Myriam Gurba

I read this for the CA book club (Alta magazine), and I admit I enjoyed it way more than I expected to. I have read some of Gurba's articles, tweets, and the SCATHING review of American Dirt. She always came across as having a huge chip on her shoulder. So I was curious how she would write when choosing her own topics and having time to edit, etc. The chip is smaller, and she clearly has a dry and sarcastic sense of humor--as do I--and her humor is very apparent. So many of her topics are very serious, but the humor she shows and in the "meanness" she uses to survive, shows a lot of self-reflection and kindness.

In this book, a memoir written in short essay-chapters, she discusses her childhood in Santa Maria as a "Molack"--her term for her 3/4 Mexican 1/4 Polish self. Racial divides at school, her sister's anorexia, her own reading. She discusses sexual assault and the police, and her own refusing to testify for fear of seeing the perpetrator. She goes off to Cal--4 years after I left--and I loved this section discussing the dorms, classes, buildings, everything. I really enjoyed her essay format, because the book does not flow over 20 years, it is snapshots that weave in and out.

My only complaint? She is obsessed with white people being blonde and the pop culture "blondes have more fun" "gentlemen prefer blondes" etc etc. Spoiler alert--you can be white and have dark brown hair since birth. And you get all the same *#@! about not being blonde. (My personal favorite: "Dye your hair the shade of blonde you were as a kid!" Um, impossible.)… (more)