Every month, the site will feature an LGTBQIAP+ read that’s over a year old, as part of a “Backlist Book of the Month” feature. I’m excited to kick it off with one of my personal favorites, Not Otherwise Specified by Hannah Moskowitz (Simon Pulse). Three reasons I love this book:
- Intersectionality FTW: Etta is a Black, bisexual ballerina in recovery for an eating disorder
- So much bi pride. So much. If you’re sick and tired of seeing bi erasure in lit, this book will make you do a serious fist pump of pride. (And yes, it’s nominated for a Bisexual Book Award.)
- The voice. Etta’s voice is killer. If you wanna see just how much that can matter for a book, this is definitely one to pick up.
Etta is tired of dealing with all of the labels and categories that seem so important to everyone else in her small Nebraska hometown.
Everywhere she turns, someone feels she’s too fringe for the fringe. Not gay enough for the Dykes, her ex-clique, thanks to a recent relationship with a boy; not tiny and white enough for ballet, her first passion; and not sick enough to look anorexic (partially thanks to recovery). Etta doesn’t fit anywhere— until she meets Bianca, the straight, white, Christian, and seriously sick girl in Etta’s therapy group. Both girls are auditioning for Brentwood, a prestigious New York theater academy that is so not Nebraska. Bianca seems like Etta’s salvation, but how can Etta be saved by a girl who needs saving herself?