Welcome to Litsy!

If you like your memoirs gritty, edgy, full of irreverence, and brought to life by unusually explicit detail, both emotionally and technically - I recommend you check out Myriam Gurba.

She writes like an artist, but with a startling self-awareness that stops her from being insufferable.

Mean is problematic and provocative, but Gurba almost definitely revels in this.

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This book is a must read. It was relatable, honest. It‘s heavy but Myriam also lightens it in a way where you don‘t have to put it down for days. I wish I had read it before Creep.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Brash, bold, and weirdly funny at times. This largely addresses Gurba‘s sexual assault by a serial offender who killed one of his victims. Gurba gives respect to the murdered girl who authorities wrote off as a transient, unhoused person; as if she didn‘t matter. I know it‘s difficult to read these things, but it‘s a reality for many. Content-wise, this is excellent, however, it‘s a little too literary for my memoir taste.

Just a gut punch of a memoir. Sharp and funny. It made me squeamish.

I mostly like how this memoir is written. I like Gurba's anger and her self-conscious edginess, even as it seems sometimes a little melodramatic. I guess that's a common side effect when someone writes about themselves, dramatizes their life through memoir. But I enjoyed it.

"When you smell good weed or good coffee, you know you are smelling drugs. You know that you are smelling something that will do fun things to your brain chemistry."

"Every pretty woman who lives a long life gets to perform an art project called 'watch my beauty disintegrate.' It's not revolutionary. It just happens."

My drink isn't bad, but I'm not sure if non-alcoholic gin is strong enough to pair with this book. (Angostura bitters, lemon juice, Monday Zero Alcohol Gin, sparkling water)

For a memoir that deals with such difficult topics - racism, molestation, rape - this was surprisingly readable. Gurba is unquestionably mean, as the title promises, and there's something in here to make just about any reader uncomfortable. She's also blackly hilarious, and I found myself laughing out loud several times.

This book won't be for everyone, but I recommend checking it out if the description sounds intriguing.

A memoir about growing up mixed-race, queer, and surviving assault. Though the subject matter was serious, Gurba is a funny and confident writer. At the end I wished the book had been longer.

Everything in this book is extremely quotable but this this is the thing I want to get tattooed on my forehead.

I had sex with one more guy—he looked a little like Hugh Grant—and then my pussy became the Michigan Womyn‘s Festival. Every night was ladies night.

#queerbooks

(Poster is a piece of lesbian history on my bedroom wall.)

Since I‘m susceptible to attractive book covers, I prowled thrift shop shelves and grabbed books with ascetic appeal. Sexy sloppy seconds with smooth jackets and pages that had been fingered so hard they‘d softened and swollen. I paid coin for Kazuo Ishiguro‘s An Artist of the Floating World so that I could double my pleasure: I could learn about Japanese art history while consuming a novel.

I‘ve still got a handful of flagged passages, even after sharing a whole bunch on Litsy already. That‘s the kind of powerhouse writing you will find in this dark, intelligent and very funny #lgbtq #Chicana novel about dealing with trauma and about living in general. It opens with a gruesome crime, so be prepared for a few pages of violence. Be prepared to be amazed by where Gurba takes the story from there. It‘s outstanding.

I could tell you about meeting my wife, our courtship & our relationship, but I‘m not going to. This is not a coming-out story. This is not a romance novel. As René Magritte would say, “Ceci n‘est pas that kind of thing.” As Gertrude Stein would say, “There is no there there.”

I slouched behind my bible, which was propped upright on my desk. I skimmed The Communist Manifesto, which I‘d wedged into the Gospels. Vague as it was, I still preferred Marx‘s alms-for-everyone utopia to the snow-white heaven we got snapshots of in class. White is so hard to keep clean.

(Internet image)

“Oranges play a sacred role in the history of female starvation. Legend has it that every Friday, Saint Veronica, female starvation‘s patron saint, ate five orange seeds to commemorate Christ‘s five wounds.”

(Meanwhile, a white American doctor laughs at a mother‘s worry that her 80-lb daughter has anorexia. “She can‘t be.”
“Why?”
“Because you‘re Mexican.” His prescription? “Make her eat double.”)

Every girl and her mother was wearing bicycle shorts then so everyone could, therefore, appraise the cloven heft of generation upon generation of camel toe. Camel toes were pleased that a fad had brought them into the light. Camel toes basked in the ultraviolet rays of 1989.

(Tasteful image courtesy of Internet)

I vowed to eat fewer tater tots so my bones could catch the light and reflect it in holy tomboy ways.

(Image: still from Carl Dreyer‘s The Passion of Joan of Arc, 1928.)

#tatertots reference for @MrBook

One of my favourite things is when people misspell college. I like it when kids go online to announce they got into the collage of their dreams. It sounds so surreal. I imagine Salvador Dali on the admissions board.

My fork stabbed my casserole and brought it to my mouth. I dropped it on my tongue. Its spices told unfamiliar stories, but I used my milk as a chaser and managed to choke it down without vomiting. The brussels sprouts were a different story. I scooped one into my mouth and realized its flavour: eternal damnation.

Thanks @Lacythebookworm for the amazing #sockswap box! I loved it 🤓 Believe it or not this is my first pair of Harry Potter socks! I‘m so excited to read these great books 📚 Thanks @JPeterson for organizing this fun book swap! Litsy is the best!!

This book is the current selection of KCPL/KS Star FYI Book Club & it‘s a speedy true crime ghost story memoir. Yeah you read that right.

I read quite a few good books this month, but in the next I want to try to diversify my picks! Only read 3
non-Americans and 3 POC. Though I‘m quite satisfied with the total. #FebruaryStats

🥇Mean by Myriam Gurba
🥈Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead*
🥉Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

*Although Whitehead is an easy ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I was most impressed by the presentation of Gurba‘s memoir.

Men like it if you let them talk. It makes them feel like teachers. That's all many men really want. To be womankind's teacher.

We act mean to defend ourselves from boredom and from those who would chop off our breasts. We act mean to defend our clubs and institutions. We act mean because we like to laugh. Being mean to boys is fun and a second-wave feminist duty. Being rude to men who deserve it is a holy mission. Sisterhood is powerful, but being a bitch is more exhilarating. Being a bitch is spectacular.

Already feeling this book. Nero likes it, too.

Reminds me of Rupi Kaur... this is an appropriated word “poem” made from reports and articles of Sophia, a Mexican woman who was brutally assaulted and murdered in a field by the author‘s mother‘s school.

I don‘t think I‘ve ever been so uncomfortable, enraged, and yet so enthused, & sometimes giggly at a memoir as dark as this one. Written in an often poetic style in fits and bursts of brutality and nostalgia— this book is going to make you FEEL.

Gurba‘s “Molack” (Mexican-Polish) POV and journey is too familiar... that‘s what makes hers an important one to hear & remember. Her cheeky style will stay with me. She‘s a fab woman.

~TW: Rape/Assault~

Too right she is!!!!

“We act mean to defend ourselves from boredom and from those who would chop off our breasts. We act mean to defend our clubs and institutions. We act mean because we like to laugh.

Being mean to boys is fun and a second-wave feminist duty. Being rude to men who deserve it is a holy mission. Sisterhood is powerful, but being a b**** is more exhilarating. Being a b**** is spectacular.”

And.... I obviously treated myself 🤷🏼‍♀️ GAH.

Didn‘t mean to— but I‘ve been looking all over for Mean per the recommendation from @bookloo and I‘ve been anticipating Green since 2017 (also I have a horrible time turning down signed editions). My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward was the real impulse buy. 😉 #BookHaul

I love this book. Exceptional, beautifully written poetic memoir broken into short stories that are connecting in their openness and vulnerability. Gurba's voice is unique and her wit is sharp. I highly recommend Mean.

This memoir is quite the feat: both deeply personal and universally relatable, Gurba lays out her traumas in ways that show you her vulnerability and her prickliness. She‘s at times unlikable, and a few times antisemitic, but that doesn‘t make her story any less worthwhile. Trigger warnings all over the place despite its brevity and the starkness of the narrative.

Friday night after a week of holiday travel.

I have fallen in love with four writers this year. Murakami for his desire, Emily Ruskovich for her empathy, Zinzi Clemmons for being that big sister, and now Myriam Gurba for being that girl whose honesty and witticism has left me speechless.
A memoir that starts with a rape/murder that connects both the victim and Gurba in such an unspeakable and horrifying way, yet Gurba was able to write this with humor and the barest of skins. I loved it. ♥️

“I have a deep respect for big-time liars. They create religions. They create poems. They make art. Liars move us.”

I think this is the most interesting memoir I‘ve read to date. ♥️

Also, I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. :)

#currentlyreading

Sometimes a book crush overtakes me quickly and by surprise, as this one did while reading this piece.

Just started this book and it is amazing!

#summaryofthisweek

EDIT: The winner is @Titania 🎉🎉🎉

Reminder that you still have time to enter! To win, make a NEW post about a book you‘re giving as a gift, use the hashtag #BOOKFRIDAY2017, and tag me in the photo. Do this by 11:59pm EST Sunday, Nov. 26th, (That‘s today!) and I'll randomly select one winner. (US only, sorry.) 📚📚📚

GIVEAWAY TIME! Black Friday? More like BOOK Friday! Enter to win a big stack of books, including several finished copies! (Hey-o, regifters.) To win, make a NEW post about a book you‘re giving as a gift, use the hashtag #BOOKFRIDAY2017, and tag me in the photo. Do this by 11:59pm EST Sunday, Nov. 26th, and I'll randomly select one winner. (US only, sorry.) Good luck! PS - Death by Coffee is rubbish, I just can‘t bring myself to throw it out. 😝

Lololol. I'm loving Myriam Gurba's book MEAN already.

Super excited about my next read.

Afternoon reading. 💙🖤