Women and Aids

 Women and Aids by Jane Richardson
1988
Weight: 7 ounces
Method of Disposal: Donating

This book is extremely dated at this point, but it was interesting to read for so many reasons.  Living through the start of AIDS and the start of COVID would have been wildly different for so many reasons, but, having lived as an adult during the time of a pandemic, there are certain things I feel like I was more attuned to or attentive to now.  Not just the fear and the unknown, but the attempt and the struggle to manage people's reactions and to preserve a sense of humanity.  The constant reassurance that we can all still care for each other and that our fear should not make us react with hatred.  It should not make us ostracize sick people.  

Another thing I found interesting was reading this and knowing the strides we have made sense AIDS blew up on the scene in the 80's.  I could fill in some of the missing gaps in information and answer some questions.  Some things I had to Google, and I learned that way.  In other areas, I was sad to know that there were still so many things happening then that are still happening now.  The author was seemingly a compassionate person who recognized homophobia, racism, ethnocentrism, when possible, and that was much appreciated.

All in all, this was a quality book.  It was clearly more useful when it was written than it is now, but it is an excellent layout for how to write a sensitive, helpful guide on a virus that people do not know much about.

The Geography Club

Geography Club by Brent Hartinger
2003
Weight: 6 oz.
Method of Disposal: Do want to read it? Otherwise, I am not sure.



This book was not exceptional, though it was amusing. It was one of my gay/lesbian finds I got so excited about in my Barnes and Noble employment days. I had wanted there to be more gay/lesbian young adult reading when I was the age that genre is geared towards, and I couldn’t find it. Then, as a college student, it slowly started popping up. I was excited to find Geography Club, and I took it home that night.

My then-girlfriend and I read it aloud to each other in bed. The writing wasn’t great, the character development left a lot to be desired, and stereotypes ran rampant, but we had so much fun with it. We would be laughing out loud when it got too absurd, and then we would toss it aside for the next night. I cannot tell you now that if I read it again I would feel anything. I don’t know what would happen. It is possible that all my positive feelings towards this book are actually positive feelings towards that moment in my life, in that bed, in that apartment, with that girl.

I Will Always Think of MC Paul When I Hear "Sigourney Weaver"

Prayers for Bobby by Leroy Aarons
1996
Weight: 3 oz
Method of Disposal: I am going to leave it somewhere in the Metro-Atlanta area unless anyone out there wants it. UPDATE: Sending to Jenn C.





I read Prayers for Bobby a long time ago, way before it ever became a Lifetime movie starring Sigourney Weaver. At least, it seems like a long time ago. I was a totally different person in 1996—a much younger person who had just realized that she was into women but had no idea how queer-fabulous she really was. At that time, I loved this book. It broke my heart and made me stronger at the same time (I use clichés because my feelings at the time were trite and overdone). I needed this book in order to understand the kids at school, my upbringing, what I would eventually go through at the hands of strangers. Bobby had a very different life than I did, but there were some small, important connections.

I wanted my father to read it, my mother, my friends, everyone. I gave it to my deeply Christian friend, Jacque, and told her that I would go to Church one time in exchange for her reading it. I really do not remember what happened around that. I am fairly certain I never went to Church with her though I had been many times in the past and would go again. I want to say she read the book, but I am not certain. I have it now so if she did borrow it she did not neglect to return it. We still talk, and she is still a Christian woman, and I am still a queer woman. The book came up one last time in some letters we wrote to each other during college about a boy who attended her Presbyterian (?) School.

The book is wrinkled, bent, used. There are just a few markings in it. I read the passages that are highlighted and cannot fathom what it was about those particular sections that made me feel so bold. I do know, even now, that this was an important, sad, and redeeming book about a mother who suffers greatly after the death of her son. She realizes that all the help she had tried to offer him in life was actually detrimental, painful, and tormenting to Bobby. I cannot imagine what it would feel like to realize that after someone you love commits suicide. I am glad she went on to be an advocate, and I hope she is able to find some peace. After all this time, I still recommend reading this book. I think I will even give in and watch the Lifetime movie. I hear Weaver won a Golden Globe when it was all said and done.