Angel Leya

Read this. If you’re a reader, read this. If you’re an author, new or old, who is female or black or gay (or minority or LGBT or even a plain ol’ white guy – there’s stuff in there for you too), then you need to read this.

This book will take you on a journey that is so rip-roariously funny, so hilariously true, that you might only realize afterwards just how depressingly it is. You will laugh until you cry (whether of laughter or sadness, it may be difficult to distinguish). Your heart will ache for the state of the publishing industry, for the state of the world.

As an author, I really appreciate Cunningham’s perspective. Her truths are my own, though I don’t have nearly the experience she has. The struggle is real, and Cunningham puts it all out there – raw and real and with a heaping helping of sarcasm to make it all go down a little easier.

But she doesn’t leave the reader on the floor. No, she encourages writers to write what they want. Pandering to narrow-minded publishers won’t change the scenery. Only when the collective voices of the readers is loud enough, and the outcry against stereotypes strong enough can we hope to start to shift the dynamic.

Perhaps one day the tides will turn and perception will start to reflect reality – the reality that the world is diverse, but underneath it all, we are human. It is story that connects us. It allows us to walk in another’s skin for a brief time, unhindered by our own unrealized biases. I, for one, will write, and maybe one day my stories will add to the voices that change the world.