Bilton, Chrysta
Summary: "In this unputdownable story of nature, nurture, and coming to terms with one's true inheritance, the author, introducing her deeply dysfunctional yet fiercely loving family that is anything but "normal," reveals how a colorful cast of characters were thrown together by chance and DNA"--
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Publisher / Publication Date: Little, Brown and Company 2022
Copies Available at East Bay
1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 921 BILCopies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 921 BILTON, CHRYSTA BILRoyster, Francesca T.
Summary: A professor of English literature presents a memoir of family, identity, and acceptance that examines the messiness and complexity of adoption and parenthood from a black, queer, and feminist perspective.
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Publisher / Publication Date: Abrams Press 2023
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1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 921 ROYSTER, FRANCESCA T. ROYHulls, Tessa
Summary: "Tessa Hulls delves into her own family history and the intergenerational trauma caused by mental illness and political strife"--
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Publisher / Publication Date: MCD, Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2024
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1 available in Adult Graphic Novels, Call number: 921 HULLS, TESSA HULMehra, Nishta
Summary: Essays describe how the author's experiences as an Indian American, the wife of a white Christian woman, and the mother of an adopted black son have been challenged by rigid cultural family norms.
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Publisher / Publication Date: Picador 2019
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1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 921 MEHRA, NISHTA MEHLieu, Susan
Summary: "An emotionally raw memoir about the crumbling of the American Dream and a daughter of refugees who searches for answers after her mother dies during plastic surgery. Susan Lieu has long been searching for answers. About her family's past and about her own future. Refugees from the Vietnam War, Susan's family escaped to California in the 1980s after five failed attempts. Upon arrival, Susan's...
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Publisher / Publication Date: Celadon Books 2024
Copies Available at East Bay
1 available in New Non-fiction, Call number: 921 LIEHsu, Hua
Summary: "From the New Yorker staff writer Hua Hsu, a gripping memoir on friendship, grief, the search for self, and the solace that can be found through art. In the eyes of 18-year-old Hua Hsu, the problem with Ken-with his passion for Dave Matthews, Abercrombie & Fitch, and his fraternity-is that he is exactly like everyone else. Ken, whose Japanese American family has been in the United States for...
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Publisher / Publication Date: Doubleday 2022
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Place a hold to request this item.Leon, Jesse
Summary: "In this unflinching and inspiring memoir, Jesus Leon tells an extraordinary story of resilience and survival, shining a light on a childhood spent devastated by sex trafficking, gang life, and substance abuse. Born to indigenous working-class Mexican immigrants in San Diego in the 1970s, Jesus Leon's childhood was violently ruptured. A dangerous and harrowing encounter at a local gift shop...
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Publisher / Publication Date: Vintage Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC 2022
Copies Available at Peninsula
1 available in Adult, Call number: B LEON LEOBrennan-Jobs, Lisa
Summary: "A frank, smart and captivating memoir by the daughter of Apple founder Steve Jobs. Born on a farm and named in a field by her parents--artist Chrisann Brennan and Steve Jobs--Lisa Brennan-Jobs's childhood unfolded in a rapidly changing Silicon Valley. When she was young, Lisa's father was a mythical figure who was rarely present in her life. As she grew older, her father took an interest in...
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Publisher / Publication Date: Grove Press 2018
Copies Available at Peninsula
1 available in Adult, Call number: B BRENNAN-JOBS BRERay, Mary Lyn
Summary: "A picture book biography of the four Moody sisters who designed and built fairy tale-like cottages in Santa Barbara in the 1930s and 1940s"--
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Publisher / Publication Date: Beach Lane Books 2023
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1 available in Juvenile Easy, Call number: JE RAYVolz, Alia
Summary: "During the 70s in San Francisco, Alia's mother ran the underground Sticky Fingers Brownies, delivering upwards of 10,000 illegal marijuana edibles per month throughout the circus-like atmosphere of a city in the throes of major change. She exchanged psychic readings with Alia's future father, and thereafter had a partner in business and life. Each was devoted to the occult, and they regularly...
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Publisher / Publication Date: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2020
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1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 921 VOLZ, ALIA VOLPelzer, David J.
Summary: "All those years you tried your best to break me, and I'm still here. One day you'll see, I'm going to make something of myself." These words were Dave Pelzer's declaration of independence to his mother, and they represented the ultimate act of self reliance. Dave's father never intervened as his mother abused him with shocking brutality, denying him food and clothing, torturing him in any way...
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Publisher / Publication Date: Dutton 1999
Copies Available at Fife Lake
1 available in Adult, Call number: 362.76 PELCopies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 921 PELZER, DAVE PELCopies Available at Peninsula
1 available in Adult, Call number: B Pelzer PelGould, Melissa
Summary: Melissa Gould's hopeful memoir of grieving outside the box and the surprising nature of love. When Melissa Gould's husband, Joel, was unexpectedly hospitalized, she could not imagine how her life was about to change. Overwhelmed with uncertainty as Joel's condition tragically worsened, she offered him the only thing she could: her love and devotion. Her dedication didn't end with his death....
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Publisher / Publication Date: Little A 2021
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1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 921 GOULD, MELISSA GOUMadden, T Kira
Summary: "The acclaimed literary essayist T Kira Madden's raw and redemptive debut is a memoir about coming of age as a queer, biracial teenager within the fierce contradictions of Boca Raton, Florida, a place where cult-like privilege, shocking social and racialdisparities, rampant white-collar crime, and powerfully destructive standards of beauty hide in plain sight. As a child in Florida, T Kira...
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Publisher / Publication Date: Bloomsbury Publishing 2019
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1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 921 MADDEN, T KIRA MADPelzer, David J.
Summary: [This book] is [an] account of one of the most severe child abuse cases in California history. It is the story of Dave Pelzer, who was brutally beaten and starved by his emotionally unstable, alcoholic mother: a mother who played torturous, unpredictable games - games that left him nearly dead. He had to learn how to play his mother's games in order to survive because she no longer considered...
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Publisher / Publication Date: Health Communications 1995
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Place a hold to request this item.Lillibridge, Lara
Summary: “The story everyone wants to hear isn’t the story I want to tell.” Lara Lillibridge grew up with two moms—an experience that shaped and scarred her at the same time. Told from the perspective of “Girl,” Lillibridge’s memoir is the no-holds-barred account of childhood in an unconventional household. Personally less concerned with her mother’s sexuality and more with how she fits into a world...
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Publisher / Publication Date: Skyhorse Publishing 2018
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1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 921 LILLIBRIDGE, LARA LILSchulz, Kathryn
Summary: "Eighteen months before her beloved father died, Kathryn Schulz met Casey, the woman who would become her wife. Lost & Found weaves together their love story with the story of losing Kathryn's father in a brilliant exploration of the way families are lost and found and the way life dispenses wretchedness and suffering, beauty and grandeur all at once. Schulz writes with painful clarity about...
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Publisher / Publication Date: Random House 2022
Copies Available at Kingsley
1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 921 SCHCopies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 921 SCHULZ, KATHRYN SCHMarkham, Lauren
Summary: "The deeply reported story of identical twin brothers who escape El Salvador's violence to build new lives in California--fighting to survive, to stay, and to belong. Growing up in rural El Salvador in the wake of the civil war, Ernesto Flores had always had a fascination with the United States, the faraway land of skyscrapers and Nikes, while his identical twin, Raul, never felt that...
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Publisher / Publication Date: Crown Publishers 2017
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1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 920 MAROllestad, Norman.
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Publisher / Publication Date: Ecco 2009
Copies Available at Interlochen
1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: Survival OllestadMartin, Manjula
Summary: "H Is for Hawk meets Joan Didion in the Pyrocene in this arresting combination of memoir, natural history, and literary inquiry that chronicles one woman's experience of life in Northern California during the worst fire season on record. Told in luminous, perceptive prose, The Last Fire Season is a deeply incisive inquiry into what it really means-now-to live in relationship to the elements of...
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Publisher / Publication Date: Pantheon Books 2024
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2 available in New Non-fiction, Call number: 921 MARTIN, MANJULA MARMarkham, Lauren
Summary: Identical twins Ernesto and Raul Flores, seventeen, must flee El Salvador, make a harrowing journey across the Rio Grande and the Texas desert, face capture by immigration authorities, and struggle to navigate life in America.
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Publisher / Publication Date: Delacorte Press 2019
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1 available in Young Adult Non-fiction, Call number: YA 920 MARAllen, Tina Alexis
Summary: The actress reveals her struggle growing up as a gay woman in a strict Catholic family until the age of eighteen, when her father discovered the truth about her sexuality and revealed that he too was gay, leading them to live their double lives together without their family's knowledge.
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Publisher / Publication Date: Dey St., an imprint of William Morrow 2018
Copies Available at Fife Lake
1 available in Adult, Call number: 306.76 ALLAustin, Nefertiti
Summary: "When Nefertiti Austin, a single African-American woman, decided to adopt two black children through the foster system, she was unprepared for the fact that there is no place for black women in the 'mommy wars.' Austin set off on her path with no place to seek guidance from others who looked like her or shared her experience. She soon realized that she would not only have to navigate skepticism...
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Publisher / Publication Date: Sourcebooks 2019
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1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 921 AUSTIN, NEFERTITI AUSMathews, Tom.
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Publisher / Publication Date: Thorndike Press 2005
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1 available in Large Print, Call number: LP 940.53 MATRowe, Kaz
Summary: "This graphic biography chronicles the life of Surrealist artist Claude Cahun, from their childhood and experiences of antisemitism in France, through the development of their artistic practice in Paris, to their resistance against the Nazis in Jersey, and includes photographs by Cahun and artistic and romantic partner Marcel Moore"--
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Publisher / Publication Date: Getty Publications 2023