Being Bad

I really enjoyed this book! The author's story was so authentic and raw and I appreciated the intense honesty about personal experiences and development!

Raw, emotional, very moving. This memoir recounts the author's journey through traumatic childhood, parental divorce and neglect, history of relationship abuse including SA, death of a sibling, and finally journey to freedom and healing through a queer relationship, found family of friends, discovering they're neurodivergent (adhd + autism) and finding empowerment in sex work. It portrays how generational trauma, racism and patriarchy deprive people of happiness and how the author had to fight back to reclaim themselves. It's a testament to author's resilience and inquisitive nature to keep searching for the truth instead of giving up to the overwhelming power of societal pressure. It also provides actionable advice and summaries at the end of each chapter, which is very useful for memorizing biggest takeaways from each section.

I related to the author's journey of finding how their queerness is layered and intertwined with their neurodivergence, and how those intersect with other minority statuses: of being bi-racial, a child of immigrants, a religious minority. Of feeling unmoored, not belonging, not really fitting into any box, questioning "am I allowed to be myself if I'm so weird?".

The only downside is that the author got oddly preachy at the end. Instead of affirmative, it became prescriptive - "live my life as I do, or you're doing it wrong". I thought the idea was to give people freedom to choose their own inner truth rather than follow the footprints of any guru or teacher. Well, I'm glad the author found their intimate relationship, a net of deep and reliable friendships and their parents turned around and decided to do better in the end. Not all of us can say this. It's so easy to preach "be yourself and you will find your tribe" if you found one.

The book quotes a lot of statistics how most Americans live within 18 miles of their mothers and how 85% of people with autism are routinely rejected from jobs, but it lacks insight into an important, known statistic how most people are friendless and why is that? Is it because we aren't our real, honest, true selves? Because we don't invest enough into other people? The book speaks how family of origin and romantic relationships can be stifling and reinforcing oppressive stereotypes and societal norms, but somehow paints friendships as some form of hippie commune where everyone is accepting you as you are. Unfortunately, I realized I can only be myself if I stop chasing friendships because they're actually worse - they provide much less and demand much more, and are extremely fragile and volatile. There's a saying "only in hardship you'll find out who your true friend is", but for most people the sad answer is "actually no one".

It's very easy to start claiming that because you achieved something, it's actually easily achievable for everyone. It's a bias most of us carry, but I wish the author admitted it at least.

4.5 stars rounded up.

Thank you Chronicle Books for the ARC.