An empowering and important tool.
Decentralizing romance and sex, this guide explores skills and pathways for building healthy, fulfilling, identity-affirming relationships.
Daigle-Orians explains that Western society prioritizes one type of relationship—an exclusive partnership between two cisgender, heterosexual people that’s based in romantic and sexual attraction and leads to marriage and procreation. They challenge the myth of this “perfect relationship,” exposing its pervasive and harmful impact on asexual and aromantic people. The first half of the work presents 10 tools for building a “New Kind of Perfect” relationship—autonomy, consent, boundaries, communication, commitment, compromise, trust, respect, recognition, and care. After discussing each tool, the second half examines them in action in “relationship beginnings, platonic connections, sex, romance, nontraditional forms of relationships, and relationship endings.” Within each chapter, the author encourages readers to engage with and practice the tools; breakout sections include prompts for self-reflection and action. The prose flows in an engaging, conversational style that helps to break down the complex concepts. When read from cover to cover, the text at times verges on repetitive, but for those using the guide as a reference tool, the repetition supports the treatment of chapters as self-contained essays. Although Daigle-Orians aims to speak to and support a targeted audience, the tools they share have universal value. This is a worthwhile text that centers readers who are often left out of relationship guides.
An empowering and important tool. (resources) (Nonfiction. 13-adult)Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2024
ISBN: 9781839977343
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2024
Small but mighty necessary reading.
A miniature manifesto for radical queer acceptance that weaves together the personal and political.
Eli, a cis gay white Jewish man, uses his own identities and experiences to frame and acknowledge his perspective. In the prologue, Eli compares the global Jewish community to the global queer community, noting, “We don’t always get it right, but the importance of showing up for other Jews has been carved into the DNA of what it means to be Jewish. It is my dream that queer people develop the same ideology—what I like to call a Global Queer Conscience.” He details his own isolating experiences as a queer adolescent in an Orthodox Jewish community and reflects on how he and so many others would have benefitted from a robust and supportive queer community. The rest of the book outlines 10 principles based on the belief that an expectation of mutual care and concern across various other dimensions of identity can be integrated into queer community values. Eli’s prose is clear, straightforward, and powerful. While he makes some choices that may be divisive—for example, using the initialism LGBTQIAA+ which includes “ally”—he always makes clear those are his personal choices and that the language is ever evolving.
Small but mighty necessary reading. (resources) (Nonfiction. 14-18)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09368-9
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2020
A powerful reminder of a history that is all too timely today.
A beautifully heart-wrenching graphic-novel adaptation of actor and activist Takei’s (Lions and Tigers and Bears, 2013, etc.) childhood experience of incarceration in a World War II camp for Japanese Americans.
Takei had not yet started school when he, his parents, and his younger siblings were forced to leave their home and report to the Santa Anita Racetrack for “processing and removal” due to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066. The creators smoothly and cleverly embed the historical context within which Takei’s family’s story takes place, allowing readers to simultaneously experience the daily humiliations that they suffered in the camps while providing readers with a broader understanding of the federal legislation, lawsuits, and actions which led to and maintained this injustice. The heroes who fought against this and provided support to and within the Japanese American community, such as Fred Korematsu, the 442nd Regiment, Herbert Nicholson, and the ACLU’s Wayne Collins, are also highlighted, but the focus always remains on the many sacrifices that Takei’s parents made to ensure the safety and survival of their family while shielding their children from knowing the depths of the hatred they faced and danger they were in. The creators also highlight the dangerous parallels between the hate speech, stereotyping, and legislation used against Japanese Americans and the trajectory of current events. Delicate grayscale illustrations effectively convey the intense emotions and the stark living conditions.
A powerful reminder of a history that is all too timely today. (Graphic memoir. 14-adult)Pub Date: July 16, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-60309-450-4
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Top Shelf Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 4, 2019
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