Opportunity Reader

[REVIEW] Hijab Butch Blues, by Lamya H

Mel's hand props up a Kindle displaying the black and white cover of Hijab Butch Blues, which depicts a slim hijabi in baggy trousers and shirt facing away over an abstract line art landscape. The Kindle rests against a delicious dish of couscous and braised beef in a wide painted ceramic dish.

(Buy this book at Bookshop, please.) Read time: 3 minutes If it weren’t for religious devotion–specifically, deep study of the Quran while growing up South Asian in an Arab country and later being a hijabi immigrant in post-9/11 New York–Lamya H might never have fully realized her own queerness. Through careful examination of the SurahContinue reading “[REVIEW] Hijab Butch Blues, by Lamya H”

[REVIEW] Successful Failure, by Kevin Fredericks

The Kindle cover of Successful Failure, depicting comedian Kevin Fredericks power posing in a tux, lays against a flowered wallet on a dining table. Behind it are a dish of salad and a glass of white wine.

(This book is available at the Equal Opportunity Bookshop) Read time: 3 minutes They don’t all have to be deep, but sometimes they unexpectedly are. If “just keep going” was a person, it would look a lot like Kevin Fredericks, aka KevOnStage. I remember seeing his Scandal recap videos years ago and debating with friendsContinue reading “[REVIEW] Successful Failure, by Kevin Fredericks”

[REVIEW] Miss Major Speaks, by Miss Major Griffin Gracy and Toshio Meronek

My Black lady hand holds up a paperback copy of Miss Major Speaks. The cover depicts Miss Major at her most glamorous, sometime in the 1960s. The book is held up in front of a row of laundromat washing machines. Gotta get those pages in whenever you can, right?

(Buy this book here.) It’s always weird when someone tries to use demographic as an emblem, rather than a descriptor of experience. It’s reductive and robs us of genuine relationships and the understanding our own history(because like it or not, marginalized history is everyone’s history.) It makes small, unremarkable people too big in our minds,Continue reading “[REVIEW] Miss Major Speaks, by Miss Major Griffin Gracy and Toshio Meronek”

[READING CHALLENGE] January Reading Challenge: Memoirs!

So I’ve been asked before why I don’t start a book club. My answer is usually “ugh, I hate book clubs,” which is not entirely true, but also not entirely untrue. But I (obviously) do like talking about books and want to add a lil more community to this diverse reading on the internet life,Continue reading “[READING CHALLENGE] January Reading Challenge: Memoirs!”

[REVIEW] Black Indian, by Shonda Buchanan

(Find it HERE.) Why don’t I like this book? ⠀⠀ I really wanted to. It’s a memoir of the author’s multiracial family, who were coded Black by American caste norms but felt culturally closer to their Choctaw and Coharie Indigenous ancestors who purchased and integrated African slaves, then expelled their mixed descendants in a bidContinue reading “[REVIEW] Black Indian, by Shonda Buchanan”