Danika Ellis "The Books that Changed My Life Weren't Very Good," Book Riot April 209, 2021. https://bookriot.com/books-that-changed-my-life/?fbclid=IwAR0pNwY-CRmK11x3nfG83MySaefkwDiZOCgKpHWyNXdJ9tmq6PGATuKIoGg
I keep a giant list of books I want to read — actually, I keep three: ones available through the library, through inter-library loan, and ones I’d have to buy to read. These have been steadily growing for decades now, and there are thousands of books on them. I also almost never consult them?? They seem to exist just so I can believe that one day I will read them all....I requested the book, and when I began reading it, my mind was blown. Here was a completely different way of understanding desire and identity. Diamond laid out the incredible complexity of the biological components of sexual attraction, and the book included multiple accounts of women who had gone through the same journey as I had. It rewrote my relationship to my queerness, my identity, my understanding of the basic building blocks of desire. It’s also…not a perfect read. It’s cissexist and has a small sample size. It can be incredibly dry. But it changed my life.
COMMENT
To this writer, the library represents aspirational reading. One day she requests a book on the list from the library (Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women’s Love and Desire by Lisa M. Diamond) and discovers insights about human sexuality that are relevant to her own identity.
