Every once in a while I take stock of whom I'm reading. As I got older, I realized I had been reading the work of so many straight, white men and thought, 'wtf am I doing?' (Vonnegut, McCarthy, Mayle where often on my bookshelf, and now I know that I was heavily influenced by older males in my household growing up. Sedaris and Palahniuk also featured, who though gay, still have a distinctly privileged, white dude vibe). I also realized that parts of me have remained fairly invisible because I didn't immerse myself in certain worlds. Would I have been 'more' queer or 'more' feminist or 'more' Latina or or or if I had let those parts of me accept invitations from such writers? It really makes me wonder, and with some regret. Especially when I do read their work and something inside me gets pulled toward a place of warmth, comfort, familiarity.
So when I'm in the market for new books, I try to prioritize female, queer, and/or BIPOC writers. Lemme tell you, it's a huge difference and wow, so much more interesting.
My latest fave is the work of Anna Dorn, whose recent Perfume & Pain draws me to a sunny bungalow in LA, to lusty crushes on other women, to a world that at once seems alien and yet one in which I can see myself, had I another life (maybe without the drink&drug blackouts). I found Dorn's work when scrolling the Libby app for a new read, and came across her Vagablonde, which I loved. She draws on a lot from her own life, and is blunt and caustic and horny and I dig it all.