Akiva Reads

by Meredith Talusan

Hard to rate, because she's unusually self-aware about her self-centeredness and where it comes from, but it was still painful to read, especially the cheating stuff towards the end. I don't relate, on almost infinite levels (even the trivial stuff: the loyal woman/protective man romance dynamic she's into was surprisingly off-putting to me), but I gotta give it to her for actually being interesting enough + insightful/honest enough as a 40-something to make writing a memoir worth it.

There is a strong thread about passing, both racial and gender (edit: and class!), but while she names it repeatedly she doesn't seem to see it as within her power to do anything to raise up people who can't pass? At least within the periods of her life she's talking about here.

EDIT: I was reading something about how younger people are less tolerant of anything that smells of cheating, and it makes me want to clarify: by "cheating" I don't mean "made an impulsive decision that she regretted," I mean "Talusan stewed and schemed for months about how to seduce her best friend's boyfriend and only didn't manage it because he rejected her, plus it's not clear if Talusan's relationship with her own long-term boyfriend was open." To her credit, she conveys that the situation was a mix of seeking gender validation from a straight man she wasn't getting from being with a gay man and her own deeply-rooted entitlement/selfishness/ego issues.