Queer

I just pulled this off the Pride month display at the end of June and decided I wanted to read it myself rather than reshelve it; I'd assumed based on the cover that it would be a history of like gay rights or queer culture or something but it's actually more specifically a history of queer theory. It does a great job of introducing really complex theorists like Butler and Foucault. The tone is conversational and funny and genuinely helpful, as well as intersectional.

I will NOTE for school/teen librarians that frankly some of the illustrations in here were a little spicier than I expected–in further investigation I don't think this was specifically published as a teen book but as an adult one, and I think older teens would definitely find it informative and be up for the challenge but it maybe would be better for a college audience? Like there are definitely multiple illustrations of “kink” in here that, I mean, to be honest if a parent complained about them being in the teen collection it would be a little hard to justify. It was published as an adult title but we had it in the teen collection? IDK. But also, it's been in the teen collection for 5 years and nobody's complained yet.