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Julián “Jules” Luna has a plan for his life: Graduate. Get into UCLA. Move away from Corpus Christi, Texas. Then, with one impulsive tweet, he outs himself, ruining his plans for a low-key move. When Mat, a cute Twitter crush from Los Angeles, slides into Jules’s DMs, Jules can tell him anything. But when Jules’s fears about coming out come true, the person he needs most is fifteen hundred miles away. Now that Jules is in control of his life, what he does next is up to him. Read Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun by Jonny Garza Villa.
Welcome to Read This Book, a newsletter where I recommend one book that should absolutely be put at the top of your TBR pile. Recommended books will vary across genre and age category and include shiny new books, older books you may have missed, and some classics I suggest finally getting around to. Make space for another pile of books on your floor because here we go!
Today’s pick is nonfiction about a topic that affects every single person that exists, though each person’s relationship to it may vary. It’s a vast subject that entire graduate courses, academic programs, and careers can be made of. Today’s pick distills it down to a manageable book that opens a lot of doors to intellectual exploration.
Gender: A Graphic Guide by Meg-John Barker, illustrated by Jules Scheele
Barker does such a phenomenal job of distilling the information down into concise sections that give you enough to have a general understanding and to also, at least in my case, generate a whole lot to have conversations about. There are a plethora of definitions of terms in this book, including starting with what we mean when we use the word “gender.” Spoiler: it’s a whole bunch of different things! And these things can change depending on geographic location, time in history, and culture.
It’s important to know that you cannot have a discussion of gender without also discussing patriarchy and white supremacy and capitalism and colonialism and everything else. This book makes that very clear and it goes beyond the “we can’t talk about gender without discussing these things” to explain the why behind the necessity of discussing these things as well.
There is so much about this book to love. The art is representative of a diverse range of people. There are a ton of pull quotes from scholars, celebrities, and activists that also make a way for us readers to then explore topics on our own and believe me, you will want to go down many rabbit holes. There are also plenty of pop-culture references to help give examples and context to a subject that can feel overwhelmingly academic. Note that it is a graphic guide but still leans toward the academic, and this is not a book that is accessible to children for that reason.
Gender can be such a complicated topic and this book is a great, unintimidating way to dive in. I enjoyed it immensely and learned a lot and I hope you will too.
That’s it for now, book-lovers!
Patricia
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