had me mourning the life of someone I didn't even know
Grief Is for People (2024)
Following the death of her closest friend, Sloane Crosley explores multiple kinds of loss in this disarmingly witty and poignant memoir. Grief Is for People is a deeply moving and surprisingly suspenseful portrait of friendship and a book about loss packed with verve for life. Sloane Crosley is one of our most renowned observers of contemporary behavior, and now the pathos that has been ever present in her trademark wit is on full display. After the pain and confusion of losing her closest friend to suicide, Crosley looks for answers in friends, philosophy, and art, hoping for a framework more useful than the unavoidable stages of grief.
- ISBN:
- 9780374609849
- Length:
- 208 pages
Genres: memoir, biography, nonfiction
Lists: …
Similar books
House of Hidden Meanings
RuPaul
2024 · 256 pages · 1 review
Others: NegativeFrom international drag superstar and pop culture icon RuPaul, comes his most revealing and personal work to date—a brutally honest, surprisingly poignant, and deeply intimate memoir of growing up Black, poor, and queer in a broken home to discovering the power of performance, found family, and self-acceptance. A profound introspection of his life, relationships, and identity, The House of Hidden Meanings is a self-portrait of the legendary icon on the road to global fame and changing the way the world thinks about drag. Central to RuPaul’s success has been his chameleonic adaptability. From drag icon to powerhouse producer of one of the world’s largest television franchises, RuPaul’s ever-shifting nature has always been part of his brand as both supermodel and supermogul. Yet that adaptability has made him enigmatic to the public. In this memoir, his most intimate and detailed book yet, RuPaul makes himself truly known. Stripping away all artifice, RuPaul recounts the story of his life with breathtaking clarity and tenderness, bringing his signature wisdom and wit to his own biography. From his early years growing up as a queer Black kid in San Diego navigating complex relationships with his absent father and temperamental mother, to forging an identity in the punk and drag scenes of Atlanta and New York, to finding enduring love with his husband Georges LeBar and self-acceptance in sobriety, RuPaul excavates his own biography, uncovering new truths and insights in his personal history. Here in RuPaul’s singular and extraordinary story is a manual for living—a personal philosophy that testifies to the value of chosen family, the importance of harnessing what makes you different, and the transformational power of facing yourself fearlessly. If we’re all born naked and the rest is drag, then this is RuPaul totally out of drag. This is RuPaul stripped bare.
Why?
What made the match, strongest first
On 2 of the same lists52%Also biography and memoir43%Similar descriptionsPersonalize your recommendations5%Girls Can Kiss Now
Jill Gutowitz
2022 · 240 pages · 3 reviews
Others: PositivePerfect for fans of Samantha Irby and Trick Mirror, a funny, whip-smart collection of personal essays exploring the intersection of queerness, relationships, pop culture, the internet, and identity, introducing one of the most undeniably original new voices today 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. Girls Can Kiss Now is a fresh and intoxicating blend of personal stories, sharp observations, and laugh-out-loud humor. This timely collection of essays 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.
Why?
What made the match, strongest first
On the same reading list62%Also memoir and nonfiction37%Similar descriptionsPersonalize your recommendations1%Knife
Salman Rushdie
2024 · 1 review
Others: PositiveFrom internationally renowned writer and Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie, a searing, deeply personal account of enduring—and surviving—an attempt on his life thirty years after the fatwa that was ordered against him On the morning of August 12, 2022, Salman Rushdie was standing onstage at the Chautauqua Institution, preparing to give a lecture on the importance of keeping writers safe from harm, when a man in black—black clothes, black mask—rushed down the aisle toward him, wielding a knife. His first thought: So it’s you. Here you are. What followed was a horrific act of violence that shook the literary world and beyond. Now, for the first time, and in unforgettable detail, Rushdie relives the traumatic events of that day and its aftermath, as well as his journey toward physical recovery and the healing that was made possible by the love and support of his wife, Eliza, his family, his army of doctors and physical therapists, and his community of readers worldwide. Knife is Rushdie at the peak of his powers, writing with urgency, with gravity, with unflinching honesty. It is also a deeply moving reminder of literature’s capacity to make sense of the unthinkable, an intimate and life-affirming meditation on life, loss, love, art—and finding the strength to stand up again.
Why?
What made the match, strongest first
Also biography and memoir60%On the same reading list30%Jack Edwards loved bothPersonalize your recommendations10%In the Dream House
Carmen Maria Machado
2019 · 272 pages · 11 reviews
Others: Overwhelmingly positiveIn the Dream House is Carmen Maria Machado’s engrossing and wildly innovative account of a relationship gone bad, and a bold dissection of the mechanisms and cultural representations of psychological abuse. Tracing the full arc of a harrowing relationship with a charismatic but volatile woman, Machado struggles to make sense of how what happened to her shaped the person she was becoming. And it’s that struggle that gives the book its original structure: each chapter is driven by its own narrative trope―the haunted house, erotica, the bildungsroman―through which Machado holds the events up to the light and examines them from different angles. She looks back at her religious adolescence, unpacks the stereotype of lesbian relationships as safe and utopian, and widens the view with essayistic explorations of the history and reality of abuse in queer relationships. Machado’s dire narrative is leavened with her characteristic wit, playfulness, and openness to inquiry. She casts a critical eye over legal proceedings, fairy tales, Star Trek, and Disney villains, as well as iconic works of film and fiction. The result is a wrenching, riveting book that explodes our ideas about what a memoir can do and be.
Why?
What made the match, strongest first
Also biography and memoir58%On the same reading list32%Jack Edwards loved bothPersonalize your recommendations10%Rebel Rising
Rebel Wilson
2024 · 336 pages · 2 reviews
Others: NegativeFrom the scene-stealing star of Pitch Perfect and Bridesmaids comes a refreshingly candid, hilarious, and inspiring book about her unconventional journey to Hollywood success and loving herself. For decades, Rebel Wilson had single-mindedly focused on her career, making a name for herself through her iconic roles in Pitch Perfect, Bridesmaids, and Isn’t It Romantic. Now, she’s ready to chronicle the emotional and physical lessons she learned, as well as her most embarrassing experiences. A malaria-induced hallucination? An all-style martial arts fighting tournament? Junior handling at dog shows? And this was all BEFORE she moved to Hollywood! Rebel Rising follows Rebel Wilson’s incredible journey of “making it,” constantly questioning, “Am I good enough? Will I ever find love? Will I ever change and become healthy?” Rebel writes for the first time about the most personal and important moments in her life—from fertility issues, weight gain and loss, sexuality, overcoming shyness, rejections, and, well...okay there’s at least one story thrown in about Brad Pitt! It’s all here. This memoir shows us how to love ourselves while making us laugh uncontrollably.
Why?
What made the match, strongest first
Also biography and memoir57%On the same reading list40%Similar descriptionsPersonalize your recommendations3%Behooved
M. Stevenson
2025 · 348 pages · 5 reviews
Others: NegativeBianca knows her duty comes before her heart. So when the threat of war looms, she agrees to marry the neighboring kingdom’s heir. But not all royal weddings are a fairytale, and Prince Aric, Bianca’s betrothed, is cold, aloof, and seems to hate her on sight. To make matters worse, on their wedding night, an assassination attempt goes awry—leaving Aric magically transformed into a horse. Bianca does what any bride in this situation would she mounts her new husband and rides away to safety. Sunset returns Aric to human form, but they soon discover the assassination attempt is part of a larger plot against the throne. Worse, Bianca has been framed for Aric’s murder, and she’s now saddled with a husband who is a horse by day and a frustratingly attractive man by night. As an unexpected romance begins galloping away with their hearts, Bianca and Aric must rely on each other to unravel the curse and save the throne.





