Heather Joy's experiences aren’t for the faint of heart. Yet she balances her debauchery with empathy, laughing at her misfortunes, and giving it to you straight. This vulnerable transparency is precisely why she wrote her book.
If you need a laugh, a mindless read, or song suggestions for your next playlist, you can find it (and more!) in Heather Joy’s explicit debut.
Surveying her own life from a healthier, happier maturity, Joy is unsparing when it comes to sharing trials she has endured—rape, addiction, partner violence—and choices she has made. But even when addressing the weightiest topics, like attending a retreat for mothers who have had an abortion, her sharp-elbowed insights, buoyant dark humor, and commitment to empathy and acceptance all cast a spell—reading this is like a long boozy monologue from a funny friend, right down to asides recommending songs (over 700, in footnotes), gushing about Janet Jackson and the trail-blazing magazine Jane, and always cracking jokes.
The too-muchness of it all extends to the word count—this book goes on for days, and the topical chapter structure doesn’t allow for narrative momentum. That’s part of the point, though, as Joy charts her own course in all things. Her taste for lists (including a rundown of years of Halloween costumes, her favorite oldies, what she dislikes about her body, and more) is as engaging as her zeal for truth-telling, and her stories are often moving, especially on the subjects of friends, her children, and accepting others for who they are.
Takeaway: Frank, funny epic-length memoir of sex, motherhood, music, and taking control.
Comparable Titles: Elizabeth Wurtzel; Jerry Stahl’s Permanent Midnight.
Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A-
Marketing copy: A
