false 13 59 34 true 5745407 read 6 true 4488184 currently-reading 19 true 4488183 to-read 14 false 4626296 nonfiction 12 false 4488589 horror 11 false 4489001 comics 10 false 4743898 fiction 7 false 4882042 memoir 4 false 4488592 graphic-novels 4 false 5054915 queer 4 false 4763825 humor 3 false 4626294 pop-culture 2 false 5006031 satire 2 false 5558339 science 2 false 4626295 essays 2 false 4868081 cookbooks 2 false 4743960 reread 2 false 4909378 biography 2 false 4862605 food 2 false 4633027 young-adult 1 false 5141298 politics 1 false 4743899 novel 1 false 5199748 gender 1 false 5199882 fantasy 1 false 4743957 currently-rereading 1 false 5199881 art http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/65864975 to: Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog (Paperback) by John Grogan
bookshelves: memoir, nonfiction
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/66794112 Sounds of Your Name (Paperback) by Nate Powell
bookshelves: currently-reading, graphic-novels, nonfiction
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/66793969 Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream: A Day in the Life of Your Body (Hardcover) by Jennifer Ackerman
bookshelves: currently-reading, nonfiction, science
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/65789124 Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife (Paperback) by Mary Roach
bookshelves: currently-reading, nonfiction, science
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/65788698 to: Push: A Novel (Paperback) by Sapphire
bookshelves: fiction
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/65152873 to: The Liars' Club: A Memoir (Paperback) by Mary Karr
bookshelves: memoir, nonfiction
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/63058369 to: Cherry (Paperback) by Mary Karr
bookshelves: memoir, nonfiction
My good God, I loved this book. I can't even explain the how or the why. I just understand it. All brilliant grown-up white trash daughters of alcoholic fathers from the rural South will, especially if you got the hell out. And besides that, it reads so good I'd swear it's like she done went and poured the words out on the page like water from a bucket. Amen. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/64719617 Feltique: Techniques and Projects for Wet Felting, Needle Felting, Fulling, and Working with Commercial Felt (Hardcover) by Nikola Davidson
bookshelves: to-read
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/61770107 to: Student's Vegetarian Cookbook: Quick, Easy, Cheap, and Tasty Vegetarian Recipes (Paperback) by Carole Raymond
bookshelves: cookbooks, reread
Now that I'm a much more serious and complicated cook, this old book managed to fall to the bottom of my cookbook pile. I hadn't used it in years, even though this is probably my third copy of the book. But now I'm trying to get through a semester of school without taking out any loans, and I've gotta be more frugal. This cookbook is the perfect solution! Everything in it is cheap, quick, edible, and vegetarian. That's about all I care about right now. Amen! ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/62176875 to: Mississippi Sissy (Hardcover) by Kevin Sessums
bookshelves: memoir, nonfiction
This was a brilliant, beautifully written, and generally accurate account of the universal experience all queer Mississippi natives share in regards to our upbringing and childhoods. Kevin Sessums perfectly relates those all-too-familiar feelings of isolation, of not belonging, of feeling a confusing empathy with African-Americans in his world, and especially of being told time and time again that he thinks he's better than Mississippi, and disagreeing exactly halfway with that assessment of his situation.

A lot of reviewers here express annoyance with Sessums' drawn-out retellings of conversations and social gatherings with the group of Mississippi cultural elite (Welty et al) who he made friends with at a young age, but I don't see it as name-dropping so much as the literary equivalent of sitting down at the supper table with a fellow Mississippian who's a little bit older than me and listening to him prattle on for hours about old times. It's just part of the story. And as far as his tendency to jump willy-nilly from topic to topic is concerned, it falls under the same category. It's just how people from Mississippi talk.

I suppose that I understood and empathized with this book more than most people who read it, so maybe my review is a little biased. But I feel privileged to have read Mississippi Sissy, and I hope every flamboyant, downtrodden sissy in the state of Mississippi manages to finagle a copy of this book to read under their covers late at night. ]]>