December Book Club - FREE

About the Book Club:

Rebel Readers meets at Loganberry Books every third Sunday of the month at 3 pm for a book discussion and socializing. We host an hour-plus of book discussion with a guest speaker then spend thirty minutes-ish to nosh and schmooze. Even if you don't have the chance to read the book, we encourage you to pop in and participate in the conversation. We promise you'll still get something out of the experience!

About December's Rebel Read:

Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Memoir or Autobiography A New York Times Notable Book of 2022 * Vulture’s #1 Memoir of 2022 * A Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA TODAY, Time, BuzzFeed, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and New York Public Library Best Book of the Year * One of Oprah Daily’s 33 Memoirs That Changed a Generation “I am in a bar in Brooklyn, listening to two men, my friends, discuss whether my life is worth living.” So begins Chloé Cooper Jones’s bold, revealing account of moving through the world in a body that looks different than most. Jones learned early on to factor “pain calculations” into every plan, every situation. Born with a rare congenital condition called sacral agenesis which affects both her stature and gait, her pain is physical. But there is also the pain of being judged and pitied for her appearance, of being dismissed as “less than.” The way she has been seen—or not seen—has informed her lens on the world her entire life. She resisted this reality by excelling academically and retreating to “the neutral room in her mind” until it passed. But after unexpectedly becoming a mother (in violation of unspoken social taboos about the disabled body), something in her shifts, and Jones sets off on a journey across the globe, reclaiming the spaces she’d been denied, and denied herself. From the bars and domestic spaces of her life in Brooklyn to sculpture gardens in Rome; from film festivals in Utah to a Beyoncé concert in Milan; from a tennis tournament in California to the Killing Fields of Phnom Penh, Jones weaves memory, observation, experience, and aesthetic philosophy to probe the myths underlying our standards of beauty and desirability and interrogates her own complicity in upholding those myths. “Bold, honest, and superbly well-written” (Andre Aciman, author of Call Me By Your Name) Easy Beauty is the rare memoir that has the power to make you see the world, and your place in it, with new eyes.

Special Guest: Nikki Fugett-Dobbins has been blind since birth. A single mother and social worker, Nikki spends her days (and nights) advocating for others. She joins us to share her unique perspective.

Where to Buy:

All Rebel Reads are 10% OFF when you buy through Loganberry Books >>

About Rebel Readers:

Rebel Readers Cleveland lifts voices of diverse authors and explores stories of intersecting identities to build bridges between cultures and communities. Join us!